Right this would be north of Hartford area, try to keep people from going up to the Springfield area casino in MA.

Give me a table of "wackos" all day long as opposed to the Tuesday/Wednesday 1/2 group at Foxwoods.

+1

Rockingham NL Trip Report:

I played NL cash at the rock tonight for the first time ever. If youve never been to the rock, it is quite disgusting. Its decor resembles that of an old middle school cafeteria. The dealers are mostly terrible and the players are just the absolute worst, in every sense of the word. Most of the regulars are gross, colluding, racist, obnoxious, petty, angle-shooting mouth breathers. The kind of people who say "I knew thats exactly what you had" EVERY time someone shows down. Stepping into the rock is like going back in time. Theres even a defunct harness racing track out back with overgrown bushes and strewn-about metal, just to cap off the picture. But its pretty close to my place and they have decent tournies once in a while, so I pop in once a month or so and almost always regret it about 2 levels in.

But I must say, tonight was much different. Yes the place is still disgusting, but upon walking into the poker room there was different feel in the place. There was sort of a renewed energy in the room and I saw a lot of new faces (which is a very good thing.) As bad of a room as it is, the floor is and always has been bizarrely good to great at their jobs. Its mostly younger guys who actually care and they were doing a good job of running everything.

I got there around 6 and there was 6 1/2 tables and 2 2/4 tables running. I sat down at the 2/4 table and the strange buy-in rules were explained to me. At 2/4, you can only buy in for 150 at a time, but you can reload after every single hand for 150 max, and you can reload as many times as you want. So you can literally buy in for a million dollars if you want, 150 at a time. The rake is 6 max with another dollar for BBJ, so 7 bucks is coming out of just about every pot. The action was good but not as insane as I thought it might be (of course I did only play one table so who knows).

Overall I must say I was very impressed with how well they were handling the sudden addition of new games and increase in players. Theyre using 2 and 4 dollar chips which is confusing as hell, and they also use 25000 tourney chips for $25 chips, but theyll have 5 dollar chips soon. Im actually kind of excited to go back to the rockingham poker room, which is something I never thought Id ever say. Hopefully they actually start putting some money back into the room and get some upgrades. Only complaint was no must-move, so at one point there was 3 tables playing 4-6 handed. I think in a month or so theyll have all the kinks worked out and it should be a fun place to play.

The rockingham bathroom might be the worst I've used in all my life. I was up there on Saturday. The whole place is disgusting but the bathroom is amazingly bad

Aside from the game action all these things I'm reading about the Rock are not making me want to go there.

Interested in hearing any TR's from Seabrook or Hampton Falls. Hampton Falls is definitely a nicer room. Rock is a dump but convenience and good action goes a long way.

Sounds like The Rock - as a room - is about as disgusting as it was when I last went there roughly three years ago. Once when someone actually dared to buy a burger from their "cafeteria" and brought it back to the table, a guy a few seats down from me said something to the effect of "aren't you afraid of getting food poisoning from that?" But before the guy with the burger could respond, another person at the table said "no, because it would have to be food for that to happen."

I guess if I go back in the near future I should still bank on bringing protein bars, water, and purell.

no kidding. the place is an absolute dumpster fire. I feel bad for a few of the floor guys though because they're good at their jobs and actually care, but whoever owns it just puts no money back into it. I dont know why they cant find more competent dealers though.

long time lurker with my first post

played 1-2 at the rock yesterday for a few hours...

I have played there numerous times throughout the past 9 years or so. The rooms pretty beat and the dealers aren't as good as they should be (ie: numerous times the table had to correct the dealer on change owed and chip counts).

The players are pretty sick though. I ran up a good stack, but lost a couple of pretty sick pots before I left. Lol, one pot this guy 4bet preflop with 8-2 suited and smashed two pair. Anyways there are alot of guys that buy in for 60-80 bucks at a time, lose that and then immediatly throw another 60 on the table. There is a good amount of action, just gotta play to the table and handle the variance imo.

As other people said, the floor guys are good and have a decent handle on things. I am hoping that all the new action coming into the room will allow for some kind of an upgrade, but I don't see that happening unless NH decides to allow a slot parlor in the future. The whole building is just so beat, I can't imagine them just sinking money into the room.

I do look forward to fri/sat nights there though as the action must be pretty insane!

I went again last night. The action was nuts the first few hours at
1-2 NL. Some of the players were opening up with $28 preflop raises under the gun and were still getting called by several horrendous hands.

The last few hours, the play was actually pretty solid.

No joke -- I literally almost vomited because that bathroom is so disgusting. Some of the urinals have about three feet of piss in them because they don't flush properly.

When I was there the tips were shared and a lot of non dealers were part of the share. So if you were competent and got good tips you really were not rewarded because the slower less caring dealers didn't get tipped as much but benefited from the better dealers.

Competent dealers would look to deal home games or rooms that allow them to keep there own earnings. Look at how much that improved dealer/player relations at Foxwoods since they started keeping their own.

Are dealers unionized? If not, mgt. should just change this. Good for house (more hands/hr = more rake), happier players, good for most dealers.

I'm a competent dealer. I dealt in NH. Tokes there were pooled and split as gotf described.

I don't deal in NH any more. I'm working part-time at my current job (25-30 hrs/wk), and literally making twice as much as I was making in NH working 40 hrs/wk.

As for sinking money into upgrading the room: why should they? You silly people have demonstrated that you're willing to put up with the LOL facilities to get your poker fix.

Back in the 90's, when Las Vegas hotel-casinos were getting imploded left and right to be replaced by newer, better, shinier hotel-casinos, someone asked the owner of the Imperial Palace when he was gonna blow up his dumpy place. His response: "We're 98% booked every single night. Why would I want to change anything?"

Think the NH dealers are making like $9/hr pre tips. I heard something about the owner of the Tuscan Kitchen and Market buying a bunch of land from Rockingham Park recently. Wonder what that means for the room if anything?

Rockingham Park is in a prime spot. really. NH/Mass border..traffic from vacations and work traffic both ways..You could make that place into a money making machine.

7.25

A friend of mine who used to work there said this will probably be very unlikely as long as the casino games max bets are only 4$ cause the dealers stuck dealing those don't see any tips at all

On a side note, anyone know what the player field sizes are for some of the bigger Saturday and Sunday tournaments usually are.? The 150s and 200s specifically

10ish tables usuallky

more NL Rockingham stories Plz.

I don't see if it has been mentioned, but what are the hours Hampton poker room is open? I tried checking their website, but that is down at the moment. Might stop in there to donate to their new cash games after the beach this weekend.

Depends on the day but usually 12-1

This. Any updates? I still haven't gone over there to play. The story of the overflowing urinals on top of my own thoughts on the joint has kept me away. Just feel like I would walk in the door and go on instatilt due to the venue. They still use fold up chairs right? Any NH rooms have decent comfortable chairs? I'd drive the extra half hour.

The bathroom is old (obv) but on both my visits has seemed reasonably clean. I don't know what to call the chairs but they're those stackable chairs, banquet chairs I guess you might call them. They are padded but they aren't great.

Action is still good. 9-10 1/2's, 2-3 2/4's plus a couple limit games running yesterday.