6+1 or 7 (read the fine print about the bbj)! Glad the forums are back up or I would have had to find this out the hard way when I got to the table. I feel bad for all the 1-2 players who will never be able to overcome the ROBBERY. I will stay in Columbus and enjoy the last days of the no rake games where the house in not the only winner. **** these greed heads.

Harrah's hasn't allowed any of their employees from other rooms to post here, so don't hold your breath.

Bravo did show a bunch of PLO going there yesterday, was that so? It was showing a 1-2 PLO, three 2-5 PLO and I believe a 5-10 PLO at one point (or that might have been the 5-10 NL finally going).

For the first full night that's darn good. Should give it through the first weekend to see how high the games can possibly get.

That $6 rake is puke though, but with the monopoly on Cleveland it's not going to come down. It should be $5.

Also, I would recommend trying to play there as often as possible now... games are running non-stop now but the money will dry up and then the room will end up settling. Take advantage while you can.

Lol, is this really true? I thought $1/hr was standard in even the stingiest of rooms. I think I've heard of one room that did .75/hr but a quarter an hour is almost insulting. You'd have to play all week just to afford a sandwich. I mean if you're going to rake 6 bucks a hand the least you can do is offer some decent comps back.

Besides the rake, Cleveland poker players will have to learn to tip the dealers. So call it a $7 rake..... Nautica and other places did not allow you to tip the dealer...but they probably wouldn't get a tip anyways because they sucked

I also went up there Tuesday, as I played a quick session after work. Cosign on most of the things written before me (parking is about as convenient as it can be but still a drag, cage isn't as quick as you'd like, etc). A few other observations:

As far as I can tell, tables were 9 handed, which is nice.

Our table was told by the cocktail waitress that Ohio law states alcohol cannot be purchased with chips. What this meant is that when she gave a fellow his jack and coke, and he gave her a $5 chip, that wasn't the end of the transaction. First, she gave him 5 singles for the chip, then he paid her the singles. Needlessly complicating what should be a pretty quick interaction. I was told by that jack and coke guy that his cocktail waitress yesterday allowed him to just straight pay for it with a chip.

It is loud. It's a low ceiling, and when I was there between 7:30p-10:30p probably 27 tables were filled. On the positive tip, there doesn't appear to be slots on the floor that the poker room's on, so there isn't that dull insistent ding! ding! ding! in the background.

At one point, the dealer was dealing a second card to Seat 8, who was dropping his left hand to look at the first card. The 2nd card hit Seat 8's hand and flipped up, exposing the Qs. The dealer - politely but firmly - refused to replace it stating "player action caused the exposed card". My first thought was that was crazy, and I've played in a lot of places and never seen that (not that I can remember). My second thought was "Good! Maybe this will teach people to keep their hands off the table (it so won't)". Dealer offered to call the floor, but Seat 8 just folded.

I didn't find the chair that uncomfortable. It's not the Venetian, but they seemed fine.

Everyone was VERY friendly.

I have said this from the start. But you are missing that the total eff rake at the casino is $8/hand. $6 rake $1 BB $1 (or whatever) tip.

I played a short session of 1/2 PLO. That Bravo list for anoy game besides 1/2NL and 3/6 Limit is all messed up.

There was a list of 18 people for a new 1/2 PLO and we started a half hour after the names were called with 6 players. Also, the 2/5 PLO was running but was a tough line up and 6 handed (the 2nd table, first table was full).

5/10NL did run and as you can imagine, was a solid line up. I could only see 2 "fish" there and they werent horrible fish at all. Also 2 new faces I have never seen in a poker room before but they were younger and playing 5/10 so I would assume they were solid.

The 2/5NL games were looking good though. A lot of people from the old poker scene were back and playing.


We will see about the rake. I just dont think we can do anything about it. But when its short handed the rake goes down so that a plus for PLO.

About the $0.25/hour for comps... ??? I didnt hear anything about comps at all. This sounds horrible and like its a joke but it can be true.

11 hour session on tuesday, Yes to most of the comments above. But one thing that I really think they need to address:

Player goes all in and gets felted, Pulls out a rebuy and cannot play next hand becasue the room states that cash cannot play, Player has to wait until a chip runner comes over and replaces cash with markers and then he or she is able to be dealt cards. Yesterday it took about 4 or 5 hands before we could get a chip runner to our table.

yes the dealers need a full tray.

One other thing, I was playing 1/2 early in the morning, game was very active with more than a few rebuys changing hands, so some of us had green and black chips in our stacks, house stated that you could not have green or black chips in a 1/2 game. so chip runner swapped out all of those chips to red. one guys had to deal with about $1200 all in red. What would the reasoning behind that rule or decison?
Though I don't think that was enforced later, when the room was much busier

What are the buy-ins for 1/2 and 2/5 NL?

This is dumb. I kind of remember Rivers doing this when they first got table games, and after it became obvious how ridiculous of a rule it was, the regulations were modified to allow for players to pay with chips.

What is the rationality behind these rules? Caesars runs poker rooms all over the world, it's not like this is the first room they've been involved with. If these aren't state regulations, why would they set this as policy? Is it because the room is new and they don't want to make things too complicated for employees and plan on relaxing these rules over time?

This is soooo not true. I played for an hour and 15 minutes, then went to the buffet on Monday, and had a dollar on my card already.

I imagine cash not playing is an Ohio regulation and not a decision made by the casino. I know for example in Indiana, cash doesn't play and you can't buy chips from the dealer either. The room I play in doesn't have chip runners so if you go broke you have to walk to the cage yourself unless someone at the table has chips in their pocket and is willing to sell them.

Thats kind of good news. I guess we will have to wait to confirm for sure. I already have points/comps so I dont know what I am earning and when they update and all of that so I cant keep track.

Someone with a brand new card should log their time and see what comps the got. Or the casino just tell us.

Something new to me, they took my phone number and sent me a text when my seat was called.

I wonder where the turnnys are going to run. The cash games are going to have to die a lot for there to be room.

I would imagine the same way they did in Hammond (Chicago). Horseshoe Hammond has 34 tables and they ran tourneys pretty comfortably. obviously the wsop circuit events or big tourneys were in the Venue, but the daily ones should be able to work in that room. Yes, a big tourney somewhere else is going to need to be condsidered, and with how tight the higbee building already is...I can't imagine where they could run a big one.

The simple solution to run a big tounament like a circuit event will be to use the Q down the street. Plenty of space right on the floor to put as many tables as you need. They could have the final tables back in the poker room.

Regular tournaments won't be seen for awhile, since the poker room will be full of cash games.

I would be surprised if legally they were able to run any casino-related gambling activity outside of the casino.

I thought this was a fairly standard ruling? This helps prevent angleshooting on the part of the player. If he looked at his first card (ace) and then as the dealer deals the second card, if the dealer is sloppy and the player can get some feel for it (not paint, not an ace, etc), he can "accidentally" cause it to flash and thus get another card. Player fault, card plays; dealer fault, it's considered an exposed card.

Anyone know if there's still a line to get in?

I think you can call the main number on the website and ask, sometimes they know

edit: realized "sometimes they know" might sound sarcastic, but I've called several times myself and only gotten an answer about 50%

While it is true that black doesn't play, green should.

YES 25 cents/hr is the comp for poker players. Trade off is the "free" parking for playing. Still terrible.

The Poker room on the 4th floor is bad bc it doesn't attract the pit players to "give poker a shot"

I hear this sort of thinking all the time, but is there any evidence that poker rooms by the pit actually attract more fish? I've been in rooms where the poker floor is right in the middle of the rest of the casino and players bitch about being in the middle of the casino. Maybe poker players just like to bitch I played with quite a few people at 1/2 who were definitely not old Nautica regs and were giving poker a shot. Lots of new blood in Cleveland poker.

I really like the room. It's super disorganized right now, but that's somewhat to be expected. Once the dealers and floor get better and management loosens up restrictions (like dealers only having $500 in their trays), it should be much better. It's a good thing they didn't try and run tournaments right away, because I don't think they have their stuff together enough to handle that yet.

Hopefully the comp situation improves (are they seriously only giving out a quarter???) and they reduce the 1/2 NL rake.

For the parking, does anyone know if you must rack up the points during the visit in order to qualify, or do old points count? It would be nice to get free parking downtown for Indians and Cavs games without having to play. I doubt it, but thought I'd give it a shot.

I was in the poker room both Monday and Wednesday, and the dealers were already much better in just that time span.

The $500 in the tray is a problem.
Several times we had to hold up the game to wait for someone to get chips as they got busted. Since they wanted to rebuy for $300-500, the dealer didn't have the chips to give them.

The parking tickets out of the machine are good for several days. The one I printed last night was good until Sunday.