I like the token idea. Have tokens with the table # on them.

Countless times I've been 6th-9th on the 2/5 list and waited an hour for a seat. How does that happen?

What's your point? I said that if people really were gaining such a huge advantage by not straddling, less people would straddle.

IMO the fault lies with a combination of everyone from management to floor staff to the dealers. Management could come up with the best solution imaginable but if the dealers dont give a rip and are letting it happen - then it doesnt matter. Consequently if management is continuing to ignore the issue then nothing is going to get solved anyway.

Disappointing that this is still happening.

Yeah I've sat at numerous tables where the dealers coaxed people walking by checking out the table to sit down. As a player I don't care how the seat gets filled so I'm never going to say anything but I can't see why it takes so long for me to get called when I'm 6th on the list.

Bravo says the Tues 7:15 pm now has 20 min levels. Guess Mike truncated the structure.

And there's your answer. If this is the way the system works, it'll be a lot easier to adapt to the system than to struggle to change it. If there's no penalty for line jumping, and the ones who get penalized are those who don't line jump, why fight it? Just grab a seat like everybody else does.

You'll argue that if everyone did this, it would be utter chaos, but maybe that utter chaos is what it will take for them to fix their system.

Currently at md live waiting for 1/2. There are around ten empty tables. Floor says theyre out of dealers so won't call 8/16 limit game w 15 on list. Dunno how they can be short dealers in this day and age.

This causes

That.

I agree that as a player in a game I don't care how the seats get filled. As a player on the list I do care. That's why they need to make the list work together with the open seats.

+1

Same here. I had no problem not straddling during time I played 2-2 PLO at ML.

Others at the table chose to straddle, and everyone got along with that.

Blind=forced bet

Straddle=Bet in the dark by CHOICE

Players jumping the line not at fault?
Players not telling the staff that they pass the 1/2 table (they are in a bigger game) not at fault?
Players in the game complaining to the dealer about the empty seat(s) and not complaining when the seat gets filled by a line jumper not at fault?

Not saying that staff do not share the majority of the blame. But players contribute their share.

So, the Straddle does not have the option to raise?

Not a dark bet. Its actually considered an additional blind bet

The first few days/weeks yes I put some blame on the offending players. But it has been over two months. As a player, I am there to enjoy a couple hours of poker before I leave. Sorry but it should not be on me to police the game management, police the players on the list, police the list jumpers, police the lazy dealers, police the inattentive floor staff etc. I pay a rake to the house to cover the management of those issues.

Many seemingly reasonably solutions have been offered on here by some of the more active players. But it certainly does not seem that things have gotten better - at all. In two months? I still find this very hard to believe.

So while I dont think players should be completely oblivious to what goes on,yes at this point I put most of this on the ML staff from top to bottom.

Just my opinion.

+1

I played a 6 hour session this morning and witnessed a few things I was less than happy about. First, two instances of line jumping at my table. One was more than obviously when one guy just sits down at one of two open seats and then two people showed up specifically for those seats.

Had a guy buy in to our 1-2 game for $500 and the dealer didn't even say anything. He really didn't even check. I wasn't going to be that guy that called him out because I was okay with the extra money coming in considering the action we had going. But that doesn't make it acceptable...dealers have to be responsible for policing this.

Had two people that were friends (not of mine) sit down at my table...one busts out and says he will be back. After about 20 minutes go by, I asked how long the seat would be held because there was a list of 40 people waiting to play. The friend gets a little pi$$y that I asked and said its only been 10 minutes. The dealer said the seat can be held for 15 minutes. Needless to say there was a dealer change, no communication between the old and new dealer and the seat continued to be held for another 20 minutes. Ridiculous.

Went to Borgata this past weekend and noted a few major differences from Live!

1. Seating - Efficient! Took < 10 mins even though I was #11 on the 2/5 list. The floor/brush sent me to another floor person who waved me over to the table (basically escorted me to the seat).

2. Table change - Efficient! (again). I was notified when a seat was ready and was given the option of changing. Several times at Live! the floor just told me to go ask the sign up desk. Caveat - this experience was mostly with the two guys who stand around doing nothing except chat with each other - the other floor personnel, people at the sign up desk (blond lady, older lady etc), people managing the tourneys were all excellent. Might have been just my luck.

3. Lighting - Borgata poker room was bright! Easy to play and reminds me of Bicycle, Commerce, and Venetian. Has anyone noticed that the lighting is a bit dim at Live! Find myself fighting sleep there - maybe just me...

They may be trying to manage the huge demand for poker here - but these are minor things that can be fixed quickly and will be a tremendous improvement.

As a whole, I think players have been very patient knowing that it is a brand new room, and a very big room, so administrative issues such as the line jumping would take so e time to work out. But it's also apparent that the patience of the players is wearing thin as they perceive no improvements.

I, for one, would encourage people to keep constructively posting about these issues. We are very fortunate to have a director that is as engaging and responsive to feedback as Mike is. Seriously, how many other room directors answer forum postings and are as approachable and accessible as Mike?

I applaud him for that, but you can also add me to the list of players who hope the seating process improves, as I have no doubt that it will over time.

Anecdote. Was the first name called for a new 5-10nl table last week. Nine handed, they called 13 names to open a new table. That took a while to sort out too... Glad there is a dedicated floor for the bigger games now.

I've had three dealers in a row not understand how to run it twice. In each case, players were all-in on the flop or turn and the dealer thought he needed to also re-deal a new flop and/or turn on the 2nd board, which is kind of alarming, though the players will always catch and correct it, of course.

I know that running it twice is new to many East Coast dealers, but it's been around in this room for a while now... maybe get a quick note with a refresher to all the dealers?

So - is there a straddle in a 3 blind game? If it is such a good idea for a straddle in a 2 blind game, why not in a 3 blind game? In which case, make it a 4 blind game - or a 5, 6, 7 -heck, why not put everyone into the blinds, and then let the staddles happen anyway?

Ok, maybe I'm overstating the point. But, seriously, why is a 3 blind game better? Why, if NOT straddling is an advantage, do you want to straddle? If the game is played with 3 blinds, then why not straddle for a 4th blind?

I'm confused....

Lee

Running it twice? Seriously? I hope that this is high limit games only, and not on 1/2 tables! Or on the 2/5 tables. Or on the limit games! What a time-suck!!

Lee

If there are three players putting in money blind, there is more incentive for others to enter the pot, which results in more multiway pots. Which most people who play 5/5 PLO and higher prefer.

Even though straddling is -EV (for the straddler), it makes for a better game. If everyone else is straddling and I choose not to, I'd feel like a dick. To be fair and out of respect for the other players who are giving action by straddling, I would feel compelled to straddle. I know others don't feel the same way, which is why it's be great to have an auto straddle table and a non-straddle table. So no one feels forced to straddle and the straddlers don't have ill feelings toward the freeriders.

If someone wants to throw a second straddle in (which is prohibited in MD, but have see in other casinos), God bless them. (Big difference between having 3/9 players putting money in and 4/9 players, IMO.) But if the rest of the table agrees to double straddle, I would.

Seems there isn't any opposition to having an auto straddle table, just a bunch of anti-straddle sentiments being shared.

RIT is available only in time-raked games.

I've seen a ton of new rooms open up and these all seem to be same issues, they work them selfs out over time. Everyone needs to remain calm and tell me about the PLO action

I'm not a PLO player, so officially I don't have an opinion. But I can state some of the arguments that people would make against a forced straddle. For instance, it would require two different sign-up lists, one for 2-2 PLO and one for 2-2 PLO-S, otherwise someone would get called for an open seat, show up, and find it was the game they didn't want to play. And if you have 2 games, then the players need to understand which one they are signing up for - that won't be a problem for the regulars, but could be for more occasional players.

These are not insurmountable - it just makes the seating process a bit more complicated. These are similar issues I've seen at other places when we convince one limit hold'em table to include a kill. Players would show up after waiting and not want to play with a kill, but the other table was full. So then we started a second list, but people were used to seeing a list for the game without the kill and didn't watch Bravo closely enough to see the other game, so we ran out of players for our kill game.

Not even that, the player pool for llsplo isnt large enough to support the split of those two games. If people want to straddle, then just do it. Sometimes you can get the whole table to agree, sometimes you cant.

In response to the posts on line jumping: I'm pretty sure things have gotten better and will continue to improve. Players are now asked to leave when they are caught and that should start to help some. I know everyone has great ideas, but most are great in theory and not so great in practice. We simply need to improve what we currently do and we will. People that can't follow directions will get replaced. If you have a dealer that allows players to skip the line, please PM me so we can correct them

We haven't any plans for a Tournament Series yet. We simply don't have space.

As we get closer to July, we may offer WSOP satellites. We will be continuing our relationship with PPC Aruba and are planning a week of satellites each month starting in January for the October Tournament.

Gold Card members should be seeing an increase in points by 25% and Platinum by 50%. I wasn't aware they were making that adjustment, but we have. If you are one of these cards holders and are not seeing this, please let me know.

Hopefully Rapini will allow these comments to past questions without the quotes.


Thanks



Mike