Hyatt rosemont is directly across the street. I have eaten at the Chinese restaurant in the property repeatedly; it’s great. Ubers from ORD $15-25. I think rake is only up to $6. Poker room opened in April.

Absolutely it is the nut room in Chicago area
Not sure why someone need to travel to other room or charity the games are run nonstop
No hotel on the property but you have Hyatt across the street , Courtyard by Marriott ,and Hilton Garden Inn on the north side of the property walkable , and many more on 5-10 minutes rides on Uber or Taxi,
You don't need a car
Decent restaurants on the property , a good steak house , a food court they are open late
Yes waiting times are decent , I see somedays during the week with open seats , in general 30 minutes or less waiting time excluding weekends
HSPLO and mixed games are played but they are private not sure how you can get in them but once in the room talk with the management or the people in the game.
1-3, 2-5 , is 5+1, 5-10 and higher is 7$/per half hour

The rake is 6+1, and no flop no drop (I haven't been to Aurora in forever but they used to rake the SB as the promo drop before the deal, which always irked me).

I'd say that Rivers is now the best in the area, but honestly I never played at GVC. I used to play at Horseshoe all the time before the pandemic, but Rivers is only 20 minutes away and Horseshoe is at least 45 minutes, without traffic, so I'm certainly biased towards Rivers because of location. Also, until recently, Horseshoe poker was only open during limited hours (closed on weekends or something weird like that), so they lost a lot of dealers and regulars to Rivers just because of that.

Out of curiosity, I just pulled up Bravo, and Rivers is clearly doing way better than any other room in the area:

Rivers: 1-3 NLHE (8 tables, 13 waiting), 2-5 NLHE (4 tables, 3 waiting), 5-10 NLHE (1 table, 3 waiting), 1-2 PLO (1 table, 8 waiting), 5-5 PLO HS (0 tables, 3 waiting)
Aurora: 1-3 NLHE (2 tables, 9 waiting)
Horseshoe: 1-2 NLHE (3 tables, 1 waiting), 1-2 PLO (1 table, no waiting), 2-5 NLHE (0 tables, 3 waiting)
GVC: 1-3 NLHE (2 tables, 15 waiting), 2-5 NLHE (1 table, 2 waiting)

I only play 1-3 NLHE, so I can't speak to any of the high stakes or PLO questions.

'The Rock' is a 'free' straddle that the winner of the previous hand gets to take advantage of .. the Button and Blinds move as normal but the winner of the previous hand gets position on the table PF as a bonus in the next hand. Not the best game is you are a bit conservative and you have an aggressive Player on your right since you basically lose positional advantage on them 'a lot'. Aria is where this is mainly spread, but it could be unadvertised in other areas.

1) Nut room? Read the posts in the Hammond thread .. quite different.
2) This room has been at 'staff' capacity for poker since the day they opened the room.
3) Call the poker room to see if they have any relationships with local rooms .. I'll be making this call next week since I will probably play there one night
4) You should be able to estimate ride costs if you have those Apps on your phone
5) My understanding is that it's more of a industrial area, so I'm assuming most of it will shut down by 10pm .. Google maps?
6) I'm sure they know what they need for max staffing .. and I doubt they have been able to achieve it based on previous posts. Without tournaments it's more difficult to find the happy medium between staff and scheduling. They've been open long enough to see the trends .. and poker only gets busier in the Fall/Winter.
7) Call the poker room
8) Never seen a time rake comment here as of yet, but most casinos don't time rake until 5/10 or bigger.
9) There were a couple of comments about going 10-handed for certain whales at the start, but not so much lately

Have fun .. GL

Hard Rock Hollywood also spreads 5/5 PLO w rock, and in my limited experience is a much much softer game than the Aria.

Let's play some PLO Thursday night! I plan to roll thru the poker room to check it out .. not sure my exact flight plan, but should easily be in the room by 7pm or earlier.

If you can spot 'the cat in the hat' then stop over and say Hello. GL


PS .. I see there's a PLO going at 7am today! Great news ..

If I show up at 7pm on a Fri or Sat night, how long do you think I’ll have to wait for a 2/5 seat?

By that time the list is usually 40+ deep for 1/3 and 2/5, so you'll be waiting a couple hours at least. PLO list is hardly ever any longer than 20 or so at the busiest times so closer to an hour wait.

I waited a lot longer last night for PLO than I did for NL despite being 50th on the NL list and 20th on the PLO list, waaaaaaaay fewer tables and also the PLO players seem to just stay put a lot more.

Brutal, Chicago poker is pretty garbage these days

Brutal ? The guy literally asked waiting times for absolute busiest time of the week. Just few hours early and waiting time is 30 minutes or less .

Have you played in other places in the US? Those wait times are worse than pretty much any casinos I’ve played at during a normal weekend. It’s unfortunate there’s not enough poker tables available in Chicagoland to keep up with the demand.

Grand Vic, Hollywood and Horseshoe are in Chicagoland no waiting times there . No solution for now at Rivers they running all 22 tables in the weekend . I've seen longer list in Vegas in the week end and other casinos especially during big tournaments series . Like I said just go few hours early and waiting time is decent . Today I was there at 1pm , wait 10 minutes .

I think the supply of poker tables in use should be enough to make some of the players come to the table pre-tilted by the wait but not so few that too many decide to go home rather than wait.

If you gotta wait 1.5 hrs or more during prime time, most donks are gonna do something else. Some drunk guy wants to sit down and spew? I bet he’s going to the pit.

Plus the lines at the cashier are terrible. People don’t want to deal with this bs.

Our table needed whites and someone had to give the brush $100 and then he had to go stand in the obnoxiously long line at the cashier. What a clown show.

I can’t wait to get back to Florida.

20 minutes further down 90 at GVC you'd have a 10 minute wait tops.

Just a fact, dont get mad at the messenger!

GVC opened their new room and it is pretty great

You must drive fast! But I did not know GVC had a new room, I might have to swing by, thanks

Stopped at Rivers to check out their new poker room for the first time. Nice room. I asked someone behind the poker room desk when they plan on having daily tournaments and the guy said "maybe in 14 months." Wtf. As a tournament-only player, Rivers got nothing for me. I'll be sticking with Horseshoe and mayyybe make an occasional trip to GVC.

First visit complete and came away very satisfied with this room. My schedule allowed me to basically walk in and play both Thursday at 1pm and Friday at 10am while my longest wait was Sunday morning at 930am when the room was a little thin on games even though the Packers were playing already in London. I played 2/5 NL each Thur/Sun for less than 30 minutes while waiting for a 1/2 PLO and walked right into a PLO seat Friday morning. I played one 1/3 NL hand from the B before moving to 2/5 NL on Sunday.

Here's a few talking points ..
1) The days of posting for your first hand are long gone .. not here.
2) A very high percentage of the Dealers are above average for the industry .. and the rookies are upfront and have a great attitude about their weaknesses.

3) The odd procedure of having a Player 'buy' the whites to replenish the tray went a lot smoother than I anticipated. Most of the transactions I saw didn't even take chips off the table as Players pulled a black from their pocket to facilitate the exchange.
4) Floors were very responsive to both verbal and 'button' calls to the table and it appeared that resolutions were quick and without dispute.

5) Floors/Dealers were 'on top' of open seats/table changes using Bravo to it's full extent, even calling out non-responsive Players over the PA to keep things moving. It seemed that there was a good flow of Player turnover during my sessions, but that could've been a time-of-day thing too. The exception was the existing 1/2 PLO table Sunday morning had zero open seats for two hours! When there finally was a seat they wouldn't let any of us from the 2nd game move over since we were already playing short.
6) We did ask for and immediately received a reduced rake .. actually the Dealer asked for it, awesome to be proactive about it.

7) Tips are pooled among all poker Dealers 'only' (not pits too). Certainly pros/cons to this, but that's not for this exact post!
8) Access to the poker room from the 3rd level of the parking garage couldn't be easier.

9) While I think drink service waned past midnight Thursday night, it had above average coverage/speed compared to most rooms .. which is necessary since there are no beverage stations in this casino that I saw AND there's no food/drink areas on the 2nd Floor of the casino. (Although a quick trip down the escalator puts you at a quick service location) Water/non-alcoholic drinks are no charge .. I did have a Bloody Mary for $9.
10) Everyone is put through a decently sensitive metal detector before entering.

11) The time rake for the 5/5 PLO game was $22/hour, payable every 30 minutes .. almost $200/hour if full ring. This seemed high to me, but the game was full, there may be 'market' considerations and we are in a post-CV mindset of casino management.
12) Standard rake is $6 and there was a promo drop in the NL games. The BBJ was over 100k and they had $200 high hands running Thur-Sat.

While my intentions were to play mostly 5/5 PLO I didn't 'need' to, so to speak. I found the 1/2 PLO game game offered plenty of what I was looking for so I just settled in and played my game. Obv it does help that I was running good so the motivation to play bigger wasn't really there. There were times when the PF/Flop action was in gamble/bingo mode, but for the most part all the Players were 'good doobies' and were attempting to play as well as they could with the holding they had.

I stayed one night in the Courtyard by Marriot and they did give me a 'casino' rate. You will have to walk in for that rate since it is a local thing and not available via phone/online reservations. So although the rate is there without question (just show your Player's card) they still have to have rooms available so make sure you lock up a room before it gets too late in the day/night.

Certainly my schedule helped vastly reduce my wait time. I don't play slots/pits so that would've been painful to wait over an hour, which I'm not used to at any of the rooms I play. I think we should appreciate the opportunity given this staff to have this room. Competition will thin the Player pool and the last thing a casino wants is dead space that was geared towards a short term demand.

I was 3 for 3 in my sessions, but I feel that my observations aren't swayed by the run-good I experienced. GL

Lol

How much was it? May go there on a weekday soon if I can figure out when 50/100 HORSE is spread (or whatever mixed games they run)

I think the 50/100 HORSE runs on Thursday/Sunday, but not completely sure.

This may give you some idea of the casino rate.

https://www.riverscasino.com/desplai...-chicago-ohare

Looking for tonight, it says from 215/night for the standard rate and from 164/night for the Rush Rewards members rate when you click the link to book now.

Nice link .. looks like there's 6 hotels that may have a 'casino' rate. The Courtyard property is adjacent to the casino to the north .. I'm not sure why they tout free parking but all you really have to do is move your car around the Rivers parking ramp and it's less than 50 yards or so to walk.

I did pay less than 164 for a Thursday night, but it was more than the 95-100 that the Floor quoted me it would be. So who knows .. hotels and airfare are all over the map these days. Maybe there's a late night (1am) walk up we're happy to see you rate.

I seriously think that they 'track' your IP address and adjust the rates somehow each time you visit, especially when it comes to airlines. I'm not normally a conspiracy guy, but my wife and I tried it one time and I got a lower price on a flight she was looking at when I used a work computer to check it out. GL

Confirmed Thursday and Sunday for 50/100 HORSE.

Thanks for the info on hotel rates.