Sounded like the decision was to run 2/5 9-handed from what Johnny said in the hype thread.

Hoping to come check the place out this weekend.

Played for a few hours today; some quick thoughts:

From the top - congratulations to Johnny and everyone else on the new poker room, casino, and the property in general. I can't imagine how hard it is to get a place like this off the ground and, overall, the experience was good.

POKER ROOM
1 - Comfortable chairs, good choice of color/fabric for the felt, the dealers that I saw were VERY good at both enforcing and explaining the rules.

2 - I like the amount of space between the tables but am worried that we will lose that space if the casino decides to expand the number of tables.

3 - With an oddly shaped space I think that some form of way-finding such as table numbers, row numbers, or even strategically placed maps would be helpful.

4 - The following is not a complaint as I am certain it will be smoother in the future: There was definitely confusion at the front desk of the room this morning. At one point they activated the named on the 1/3 list for a new table, then de-activated them as the table the dealer was sitting at was not the table they were assigning the game to. The dealer was sitting and waiting for at least 10 minutes at the first table and then 5-10 at the new one.

5 - This one, I think, is good for Johnny to know about: At various points the supervisors were walking up to tables and asking the dealers about empty seats; it is not clear whether or not the front desk was using Bravo to fill seats throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. As was stated above, it took a long time to fill empty seats even when the list got long. For example, with 52 names on the list my table had two empty seats for close to 20 minutes. This might not seem like a big deal but, due to people heading out for lunch we played 6 handed for a good 1/2 hour and almost played five handed.

6 - Speaking of lunch, at one point there were two players up from our table for quite a while; definitely more than the 1/2 hour, one for close to an hour. I asked the dealer to call the floor to check on how long they had been gone and the dealer's reply was that the floor knows because of the Bravo. Generally at MD Live if a player asks for the floor the dealer calls the floor over - what can we expect in the MGM poker room? BTW, the dealer in question was clearly new FWIW and I decided not to press the issue (a) not wanting to embarrass anyone and (b) because the table still had good action short handed.

More in a bit...

Do we know if having Pearl+ will give free self-parking once they start charging for it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

lol at 6:5 BJ. At least I know I won't be playing that ever. Wondering what the pit limits are like. Mdl was 25 and 50s minimum when they opened.

Looked like 25 was the lowest


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

100/200 limit mixed game. HORSE+27TD (as of a couple of hours ago)

I mentioned Johnny's statement to multiple floorpersons, and not one of them had any idea their boss publicly said 2/5 would be 9-handed. They just said 9-handed is only for time raked games. Obv it's totally fine if this is either A) simple miscommunication among the staff that will be cleared up in the future or B) a decision to run 2/5 10-handed just to handle the volume of grand opening, with the plan to switch to 9-handed once the hysteria dies down. If it's the case 9-handed was scrapped in favor of 10-handed altogether, that's obv management's right to do so, but yours truly would be disappointed on a purely selfish basis.

Thoughts continued:

7 - Johnny - I know I wrote this above but I thought that in general the dealers I saw did an excellent job today. Professional, friendly and, when necessary, firm.

8 - Johnny - are the cup holders required when placing a drink on the felt or just an option? It seems like a small thing but my table almost got covered by hot cocoa at one point... BTW, I like the lack of cupholders on the rails, good call whoever made the decision. Likewise, having a dedicated charger for each seat was a good decision, thanks.

9 - This may be too nitpicky:As was stated above by others, the whole tablet drink ordering system seems to be unnecessarily clunky as compared to the more traditional approach. Due to (I guess) the OS on the tablets the act of ordering is much slower than without such a system; I saw this slow the game down more than once today especially if a player requested something reasonable that the tablet could not easily accommodate. Likewise, the arrival of the drinks caused a second slow down seemingly due to how the information is conveyed to the server as to which seats ordered what. If it was just annoying, NBD, but if it is still slowing the game down after a few weeks perhaps it should be rethought...

Pit limits - I did not see anything below 25 when walking through, and this was in the morning.

Video Poker - single play JOB is a 7/5 pay table. It looked like multiline was 8/6 or 8/5... Those are pretty bad. My understanding is that the cut MD takes from slots (which includes VP) is at least part of the reason for the bad pay tables as compared to Vegas.

Three observations from inside the room:

1.) The staff are working really hard, but some of the systems and procedures have a little ways to go. Drink service, for example, doesn't seem to be working right. Some players are waiting 40+ minutes for a drink. Sometimes, the drink
Never arrives at all. That said, the setup MGMNH is using (one waitress with tablet takes orders, a different waitress delivers) makes a lot of sense and seems like it will work well in the long run. All that said, I haven't had any problems with drink service.

2.) Someone posted earlier that the room is really cold. I disagree. At least where I am sitting, the room seems uncharacteristically warm for a casino.

3.) Johnny, your staff is providing great customer service. The dealers I've had thus far have all been excellent. Same goes for the front desk staff.

I ve been following the number of tables at both casinos on bravo and I am surprised to see that the room isn't filling all 39 tables even though there are so many people on waiting lists.

Right now there are 38 tables open. What's the deal with the 39th?

And there's you go. Room is officially full now. Congrats!

+1.. during my visit this morning the cheapest table game I found was 4 card poker @ $10 and that was at 10am. Other carnival games were at $15. BJs were $25 and $50 at 6:5. Baccarat was at $100 and craps were at $50 with 3-4-5 times odds.

I guess after spending more than a billion dollars you gotta make it up with the poor BJ payouts, low odds on craps, and low pay table on VP.

OAN, local news is discouraging people from going due to the expected overcrowding and reaching capacity.

Bravo issue. That's the 2-7 100/200 game

We should give it time to see if people get the hang of it.

It usually takes some time to adjust to quirky POS interfaces, which are usually designed by people who do not use them. Eventually people will remember where everything is, and any tricks to enter orders more quickly.

I'm excited by the general idea of this approach though

I agree...when properly executed much better than carrying a tray if drinks and then promiding to circle back for orders

Just got here...no traffic, parked right away and walked straight in
The wait list is real though...

Johnny...if you could mention to management. I had a backpack and even opened to show security while coming in and they just waved me in and said it wasn't necessary.

What does the TR mean in some of the games listed on bravo

Timed Rake.

Backpacks will be allowed, but are subject to search.

I played from about 10:30am to 5:3pm on Friday. Overall, good for day 1 but I have a few complaints. Hopefully, these are small hiccups that will be worked out in time.

1. 2/5 was playing 10-handed despite the remarks in the hype thread about it going 9-handed. My guess is that this will eventually change once the initial crush dies down.

2. Beverage service was pretty spotty as described earlier. 30 minute wait for a drink was pretty standard once the room got full. It was better in the morning.

3. Chip service was pretty terrible. Floor personnel were running chips. There are no chip carts so those poor guys in suits had to line up at the cage and wait. Players at my table were waiting 30 minutes for chips at times. It starts getting difficult to remember who has how much behind and who owes whom money. This really needs improvement.

4. Temperature - I sat at table 19 and all of the tables in that area were getting blasted by cold air anytime someone opened the door to the outdoor smoking area.

5. I got dealt 72o the first hand I played. Is this some kind of an omen? WTF?

Hopefully it's just an adjustment to handle the crush of the opening weeks. That being said, if what we're seeing on Bravo is an indication of the size of the player pool in this market, then I hope there is room to expand the poker room in the future.

check raise preflop.
flop/turn/river- play as if you have the nuts and bet/bet/bet HARD.

rebuy...

Originally it was 9 handed. Volumes dictated otherwise. We will likely change back to 9 if the business levels subside a little.

The chip issue have been addressed. We also have 2 chip carts going into service.