Hi Johnny,
I'm a 2/5 player who has played exclusively at MGMNH since its opening day, averaging playing at least 30 hours per week. Overall, this is a great place to play – most of the dealers and staff do a good job, the food comps are generous, the decor/color of the felt/chairs/lighting/etc. is nice, and, most importantly, there are always plenty of 2/5 games running and they have to be some of the best games in the country.
Regarding the new upstairs poker room, I like that we can take the elevators directly there from the parking garage, I like having the option to get food right in the poker room, and I love that you changed from 10-handed to 9-handed games.
Reading through this thread, it is obvious that you are working hard to listen to customer feedback/complaints and trying to improve things; I really appreciate this. Here's my complaint...
In my opinion, there is a huge issue that needs to be fixed at the 2/5 games: the seating of new players, as well as the handling of players transferring to another table. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that every single day I play poker at MGMNH I see people breaking seating rules and transfer rules. Obviously, this causes many issues of unfairness and leads to tension and discord between players and between players and staff. Here are the main issues, specifically:
- A player walks in the room and does not even put himself on the list (or he's 12th on the list or whatever). He wanders around the 2/5 section and when he sees a seat open up, he simply walks up to the table and gets the seat. This is the number one most infuriating problem of all of this. I can't even tell you how frustrating it is when you are someone who follows the rules, patiently waits for your name on the list, and, meanwhile, dishonest people are just swooping in and stealing seats. And this happens all the time (not just on extra busy Saturdays).
- A player wants to transfer to a different table but does not follow transfer procedures. He just picks up his chips and moves. This is incredibly annoying and unfair to A) other players legitimately on the list to transfer, B) other players at the current table who would like to keep playing with the would-be transfer cheat, and C) other players at the current table who simply would like the tables to remain balanced and the rules to be followed.
- A player cheats in either of the above ways and is caught by another player, who then reports him to the list attendant, dealer, or supervisor. Now a whole new set of problems is created: the cheating player is angry for being “ratted out,” the “rat” is made to feel embarrassed by other players for “complaining” or “wasting time,” the staff has to stop what they're doing to try and handle this situation, and there is a huge negative tension among everyone and sometimes even out loud arguing and yelling.
I have complained and discussed all of this many times with the poker room staff. Most list attendants and supervisors are polite, sympathetic, agree this is a big problem, and seem like they genuinely want to help. Some basically say, “There's not really anything we can do...I'm sorry.” Others offer potential improvements; their answers to my concerns generally go like this:
“We're going to post a permanent supervisor in the 2/5 section and all seating and transfers for 2/5 will have to go through that person. We're announcing 'player in at table x' when we send someone to a table. We're kicking out players for 24 hours when caught stealing seats/transfers.”
All of those things (while good) either have not been done, are not done consistently, and do not at all completely solve the problem. Even a dedicated 2/5 supervisor will not sit there and watch all tables like a hawk and be able to catch all the cheaters. Announcing “player in” is often not even heard by the players/dealers, and in any case doesn't prove at all that the person who sits down is the person who was sent there. While it is encouraging to see players kicked out when caught, it has only been enforced a few times, while the violations happen constantly. Furthermore, the player being reported often has a good idea who reported him and will now be angry and hold a grudge against that player (and against the staff member who kicked him out). Trust me...we don't need to encourage any other reasons for players to hold anger and grudges against each other and staff at a poker room.
In my opinion, the whole punitive-based solution to this problem is not the answer. “You guys let us know when you see someone breaking the rules and we'll fix it and possibly throw them out,” is not an effective solution. Players should be able to simply focus on their game, not on catching and reporting the seat stealers. Staff should be able to focus on doing their jobs efficiently, not on resolving these issues and kicking people out. And, above all, we all want MGMNH poker room to be a place where people can overall have a good vibe, get along with each other, feel like they're treated fairly, and enjoy coming back to (and for the staff, enjoy working at) again and again. Having a “catch and report, kick people out, cause fights, etc.” vibe is not at all what anybody wants. Rather than a punitive-based system, what we need is to prevent the problems from even happening in the first place.
So what should the solution be?
1. You have to have a way where a player is given permission to go to a certain table (whether as a new player or as a transfer).
2. You have to have a way where the dealer asks for and is given proof that the player was sent to his table.
3. This has to be done EVERY single time. None of the, “Oh...the person up front sent me here...” just taking players' word for it type of stuff.
It seems fairly simple to me: use the seating cards. The list attendant/supervisor/whoever sent the player MUST provide the player with a seat card. A dealer MUST ask a new player/transfer for a seat card and refuse to seat him if he can't provide it. Cards have to be used for new players as well as for transfers.
I want to reiterate that this has to happen every single time – staff and players must not become lazy with using the cards; that is the reason this didn't work the brief time MGMNH tried using the cards in the past.
When I've suggested this solution to the staff, many agreed it would mostly solve the problem. They tell me something like, “I'm going to mention this in a meeting with Johnny...” but I never hear any follow up. Others say negative things about this idea, such as (with my answers in parentheses):
- “It wouldn't work because not everybody would use the cards consistently.” (Yes, they would. If the proper culture among all the players and staff at MGMNH was to make it a policy that MUST be followed, then it would quickly become second nature to everyone.)
- “We tried it before, but players stole the cards and tried to use them on other days.” (I doubt this happened very often...my guess is it happened a couple times and is a convenient excuse for not using the cards. Even so, there are ways to catch those people and to punish them appropriately. And to print new cards the rare times it's necessary. I think it would only take once to hear someone was banned two months or something to discourage anyone else from ever stealing a card again. Just because a solution to a huge problem might create another far less serious issue does not mean the initial solution shouldn't be employed.)
- “It's a pain to have to walk around and pick up seating cards.” (You wouldn't have to nearly as much as you might think. Players waiting for a seat/transfer will be ready and willing to run cards up to the front podium. Plenty of players not in a hand currently at their table will be happy to help run a card up to the podium...especially those players always grumbling about “there's a list and we've had a seat open for 15 minutes.” For a staff member, even having to occasionally walk to pick up seating cards is WAY better than having to constantly deal with seating issues/arguments created by not using the cards at all; it's unpleasant enough trying to deal with this as a player...I can't even imagine how awful it must be for the staff to have to resolve these fights and how awkward it must be to have to ban someone or reprimand someone or whatever.
- “We're trying to get Johnny/MGM to get us headset devices so supervisors and list attendants can communicate across the room.” (This is great and I've seen in other poker rooms how it greatly helps everything run more efficiently. That being said, it still wouldn't do much at all to prevent seat stealing. Again, the dealer MUST have a way to be shown quick and easy proof that a player has permission to sit at his table.)
After considering all of that, I hope you can agree with me that the pros of using the seating cards vastly outweigh any cons, and that the excuses for not using them don't really hold much water.
Another nice benefit of using the cards: it's much easier (compared to having to walk up close to a table and look at the Bravo red dots) for everyone to see which tables have open seats with the visual cue of the cards sitting on the empty places at the table. It also gives the list attendants at the front podium another visual cue of what tables have open seats (we could even use some device at the podium where the cards can be neatly organized...I'm picturing some type of clear plastic thing made to display business cards or something. Or you could use a three-ring binder with baseball card protector type sheets; you could use divider tabs for 1/3, 2/5, etc.). As it stands currently, seats often remain open for a good while before the list attendants notice by looking at the appropriate place on their computer screens.
Johnny, MGMNH is a great poker room and you've done a tremendous job with it. Thank you for everything. Using the seating cards (correctly and every time) would fix a huge problem that is causing distress, arguments, unfairness, and inefficiency to many 2/5 players and to the poker room staff. Fixing the seating issues would be a massive improvement to the quality of your poker room and (in this player's opinion, at least) would make it a nearly perfect place to play 2/5.
I understand this was an incredibly long post. I apologize for that, but I felt it was a very necessary and long overdue post. Thank you very much, Johnny, for taking the time to read all of that and for your consideration of everything said. Additionally, thank you to any fellow MGMNH poker players, dealers, and staff who took the time to read and consider all of the things said.
I'm optimistic we can all work together, use the seating cards effectively, and make everything much better for everyone.
Last edited by The Great Outdoors; 10-16-2018 at 08:54 PM.
Reason: general grammar editing
