link: https://www.mgmnationalharbor.com/en...oker-open.html

some notes

-says "tournamnet leader board in september." seems like a copy paste error.

-wasnt there also a points thing for leaders or top 10 or something of events 1-9 or something? I see no info on this.

I'm moving to Arlington in November so I've scrolled through a lot of this thread to check out what people have to say about MGMNH. Definitely happy to see Johnny actively engaging with everyone, you can tell he really wants this room to have long term success.

One of the major questions I have is in regards to transit (I wont have a car when I move out initially). I'll be living near the Virginia Square-GMU station, so a connection at Rosslyn and a bus across the river from King Street can get me there in about an hour. It's about twice the time as driving, but I'm used to public transit so that doesn't bother me.

Does anyone with Metro experience think it would be plausible to rely on this route? Or would it be more effective to just take an Uber daily?

Also, I've never lived in the DMV. Anyone have advice?

IMO you will need a car. You could subsist on uber but you will be paying surges all the time unless you use the services from 3-5 am.

(DC traffic surge will be big on weekends)

Traffic is very poor in our area.

DC metro is one of the most unreliable services in the United States. I have lived in NY and Philly and Baltimore and DC is one of the worst.

There are no circumstances under which I would recommend people rely on Metro for anything, let alone getting to MGMNH. I just dont see that being practical at all.

Lived here almost 25 years, used to use Metro extensively for grad school/work. But no way I would use it as my primary mode of transportation any more.

If the Metro website says something takes an hour - count on at least an hour and a half. Question is, do you really want to spend 3 hours per session commuting to MGMNH? Waiting on a train that may never show up. Or be single tracking. Or shut down. Or a bus transfer that never arrives.

The hot seat/hot table was so much better at once per hours instead of every 2 hours. It just feels like waiting forever for it. I'd much prefer 150 every hour than 300 every two.

Think about how much everything usually costs and then double it when budgeting. Cost of living is bonkers here. Really fun place to live though.

I've taken the metro every day for work since ~2013. I used to live off the Courthouse stop and took the train in every day for 3 years. Your biggest problem is going to be that trains and buses start to run pretty infrequently during non-rush hour times and on the weekends.

The variance on your trip time is going to be huge. If you have little wait for Orange, Blue and bus you can definitely do it in 45-60 minutes. What is going to kill you is when you have a 15 minute wait for the Orange, 20 minute wait for the Blue and 20 minute wait for the bus. Then your trip can easily get to 90+ minutes.

Trains also stop running ~11:45pm so you are likely going to need to Uber home a lot of the time.

Your best bet is probably going to be Ubering (pool if you want to be cheap) and avoiding rush hour.

Will be checking out casino next week. Are drinks free for poker players?

Alcohol and red bull are not. Soda/coffee/tea/etc are.

The trick with metro (and transit in DC in general) is that it's extremely oriented toward 9-5 home-work commutes. During rush hour, barring a big issue it's not terrible. Most other times - nights, weekends - it's pretty terrible.

I figured this was likely the case. I'm honestly not all that worried about delay times. Denver's transit system is superb when it comes to the rail, but the bus schedule is less than desirable a lot of the time so I'm used to that. Sounds like I'll have to use a combination of metro/uber to make it work, which is workable.

How good are the games overnight on average?

Very good...better than during the mornings to mid-afternoons on Monday-Wednesday. At least as of two months ago, the weeknight overnights were worth playing.

I could not imagine taking the metro to the bus from Vienna to MGM on a regular basis. I think you're looking at a minimum of 3 hours roundtrip. If you can afford to drive or take an uber, then do so.

I have played overnight 2-3 times and they were among my most profitible. But im also probably stronger short handed. Last time i was there, i had three different whales pulled off my table for being too drunk. One guy was kicked out for string betting. aive never seen that happen. The dude was physically incapable of placing his entire bet onto the table at the same time to the point they had to kick him.

The 1/2 plo is really a 2/5 plo (cause of the bring-in) and a pretty good game. The 5/5 plo is like same quality as parx and arguably worse. The regs are a lot more pleasant than the poisonous backpack crew that plays 5/5 at parx though. It's really 5/5/10 also idk if you care about that stuff.

Bring-in 1/2/5 formats are better anyway. It allows you to pot-open hands to $15-20 so you can get a lot more value out of EP/MP hands at the top of your range.

I'm a little closer than Vienna and the metro stop is right across the street, but I can definitely see how I could get tired of it pretty quickly. Especially if the list wait is still a considerable amount of time, then it would be 2-3 hours after leaving my apartment before I was actually sitting down.

Yeah I strongly prefer this structure to the one Parx+MDL have for 2/2. It makes it easier to deal and it's easier for everyone to keep track of pot size/max raise. It is the same structure as the 1/2 plo at Aria, but with a deeper buyin and a straddle to 5 instead of 10 ($10 straddle is super dumb too and probably bad for that game).

Also I do not like having to open to weird numbers heh.

the 1/2 plo is 1/2/($5 bring).
I would consider it a 5/5 game bankroll wise.
$200 stack isn't going to cut it.


lots of aggressive players. some will open raise to $35 preflop.
if that happens, move to his immediate left. (or immediate right if you want to check raise him often.)
or move tables

JG, Table 6 seat 4 usb port is damaged. Not sure if you keep spare parts in stock, but it's just that one port. Rest of the table is fine. Thanks.

JG the October Calendar on your website is out of sync.

It shows Oct 9th as Tuesday.

Also, are you cancelling the tournaments for today (for the holiday)?

Not canceling for today. Calendar is being fixed as we speak.

JG, thanks for the confirmation.

Can we do something on twitter like today's events. List the high hands (timeline) and tournaments of the day.

I don't see how or why Johnny would want to prevent you from listing that information on your Twitter account.