Down and then up. The two upstairs areas are not connected, to my knowledge.

If and when sports betting becomes legal in Maryland, would the upstairs racebook be the plan to be converted as the sportsbook? Or would there likely be a separate build area somewhere else all together for the sportsbook?

Unfortunately, it will be the latter of the 2.

Really don’t want to speculate, because I have no idea.

Johnny,
Can you please clarify a rule for me? In the FAQ at the top of this thread it says that Mississippi straddle is allowed in plo and utg straddle in NL. This seems like a sensible policy. However, today the shift manager ruled that the Mississippi is allowed only in NL Holdem and not in plo and told the players that this has always been the rule. Can you please let us know which is the actual room policy?


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Just wanted to check in here to give Johnny props for bringing back the Mississippi straddle to time raked games. Ignore the naysayers. This is going to change the game in interesting, possibly revolutionary ways.

MS Straddle is permitted in all Big Bet (NL PL) games with blinds of 5/10 and higher.

The mississippi straddle is a very bad decision. Why is this happening all of the sudden? It was fine how it was, literally no one was lobbying for this change and I guarantee you if you survey the 5/T and T/25 player pool, the majority would vote against it. This *radically* changes the game in a very bad way. Effective stack sizes are cut by 60%, it forces the blinds to play correctly, and players will constantly act out of turn on accident -- altering the integrity of the game and slowing it down at the same time. Please change it back or survey the player pool to find out what the majority wants.

Let’s see what happens.

IMO utg straddle only in nlhe and utg or btn straddle in plo is best. Plo can get away with btn straddle and have blinds act first since people play so too loose it doesn't make things worse but people play nlhe more correctly.

Last night a dealer took in a $600 first buy in at the table in all 20s!!!! I commented to the dealer and said it's supposed to be first buy in at the cage now. Dealer said this policy is over now ? So now I have to watch dealers count all these 20s. And continue to have my games stopped with player buy ins and more rack refills. Why would you get rid of this?

[QUOTE=DMoogle;54060228]
....Someone REALLY ****ed up with the bathrooms design. Four urinals and two handicap stalls for men's room? I heard the women's room is fine (i.e. well-proportioned). I might end up just going downstairs.


[QUOTE=setintostraight;54075899]

... Fire the cretin who thought 4 urinals for a 90% male room with 400+ people is OK. I wouldn't be surprised if someone who had to go was going to use the women's restroom ....

This needs to be addressed before the Mississippi straddle

We did not get rid of this. It was never implemented in the first place. To do so requires us to have at least 2 additional cashiers available. When the erroneous assumption went out that it had changed, we began to get 15 minute waits at the cage for chips. The choice (right now) is either seat players immediately and let them buy at the table, or have them wait at the cage. Be patient. That change and others are coming within a week or 2.

I will Be in the poker room all week. If you would like to come by and discuss any issues, I would be happy to do so.

Johnny G - might i suggest that at showdown dealers be required to bring tabled hands to the middle of the table, so that players at both ends of the table can see what hand lost or actually won

too many times i’ve missed out on garnering info, because a player will table their hand right in front of them, the dealer will determine the winner, adjust the board to reflect cards used, then turn over the winning (and sometimes losing hands, as well) and push the pot to the winner, without my being able to fully view and adequately discern the tabled hand

most times when i see this about to happen, i’ll bring it to the attention of the dealer, who will comply and bring the cards mid table for easier viewing, but alot of times i’m not in a hand and may not fully follow the action, but want to be able to know the showdown results and miss out on that small window of opportunity

I'll take the opposite position: as someone with a live hand at showdown, I need to be able to protect my interest in the pot by being allowed to hang on to my cards until the pot is pushed to me.

Isn't there a third option? Aren't new players allowed to buy checks at the front desk when they are assigned a seat?

This option has worked very well for me.

Absolutely agree with this. If you want the dealer to bring the cards to the middle after the pot is pushed, that's fine. Although the losing hand should be mucked by that point. I would not be ok with them bringing winning hands to the middle before pushing the pot as there are too many dealers who are very capable of pushing the pot to the wrong player, mucking the wrong hand, or causing some other kind of issue.

I second this. Been my favorite improvement of the room.


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This.

This capability will be expanded soon. The counter where the cart sits was supposed to be higher to accomodate the larger chip cabinets we ordered. As soon as those are in place, we will be more “forceful” with our first buy ins up front.

Chiming in to voice my opposition to the Mississippi straddle. There’s already enough unfairness that’s inherently a part of poker (luck/variance). One of the things that’s most fair about the game is the orderly rotation of preflop positions. Everyone gets to act first/second/last/etc. the same number of times as everyone else at the table.

The MS straddle annihilates this aspect. If the player on your right chooses to straddle every hand, and you’re trying to win, you have no choice but to play so tight you may as well leave the table. Either that or *you’re* forced to straddle in order to take away the other player’s option (IMO an unreasonable cost to simply stop getting positionally screwed).

I think some people who like the MS straddle just think “more $ in the pot equals a better game with more action” and stop there without examining the finer intricacies.

Thanks as always, Johnny, for being receptive to the feedback.

Poker is fair and/or unfair?

I thought poker is a series of random events with known probabilities.

Poker is both fair and unfair in all the right ways, as is. Adding a MS straddle to the mix disrupts this perfect balance, imo. It’s also going to turn the more strategically aware players into aggressive seat-changers, which isn’t a good look. But I don’t want to derail the thread, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

I always get my initial buyin from the cage or the cart, never the table. I regard it as the correct and polite thing to do. I’m always slightly irritated at the dickheads that come to a 2-5 or 5-10 table with only green, or worse yet, a pumpkin. Have just a mild degree of courtesy for the speed of the game.

I haven’t ever called anyone out for this, but I may start doing so. If the line at the cage is long, i get it — but often that’s not so.