I think the money for the PLO tourney comes from the promotions budget not the PLO bad beat portion. I think the main reason the jackpot has not gone up much lately is because there has been less PLO games running because people would rather play Holdem to try and hit the bad beat so the game has been running less hours.

I'm looking at either playing in the Horseshoe $500 tourney on May 26th or the Rivers $550 on May 25th. Can anyone tell me why I would play at the Shoe? Is the tournament good? Is the $7500 added really make a difference for the payout? Will they remember that the tournament is actually running that day? I guess I'm just looking for any reason not to go to Rivers.

The tournament structures for the Shoe are pretty awful, they are designed to dump 60-70% of the players out in the first few hours so that they go play cash. I haven't driven to Rivers recently but I recall liking the tournament structures of the ones I played there. Check Rivers website to compare.

Cashed out for a significant amount tonight (under 10k tho) and was asked to see my ID and player's card. Is that for casino purposes or is it reported to IRS?

More likely so that they can withhold state income tax or city income tax.

BBJ just hit at a 1/2 table. Quad Qs> Quad 8s.

If you cash in more than $10,000 the casino will file a Currency Transaction Report. This is a not tax form. It goes to FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) which is part of the Department of the Treasury. Its main purpose to catch people laundering money such as the mob, drug dealers, and terrorists.

The government realized that people were aware of the 10k threshold and might split up transactions to get around it. Therefore casinos are required to make a record any time you cash out more than $3,000; however nothing actually gets reported unless you make more than $10,000 total in transactions in a single gaming day.

In fairness most daily tournaments in the country use more chips but have 20 minute levels. With less chips you can bust sooner but with the longer levels there is a bit more play later in the tourney because when the blinds get high the number of starting chips loses its importance. So I would not say the strucute is awful. The Wednesday nite tournament goes til 4AM so they probably should not do much tinkering with it. 45 minute levels are pretty good for the sunday daily but that is not what most people look at.

most people like more chips so it might not be a bad idea to give more chips and shorten the length of the levels but it would make for a worse strucute imo.

Well the promo money comes from the BB drop. So its the same thing. Only a small percent of the BBJ drop goes to the BB. The rest to promotion.

But I heard it just hit so whatever.

You may not consider a structure that loses 2/3 of the players 1/3 of the way through the tournament as awful. i
do.

The Wednesday nite tournament takes 9 hrs. So the structure is not aweful its just different. They could start you with 12,000 chips and 20 minute blinds this eliminates people slower at the beginning and faster at the end (less play on the bubble and less at the final table). I find this uninteresting because people tend to ust get so short they go in with anything.

I find the play on the first few levels when you get more chips very boring. (i.e. playing 25 - 50 with 25k chips is uniteresting and boring to me). So i don't mind them eliminating this aspect of the tournament.

Like I said, I'm in the minority that less chips and longer levels is better. So they should have probably just created a structure that looks better to the customer (i.e. more chips with shorter levels.)

I'm not clear on the validity of the structure for the $500 tourney. If you look at the second break, you are through 6 levels (4.5 hours plus breaks). If you've lost half your players by that time (which seems reasonable to me), you will be at 20k for an average chip stack (or 25BB) going into 400/800. If you are looking at the final table, the average stack (assuming 80-90 players) will at 25BB at 2k/4k, or level 13. This should be about 11-12 hours into the tourney with breaks added. The tourney should be over at 15k/30k, or level 20. This should be about 16-17 hours. This all seems pretty reasonable for a $500 buy-in. Can somebody who's played in this before let me know if my assumptions are correct?

My biggest issue with playing in this tournament (instead of the comparable one at Rivers) is that the Horseshoe is getting a horrible reputation. Does anyone who's played in this before have any issues with the room management in regards to this tournament?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Interesting info that I was not aware of... Last weekend at Horseshoe Cincinnati after playing blackjack for about 15 hours at that point I bought into a table and was asked for my Social Security Number (which I gave, although it bothered me). I've been wondering why they did that for the past week, but it makes sense now. I kept buying into tables for $1-1.5k and cashing in my chips at the cage between tables (it was probably my 8th table by that point). I don't know if this has a real effect, but I always seem to get more tier credits when I keep buying in with cash at a table during the day versus one buy in at the beginning and carrying my chips from table to table.

Grima, if you add in the antes, your average stack size decreases by about 25-35%, depending on the level. If you are less than average you are normally in the 10x the bb range, which is generally shove range.

I have not heard of any horrible tournament rulings by the staff at the Shoe. Wrong rulings - all the time. I would not deem this to be the biggest issue. I think Rivers recognizes that good tournament players expect more than a shovefest for $500.00 as shown by the structure of its bigger events. I don't know if the Show shares that same concern.

If you are going to play 1/2 or 2/5 you'll be fine... I think the cash game here has more action than Rivers, and most of the bad stuff you hear about on here is not happening all the time. There are 1 or 2 floor people of questionable ethics or brains... and a few dealers who could use a swift kick in the pants.

The tournaments are poorly planned and have worse structure (imo). They are very quick/turbo in Cleveland... in Pittsburgh they have some real deep stack structure and normal structure tournaments. I much prefer the tournaments at Rivers when I can get out there.

So the question is, what's your game?

2-5 is my preference if the other option is 1-2.

My only complaint about 2/5 is that they take a while to open new tables... they keep 1-2 open most of the time, it usually closes overnight on weeknights, and sometimes 3-4 tables run during the weekends. You'll find regulars/nits there during the day, and some crazy action later in the evening.

1/2 is always a wildcard there - depends on your table.

Well I played 4.5 hours at Horseshoe. Not that bad. Started off at 1-2 and was up $100 after less than a full orbit when they called my name for 2-5. I almost stayed at the 1-2 because it seemed so soft. But I moved. The 2-5 game was a new game they opened and it started nitty but got better as time went along. A couple of players to my right were playing too many pots out of position and once I took note their leaks were easily exploitable. Left up $750. Dealers were not quite up to par, but I've seen worse. Drink service is faster than at Rivers. I did notice that. It looks like they have a service bar somewhere very near the poker room. Everyone I dealt with was polite and passably professional. I know its not the busiest night for them, but I only waited about ten minutes to be called to the 1-2. They opened a new 2-5 when they had enough on the list. The cage was no problem. I bought extra chips when I first bought in so that I could easily add on to my stack if I needed to. All in all, easily good enough for return visits. I'll probably keep Rivers as my main room, because I really like their Saturday noon tournament and that is the only day of the week I have to really grind a long session. But, I have no problem going into Horseshoe one or two evenings a week.

Do you live just about halfway between the 2 casinos? I'd like to play cleveland more but it seems like such a long trip. That said though im pretty sure it has way fishier games.

Right now, I live much closer to Cleveland.

i have played the saturday afternoon at rivers and also the 200 dollar events at horseshoe. i enjoy both of them even though they are definitely different, if you want to be guaranteed a few hours of play definitely go to rivers, if you want to either chip up or hit the cash games, then the shoes your place.

In my opinion, the games are not nearly as soft as Nautica. To be fair, however, Nautica had the most consistently soft games I've ever seen, including Party Party circa 2004, 2005.

I don't play at the Horseshoe as much as I did at Nautica, and I've also completely changed how I play in Cleveland, which used to be excessively loose.

The Omaha games are much juicier than the NL games and tend to have more bad players playing fairly loose with their chips. You'll still find bad players in NL at any given time, but if you were lucky enough to experience Nautica, then don't come to the Horseshoe expecting that type of action.

You still see some Nautica regs at the Horseshoe. Some are dealing, some are still degen'ing, but I think most are dropping their paychecks on slots or pit games and are ignoring the third floor.

Do they ever plan to complete the next few phases on this place or is it going to sit in an abandoned department store forever?

They came out and said pretty early that the casino would stay in the Higbee Building... the fact they are going to build the skyway between the parking garage and the Higbee Building should solidify that position.

I thought they cancelled this idea?
From what I have heard the get a tax break for being in a landmark building, and the tax break would no longer be valid if they did any more renovations to the building. I could be wrong though.