"Slight drop in value" is quite the understatement. Those promotions are terrible. Guess they realized they can't compete with MDL this month.

I was trying to be nice about it. And I wasn't here for most of August so I'm not even sure what the promos for August were but I had a feeling they were better.

We have changed the satellite to an 11am start to mitigate some of the problems. Registration will also be held open 2 extra levels.

They were much better. Realistically, a poker room can't run promotions like that year round. We will still award somewhere in the neighborhood of $300K in promo money this month... it is t June/July/August, but it isn't bad.

Good to know. Thanks

Fair enough. It's not bad, but I'm not looking forward to hearing all the complaining. You spoiled us over the summer.

Yea. It looks like the maximum payout for promotions is ~350k if all tables were full and every period gets paid out. But based on the bbj doesn't the room generate over 500k per month on promotional funds? Not accounting for an assumption of generous amounts in reserve from the beginning of the year.
I think there will be significantly less traffic with 2 hour intervals.

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This is correct. If you did that math, you can also do the math to see what we spent over the summer....

Hopefully MDL's "get paid to play" will draw away all the nitty regs that live in the room. I'm fine with all of them going away for the month. Or forever if that's an option.

I'd prefer hourly drawings with smaller prizes instead of every two hours but it's not a big deal. The lack of the mega promo Sunday morning should help with the overcrowding that we've seen recently.

Agree on all points. Traffic will be lower but hopefully games will be better.

Yes of course. But I would be pretty surprised if the promotions in August were paid out with not too much overlay over the take. Maybe 50k.
I don't care either way just concerned that the promo hunter donkeys will play somewhere else.
I personally would rather no promos and no drop

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Me too, but it's a necessary evil. I think we will be ok. Past history in the market indicates that September is the slowest month of the year, so I don't think promos would move the needle too much anyway. We'll see.

I disagree. $300/table/hr is a very reasonable friday and saturday promo, just the summer promos were absurdly good. I am almost happy it went down finally so I can take a break, ive been playing more that twice as often as I typically do because of the promos. I may not play at all this month and do some other things with my free time. I would guess the casino will see a larger than deserved drop in players this month from people like me who are just beat from going HAM last 3 months. Will probably be back late sept/early oct.

Just an FYI... I think someone here asked about 50K results being uploaded to Henson Mob. We have sent all results in through 8/27.

I played about 13 hours here the past 2 days. Here are some of my thoughts / ramblings

1) Chairs are really comfortable. That's very important to me as I have a bad back
2) Good space between tables
3) Upscale feel
4) Everything seems to run very smoothly. Seats are filled quickly. I got a couple table changes very quickly and smoothly.

Now for the bad

5) I dont know why you guys use the cards with the tiny numbers on them. Almost every poker room around the country uses the big numbered cards now. I have good vision but I do need reading glasses and its very hard for me to see the numbers on these cards even with my glasses on. Lots of guys a heck of a lot older than me play poker. I cant think of one reason to use the small numbered cards.

6) Actual conversation with dealer

Board reads A83A8.

Dealer to winning player.."High hand Sir?"
Player..."I had an 8"
Dealer..."If you had an Ace it wouldve been a High Hand"
Player..."Nope..just an 8"
Me..."How is an Ace a High Hand? He needs 2 cards right"?
Dealer..."No, just one card"
Me..."What? I just got here today but Ive been told by several dealers that I need to play both cards"
Dealer..."Nope, just one card"
Me..."How long have you worked here"?
Dealer..."Since day 1 and its always been this way"

I have obvious regs on both sides of me and both of them look like they are in shock. Guy to my right whispers "No way"

Me..."How can you be saying its always been this way and these guys play here everyday and they are saying its never been this way?"
Dealer..."well unless they changed it, you only need 1 card"

At that point I just let it go but its hard for me to believe a dealer doesnt know how many cards need to play when this is something that happens every single day. When the dealer left, the reg on my right said "That guy is completely nuts. I dont know what hes talking about but you need 2 cards for high hand. Trust me"

Here's one reason: it's difficult to protect/shield your hand when you're playing PLO or 5-card PLO while using "big numbered cards." It's also easier to protect/shield your hand when playing holdem with smaller indicators, but I think one reason is good enough.

Maybe my opinion on this topic will change when I lose my sight, or rather, "have good vision but need reading glasses." However, for now I prefer the smaller indicators.

There was a hand where the flop came 832. EP bet $10. Another EP called. I called in MP. LP raised to $35. The button called $35. It folded back to me and I reraised to $110.

Both LPs tank folded. The button tossed his cards face up and I saw 83. The guy besides me said "He folded 2 pair? Wow!". As Im pulling the chips in someone said "It was 93, not 83". I was pretty sure it was 83, but who the hell knows with those small cards. 2 guys argued about it for 10 minutes.

Ive never had a problem protecting my cards with the big numbers and Ive never seen anyone's cards when they were protecting them. Our hands are pretty big, No?

Now I can see your point for PLO. I play it on occasion and it is hard to protect 4 cards with big numbers. Especially when you have to look back at them a few times during a hand. At least you gave me a reasonable explanation though because I honestly couldnt think of any.

I do agree with this as well. I would rather see some innovative twists to the promos rather than rehashing and decreasing the frequency of the last months promos.

I appreciate the fact that JG heard the feedback and changed the timings on the Sunday's promos.

Hopefully we will see some new twists in the near future.

I semi recently started playing some of the daily tournaments. Played cash games maybe 10 or so sessions before that as well throughout the summer. I have almost nothing but great things to say about the room. Chairs are nice, tables are nice, spacing is great, the staff has been great, and it's such a trivial thing, but it's a nice touch that they do something so minor as giving you a selection of tea's at the coffee/tea bar.

The tournament staff is great and the tournaments themselves are pretty flawlessly run. I was actually assessed a 3 hand penalty on one day but I still can't complain about the staff at all as I did use language that I shouldn't have at the table in responding to a grumpy old man yelling at me through my headphones (I put them on so as to avoid any further conflict as he was already raging immediately after he made his mistake but it did not work). Incident involved him making a mistake and putting a bunch of his chips out after I had declared all-in. I sat silent, truly didn't care either way, but someone else called the floor saying he had to be committed. Floor ends up concurring that he is all in as well, ends up being his 98ss vs my AK off, he doubles me up, and starts yelling at me as if I were the one that called the floor on him. I was so confused that I did not respond well.

The dealers in general have been good to including some great ones who kept the game moving but weren't unfriendly about it. But I guess there are always exceptions. My first time playing there, during a break/race-off, a dealer was handling it instead of tournament staff. I fortunately was still sitting around instead of racing to the bathroom to see that the dealer was trying to give me two $5k chips for two stacks of 500 chips (each stack is $10k). He did notice his mistake right away after I brought it to his attention and was apologetic. Needless to say though, I stuck around the next few times to make sure tournament staff was doing it instead. Minor'ish mistake I guess

But the last time I was there, some <removed> dealer was just horrendous. All in pot (not involving me), pretty similar stack sizes...I'm looking right at her the entire time because she had been inattentive...she doesn't even bother counting (????) and pushes the pot to the winner. One guy then says wait...there was a difference of about 800 chips in a ~50k pot. I'm sitting there fairly certain the difference was more like 3k+. After hearing the '800' number, the dealer just runs with it...still without counting...and pretends she knows and makes the winner give back 800 in chips. I didn't say anything because I wasn't involved and so much time had been wasted by this dealer already previously. But then in the middle of the next hand, the loser of the pot says wait...it doesn't make sense...obviously realizing then that he had had the winner covered by more than just 800 chips. The dealer again doesn't own up to her absolute inattentiveness or even any effort to try...and says 'yeah I thought so. you're right.' And she just runs with an arbitrary number of making the winner give back another 2k in chips after she hears that number from the loser of the pot. Not a big chip amount and in reality it was pretty close to the truth but there was literally 0% chance the dealer was sure about it. She just kept trying to run with what people were saying so she wouldn't be caught in mistakes which is obviously a terrible thing if every dealer were taking what everyone at tables said at face value. Really surprised the guy just handed the 2k chips without much trouble (gave a speech that this had to be settled while the pot was being pushed and was shaking his head but not much besides that) which is kinda unfortunate because it was one of the few times where I feel a floor was really justified even if just to admonish the dealer so she doesn't do this **** again.

TLDR for the last part; dealer doesn't even bother counting pot on a similar stack size all in before pushing it, keeps pretending she's in the know but in actuality is just running with what people are telling her so as to pretend she was paying attention, then makes arbitrary pot count adjustments after the fact...again without ever having counted the pot.

I really wanted to bring her up to the floor (still do I guess...and think I remember her name off her tag) because well...while mistakes will always happen, doing the opposite of owning up to it and trying to fix the situation is pretty egregious. I managed to cash that day and well, I couldn't help but feel ****ty when putting in my tip knowing tips get spread out to someone as undeserving as her even if the scale is miniscule

Seriously though, besides her, couldn't say better things about the room and staff in general. I've had any questions I've had answered by tournament staff and at both podiums in a friendly, professional manner each time. On top of the good staff, comfort, and amenities done right in the room...most everything else at the facility is done well including the district cafeteria and parking. I have heard regs complain about food runners being slow on weekends but well, what do you expect really. Besides, it's not the worst thing in the world to either plan your meals accordingly or just take a 15 min break and walk over yourself

????

Did I just get messaging rights taken away for giving a rather innocuous description of the dealer I was speaking of? I was in fact in the middle of responding via PM to someone who was asking for a description of the lady

No, new users don't get PM ability for a while.

Okay

Some of the dealers are doing a terrible job at creating side pots and chopping pots lately. It's particularly a problem in the PLO games where the pots are more complicated.

I've only visited once so far - it's a bit of a drive for me from north Baltimore but still - that was one thing I did notice. There was one dealer that had no business dealing. She was inattentive and sloppy to put it mildly.

I think the best thing we can do in cases like this are keep a sharp eye on the dealers and the second we see a problem, check on it and if there's any doubt, ask for the floor. If the dealer refuses to call the floor then call yourself and ask the floor why the dealer wouldn't call them before raising any other issues.

This! Our supervisors and managers need to know about issues in order to correct them. We want to provide the best experience possible for our players. A large part of that is a consistent product from our dealers. Please don't hesitate to make us aware of possible errors.