Obviously SOMEONE hasn't been paying attention:

"cliff notes: go to the bookstore for those, you slackers. "

SOME of us have only just started, you nag!

Sincerely,
Da Grinch


oh yeah- happy holidays to you too, sir!

I talked to Ari about some of this stuff last night, but wanted to lay out some of my thoughts on Parx as it's a place I hope I can visit often while on break.

General impressions:

-I came away very impressed. I really enjoyed playing there. Well done.
-Very nice room. New, clean, nice comfortable seats and tables.
-The escalators are TINY and oddly placed. Stairs aren't clearly accessible from the front entrance. I mean seriously, what's the deal with the escalators being like a cattle chute!?
-Location of the cage is nice. Prob need more people working the windows at peak times.
-Being able to eat at the tables (at least in the "high stakes" area) is really nice, however if you are going to allow this you really need the little tables on wheels (whatever they are called). We were eating off of chairs last night and while awkward but doable, I feel like this isn't going to be good for your chairs in the long run haha.
-Food menu is simple but has good choices. Would be nice if you had a runner who could get food from the Noodle Bar, though. Or possibly have the floor call down orders there for us.
-Cocktail service was good, but they should be more up front with what drinks will cost money. Lots of awkwardness when they bring booze/red bulls then ask for payment, haha. Honestly, and maybe I'm being a snob, but I think drinks & red bull and such should be comped in the high limit area at a minimum, much like the Borg (w/ regards to red bull and draft beers and such). I mean at least as it stands now with only $1/hr in comps.

Game/poker things:

-Floor was generally very good and responsive to player concerns in the high limit area.
-Floors, however, all didn't seem to have a great grasp on the rules. Some of them were confused and others simply didn't know the updates. I had one floor yell at me (yell is strong... she was actually really nice about it) for eating and she had to go check to make sure it was ok.
-Dealers were overall very good. Afternoon shift was pretty impressive and didn't have a bad dealer that I saw. Overnight shift had some really excellent dealers and a couple who weren't so great, but no one who was truly atrocious. Everyone had a really nice and polite attitude, and I enjoyed talking to all the dealers.
-9 handed games are the nuts. Great decision. Everyone is more comfortable. Near the end of the night, however, all the old grumps at the 15/30 started complaining about everything they could possibly complain about and turned their ire towards 9 handed tables. Please don't listen to them as I'm pretty sure they are just a really vocal minority. They were trying to bully everyone at the table into agreeing to make it 10 handed (and no one spoke up in defiance even though I sort of wanted to), but the floor thankfully just said no. They were ready to stage a protest and write their congressmen (this is honestly probably not too much of an exaggeration), but thankfully eventually shut the hell up about it.
-Need some sort of porter to come around from time to time to sweep up trash and bottles on the floor. This is prob the only gripe the old grumps got right all night, haha.

-3rd man walking, ok, I like the concept and I like the rule especially with 9 handed tables. However, it started making people really mad yesterday when the 3rd man had to piss and couldn't even get up to do that. Either a) make the amount of time the first 2 men (in time games) can stay away from the table limited (3 missed blinds like most rooms rather than an infinite leave) or b) allow for a 3-5 min bathroom break if the person goes straight to the pisser and comes back. And you guys gotta enforce the rule or no one will respect it.
-The floors don't seem to know when they can pick people up. They all seem to know the general rule is infinite time, but the floor just randomly showed up to our table at one point with a bag and started bagging some guy up who had been gone for like 30 mins. The whole table (as only the old nits can do) started a federal case over it, and the floor explained he had been gone for over an hour so he gets bagged up. Wha!??! This was contrary to everything we had been told, plus the guy just went on a smoke break and was sitting like 20 feet away having a drink. The floor, in their defense, did listen to the table and went looking for the guy just to confirm he was still here (and they did and did not bag him up).
-"Lots of rules here lots of rules it's like a prison!" is something I heard from people. Again, I think this just was the grumpy guys who will hate anything for the sake of hating things. I LOVE that the room has set, bright-line established rules that don't leave much up to interpretation. It allows for uniform policies, avoids arbitrary enforcement (floor to floor) and everyone knows what to expect. So kudos on that and ignore the haters (hatersgonnahate.jpeg)
-Lack of hand shuffling (if the auto shuffler isn't done). Mehhhhh I was told about the "incident" that caused this. Even assuming that story was true, I don't think that's a good reason to ban hand shuffling. Nearly every other room (in fact this is the first I've heard of a rule like this) allows hand shuffling if the auto-shuffler isn't done. IT should just be on the dealer to locate a card the moment it goes missing (and notice that something went wrong causing a card to go missing). This type of policy seems really overbroad to deal with an issue like this. Plus, the auto shufflers work great now, but I can tell you from playing at the Borg and other places with them that they will eventually break and break often. And the first time you have an auto-shuffler start having issues in a timed game the grumps are going to lose their minds and demand a % of ownership in the casino as reparations, lol.
-Can't buy chips at the table. This is fine, but you gotta be real quick with the chip runners if this is the case. I was bleeding chips running super short at the 15 last night and couldn't get a chip runner to save my life (and the line was very long at the cage). I eventually asked the floor and he got me chips pretty quick, but if I can't buy at the table and/or can't play cash, there's gotta be some other way to reload and reload quickly. This also causes issues with fish getting up and leaving games because of the extra step between them and reloading. Kinda selfish of me I guess, but this was prob my biggest issue with things.
-Cash not playing (especially at higher LHE games). Is this a PA law or just a room rule? I'm not sure, but cash playing (just c-notes imo) would be really nice (and is pretty standard at most rooms for like 10/20 LHE or higher). If cash played, I wouldn't care nearly as much about not getting chips quickly. In fact, I probably wouldn't care at all.

My feeling of the game I played/softness (not really related to room administration at all):

-The 15-30 was a juicy game. I recognized a lot of the regs from both the 10 and the 20 at the Borg (and they recognized me which was a little weird haha since I haven't been there in 6 months or so), which is def a good sign. These guys are bad at poker.
-It's a very aggressive game. Capped pots going 4-5 ways to the flop were standard. Capped flops going 3-4 handed to the turn happened and happened more often than I could have ever imagined. High variance and swongy, but very lucrative imo. I saw one pot get SEVEN bet preflop, and the two players had AQ and AT.
-The people in this game (and this is standard for all mid-stakes limit games I've played in on the east coast) are either really pleasant to talk to or downright miserable, and I mean miserable. The bad ones are the grumpiest, bitchiest, meanest son of a bitches I've ever played poker with.
-The abuse they gave the dealers made me rage. It really, really upset me. It's just not right to talk to a person like that or treat someone that way. It doesn't even matter if the dealer was good or not, you just don't talk to people that way. I actually ended up getting into it with a guy (which is pretty out of character for me), because I couldn't stand the way he was talking to the staff (which I realize can't talk back to him). I mean it wasn't overwhelmingly bad and I've definitely seen worse, but this general attitude that a dealer can be treated with absolute disrespect just drives me insane. This is not just limited to this game here, obviously, as it's a problem I see all the time in mid-stakes limit hold em'. NL players are much kinder, oddly enough.
-So many regs. These guys all know each other, and if you are an outside they put pressure on you to do things "their way." Don't be afraid to say no if you don't want to do a time pot or whatever other stupid **** they want, but also realize what effect this has on your image. Me getting into a sarcastic confrontation with that one guy really hurt my image and friendliness at the table somewhat, as he was a reg, but I also think they all realized he was being a douche too so in the end it wasn't a huge deal.

So overall, the room is great. I came away very impressed, and they are doing a good job. Yeah it's a new room and yeah there are some kinks to work out, but that's totally normal IMO and the way these things will always work. That said, they were at a much more advanced stage of "smoothness" than I ever expected, so a big thumbs up.

Please don't take my above suggestions as serious criticisms of the room. Not at all. They are more or less just nit picks on things I think could make the room better that I'd like to share as I know Ari is receptive and welcoming of constructive criticism.

Oh and general Karak TR:

I run so bad at limit recently. I finished down like $1300 at that 15-30 game last night lol. I mean I ran soulcrushingly bad, but by 4-5 AM was just steamboating and pissed away my last 400-500 straight gambling with those guys. Whatever... I need to go when I'm not tired and leave before I get tired in the future.

Was nice meeting you other 2+2 guys last night. Kinda regret not trying to jump in your game to have some fun after I hit the tired wall. Would have been much happier dumping off that 1k to you guys than my friends in the other game lol. Hopefully I'll see you guys there in the future.

Nice enough room. The dealers were fine. Spent 13 hours there at a couple of $1/$2 NL tables Wed night/Thu morning/Thu afternoon ... Won $400. Frankly some really bad players.

Biggest complaints:
1) The chips are brutal. More precisely, using a $2 blue chip while also having a $5 red chip with blue markings is a terrible decision. I tried to remember to ask for white chips whenever I needed change.
2) The cashier was very slow. Partly because they basically check every red chip in your stack to make sure it isn't really blue.

I'm a Harrah's regular and will continue to be but I will make an occasional trip to Parx since I have friends in Buck Co.

How many Degens u think will be playing this Christmas Eve?

gold star. They're evidently grumpy nits anyway, so it's not as if you'll change 'em with kindness.

*smacks head*

THAT's why they pulled out my red stacks, when I was there on Day #2. I thought it was because they were new and didn't trust the racks!

I agree, the design was a bad choice. I remember having that problem at the table, with stacked chips. Once, I looked like an idiot when I was trying to be helpful and told someone their blue stack was dirty, only to figure out that it wasn't.

wheres the cheapest motel that rents by the week instead of by the day on any public transit bus line that serves this casino or any nearby PA casino?

Doc,

That was an error on our part, please introduce yourself to me the next time you come in.

Thanks

Ari

Whats the error? New players don't have to pay time?

Probably just new players that are doctors.

It's not an error related to doctors- Ari used a comma instead of a period.

He really wants to meet him in order to have him check that strange growth on his little toe....

good work Ari
The room is improving everyday.

I would just like to restate that it would be nice if the 2$ chips do not play at 2/5nl. I dont think i ever heard any1 at the 2/5 tables say they liked playing with the 2$ chips. last night was great I won a rack of 2$ chips. lol so great to see some1 wanted to play 2/5nl with his rack of blues and didnt even think about coloring up.

Sounds reasonable, we will remove them for the rack. That should help.
Ari

After further consideration we will be keeping the blue chips on the 2/5 game, it helps reduce the number of fills. Happy Holidays to All!

Ari, with the recent additional poker tables, would you consider opening some $2 $4 blind tables? Novice poker players needs to be cultivated at low limits. I was in agreement to keep the lowest limit at $4 $8 in November because of the number of tables but now we have few additional (vacant) tables, why not put them into use.

I kind of like the $2 chips but it would be nice if they were some sort of completely different color...dunno if that's possible for the chips you already have but if you order new chips for the future...that might make things more confusing though. either way I wouldn't stress about it this though..doesn't matter too much...haven't been down since you switched to 9 handed but wohoo! for that.

The decision still stands to keep 4-8 as our lowest limit game. We will continue to look at our business and make changes if necessary.

Thank you

Ari

Ari,
Tremendously disappointed to hear how stubborn you're being regarding the addition of some 2-4 or 3-6 limit games. As others have said, you have the tables for it, it helps cultivate new players, and is a welcome addition for those of us who don't want to bring our week's paycheck to the table.

Every AC poker room has one, including this board's beloved Borgata. Harrah's Chester and Sands Bethlehem do as well. The reason for this is simple, there's a demand for it. Parx also has a demand for it, despite what the people that read twoplustwo have to say.

Please stop trying to appeal to the poker elite and rethink your decision. I think you'll be surprised at the number of players who show up.

Ari,
Thanks for not running any limit under 4/8.
How about trying to get some more 8/16 or 10/20 limit running on those extra tables?
Let the people with $200 weekly paychecks take the bus to chester.

So, basically, you asked for pretty much what every other poker room has always had and now you want me to be thankful for it? These things should have been there from the start if the management had done their homework. From what I read, Ari has been around poker rooms for quite a while and the other people at Parx aren't exactly casino neophytes. Meanwhile, the things that should have been addressed, like smoking and free drinks, still haven't arrived and it's been long enough that we can stop giving Parx a free ride about it.

Let's stop kissing the a$$ of Parx and call the poker room what it is, mediocre at best. You want me to get excited because they now give you a free bottle of water? Water? Are you kidding me?

You want me to be thankful because they were considerate enough to put lights in their parking lot? They added the lights in the parking lot, not because of twoplustwo comments, but because they didn't want to be sued for not having them. Smoking problem? It's not hard at all to get rid of the smoking problem, don't allow it, period. Seating's not hard to fix either, buy new chairs, they can certainly afford it. Tables are still small. Blue chips suck. Slow cashiers. Not buying chips from the dealers stinks. Dealers still making too many mistakes.

The new Park East building? Hah! The first floor looks like Chinatown. I didn't know whether to place a bet or drop off my laundry. The poker room has all the ambiance of a hallway at a Holiday Inn. Who decorated this place? The only thing they did right in the was keeping the gorgeous drink girls.

There's plenty of things wrong with Parx that must be corrected. It's not even close to being in the same league as the Borgata. It's only saving grace is a location that's not in the ghetto like SugarHouse. Hopefully, someone who has a vision can whip this place into shape, give it an identity, and make it someplace worthy of the praise twoplustwo members keep lavishing on it.

Yes, Mr. Cash is right. There's a HUGE demand for 10/20 games around. Hey, while we're at it, let's open more 30/60 and 100/200 tables as well. The plethora of millionaires riding up the escalators would really enjoy it.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who live in the real world, will drive to places that offer the lower limit games. And in case you haven't heard, those busloads of people going to Chester have allowed it to become the top-earing poker room in the state.

Go to Chester, pay them rake at an unbeatable 2/4 game.
PROBLEM SOLVED!

Anyway...


Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

I hope you and yours have a great Christmas!!


Note : Ty for acknowledging my initial holiday wellwishes LL. Have a good Christmas bro

**And I wouldn't mind seeing lower limits in the room. Why does anyone even care if people wanna play a game they can't beat? Doesn't make sense to me. It only will add to the pool of fish that wanna try a higher limit game occasionally.

What do I know, I'm just a Caddie

Ifsatg, the question we have here is do u work days or swing at parx...I mean some of these posts here are a joke...like bobba buey said if u can name me one casino that doesn't have good lighting and free water I'd be shocked

And I'm sure anytime somebody takes a shot at parx posters/workers pm the mods for infraction points....

I was playing at Foxwoods 2 nits ago playing 1-2 and heard 2 kids in their 20s laughing at this thread and the constant suckoffs this place gets...

Do I like the 8-16 fishpond here?? Of course I do but can u picture all the big name pro's taking the 10 minute escalator ride up to the poker room?!??

I'm 3-6 in wins there I don't have the 90 percent strike rate there like the other 2+2ers have there haven't read one post of somebody losing.....