anyone going out there tomorrow or should I say later today?

howd it go

Screw these internet nitwits.
Yours truly,
Caesars Palace, Las Vegas poker room customer, circa 1983.
You were the best then, you are the best now.

I never made it going tonight.

howd it go

fell asleep. lol I HAVE to go tonight though. how often do you go?

Are you guys aware of the PM system?

Is Johnny aware he could have just signed out of his account to lurk instead of shut it down?

Will the bathrooms ever get urinal mats?

Out here now

howd it go

It has been about a year since the last time I have been here and this is my Thursday trip report. Some of you might find it interesting and what may or may not have changed since the last time I played here.

First thing that struck me is just how comparatively empty the property is on a Thursday. It is far from a ghost town, but it is also far from how packed it used to get. The poker room itself had some low buyin tourney going on. Cash games were a lot of 1/3NL, but there was also 1 5/10NL and not one but TWO 25/50NL. VERY encouraging. In the middle, however, things looked rather sad. There were only 2/3/4 2/5NL games going and they looked pretty reg heavy with your standard 3x opens and hardly any money going to the flop.

On previous visits, I did not notice how close these tables are. Add the food service tables and it is such a cluttered place, with people bumping into stuff and your chair all the time. A lot of things are getting delivered, but not a lot of things are getting cleaned up.

Something happened in the mens bathroom so they just closed it. I do not know how these things work, but I also do not see why they did not just convert women's bathroom to men's bathroom instead of making 95% of the room walk downstairs to use a bathroom. Perhaps this is not possible.

The biggest surprise? It was the dealers. Majority of the dealers are average and some are excellent. However, there are several dealers that are just terrible. I don't care if dealers are slow, but when they make very big mistakes, it is a problem. Some of them did not seem to care and just went through motions. This is just ONE example: I river bet X, villain shoves for about 1.8X, villain 2 folds, and before I could even call it off, the dealer just starts running the board. In this case, it was value on my part and I did not get screwed out of $xxx thankfully, but this could've ended pretty crappy. I gently and respectfully and quietly corrected the dealer (I was seat 1) and the guy didn't even respond, give me a "sorry", nothing.

Floor seems to be in disarray too. They send us a player, the guy went to get chips, and in the meantime they send us another player and when the other guy started to come back with chips the floor got snippy with the poor newb for sitting without being directed where to sit. Do they not have a system to lock up seats? Are there multiple floor responsible for same tables? I don't know. What I do know is that this should not happen to begin with, and if it does they should never get snippy against a clearly casual player.

One could say that it is a problem of individuals, but I do not think so. There are certain very standard dealer SOPs - like calling out to the table what the bet is and counting down a stack - that many dealers did not follow. As a result, there are many miscounting mistakes.

This is a management problem. It may be that the management is weak/lazy/incompetent or it may be that it is hard to recruit and train dealers in this area. I do not know. What I do know is that management does not appear to be overseeing the room and correcting mistakes to make the room better.

I only played about 8 hours or so on Thursday. Things happen in every room. But they do not happen with the frequency I saw during my visit.

Sounds like the MGM NH poker room is slowly going downhill. And that Casino management just doesn't care. Johnny seemed to for a while, but even he finally threw in the towel. Like myself, I know other DC/NoVA area players who would prefer to play elsewhere. But MGM is ten minutes away from where I live in Alexandria, while MD Live is a tedious 37 mile trek for me. So not so easy to vote with my feet.

If the management hate doing their jobs so much then why continue? I remember years ago JG was active and engaged on here and the tournaments were at least passable. Now it seems like everyone is running through the motions and since their only competition is over an hour away there's no need to improve. The latest $150k gtd needed an overlay because of how unenthused people are to play at such a lack luster room.

Sure, the comps are alright, but it's stupid that one needs to go full the exact amount on their card when they won't even know how much they need unless they go to the place first. The promotions are fine as well, I actually like the new high hand lucky table qualifier. Other than that the only thing this room has as a benefit is the convenience from the district.

New promotions posted for November. "Chasing quads" and "Monte carlo" during night hours

Here is the November calendar:

https://mgmnationalharbor.mgmresorts...ember-2019.pdf

I am frustrated by the whole thing - the room itself and the fact that nothing seems to change. I've posted on here a number of times about MGM corporate decisions and the fact is that anything that involves paying money to fix - those might be out of everyones hands.

As far as JG goes - I wish he would stick around. But if I were him, I probably wouldnt either. However, he certainly used and got what he needed out of this forum from Day 1. Free advertising for a new room. Free marketing. More importantly - free market research from the most degen of degens. Especially when designing the new room.

But - its gotta be exhausting. On one hand he has a readily available pool of the most frequent players to keep him appraised of what is going on and what may need fixing. On the other hand he - probably - has bosses and bosses bosses telling him to cut costs or at the very least that they arent going to outlay a ton of cash to fix those problems that he just found out about. IE the archaic comps system. There is a bank of...a half dozen or so kiosks on one wall of the room. No real reason a couple of them couldnt be running the same comp system that the floors have on their computers.

But - like fdevny- I live less than 15 minutes away. "Voting with my feet" is not as easy as people make it out to be.

Rake is 10% up to $5 + the $2 BBJP Drop. So the max rake is $7.

This applies to both 1/3 and 2/5 which I play at MGMNH regularly.

If the table drops to 6 players, a reduced rake goes into effect which capped at $3 + $2 for the BBJP.

As far as the speed, the games play at roughly the same speed, about 30 hands per dealer (60 hands per hour).

The only exception is that 2/5 is more often than not on a wait list-- so playing at a 2/5 means you're most often playing a full 9 ring game.

The 1/3 tables are full during busy hours, and the management does a good job of closing down tables that die out to a few players and reseating the remaining... But if you play late into the night hours (past 1am), you can find yourself either playing at 6 or 7 player tables, or having to be reseated a number of times because players leave.

So 1/3 is by far a faster game due to the fact the 2/5 is almost always full. While the rake on 2/5 is far more competative than the 1/3, depending on when you play and the table you're at, the 1/3s can play pretty big pots, especially if you are playing on busy nights peak hours. Lots of deep stacked players, and I've seen pots get up into the $4000 range at a 1/3. Not uncommon for a pot to reach >$1000 either. So with pots of that size, the $7 rake is not a dealbreaker for the 1/3.

How is the BBJP/ Reserve money accounted for? Is it audited?

One of the new floors the other day was telling us not to worry about a table variance (dealer well was 10 up) because the money would be put into the Reserve fund. Does this mean negative variances are taken out of the reserve fund? Also was the money the dealer was stealing from the jackpot fund ever replenished to the fund? The dealer stole 5 figures, so was/ is the fund permanently that much lower? Or did MGM step up and contribute?

Wow!

5 figures (presumably) garnered 1 or 2 at a time. That’s pretty impressive!

(Awaiting moderator ninja edits....)

30/hr seems correct.

Yeah it’s not 1 hand/minute.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’d bet my life to a jelly donut that MGM didn’t contribute a single cent.

anyone have a clue what the late night promotions will be/pay out starting tonight midnight?

Wait, what?

https://mgmnationalharbor.mgmresorts...ember-2019.pdf

Fwiw reduced rake is $3+$1, and there is a difference in the bbjp drop for $1/3 and $2/5: at $1/3 they take $1 when the pot reaches $10, and another when the pot reaches $30. At $2/5 it's $1 at $20 and another at $50.

This may seem like a small difference, but it's worth keeping an eye on because I notice them overrake at $2/5 probably once a down. I've brought this up before but it continues to be a problem.