Quote:
Originally Posted by steve420wa
anybody else?
Just to be clear, I want the new room succeed. I believe the poker room manager + staff do as well. It appears that upper management does not care if the room dies a horrible death.
The good (compared to the "old" temporary room in club galaxy):
-No smoke
-Better lighting
-Much closer bathrooms
-Once again there's a poker room cage/cashier just for poker players
-new felts
-new shuffle machines
-new chairs
Opening week blunders:
-they planned the new room for months and it was supposed to open January 4th. On the 4th they pushed it back to the 7th. When it finally opened on the 7th they only had 12 of the 18 tables setup. The wait lists were 50-60 people deep. They were totally unprepared. I think many people waited for hours, gave up and vowed to not return. They didn't have all 18 tables up and running until probably the 4th day after the room opened. The food in the first few days wasn't even edible. Staff blamed it on "growing pains" but the casino has been serving food for 20+ years so I'm not sure how that could be an issue. Since the hot seat drawings ended after the first week traffic in the room has fallen off sharply. The promised "direct" walkway from valet to the poker room never materialized. They cut a hole in the concrete wall for it, but later boarded it up.
The bad:
-The very old room went from 33 tables to 32 tables then to 19 tables in club galaxy and now to 18 tables. This is not a good trend.
-The food menu is even
worse than it was before. It's absolutely terrible. My best advice is eat before you leave home or stop somewhere on your way to the casino to avoid disappointment.
-Soda choices are down to just a handful and they always come at room temperature and in a can. Don't try bringing in your own can of soda from home though or face the wrath of the security guards posted outside the door to the poker room.
-Alcohol choices are down to just a handful of beer in bottles or cans. It takes an act of congress to get any other alcohol. I quite literally saw a food service
manager berate a patron for having the nerve to ask for a glass of wine during the first week the new room was open.
-You can't bring food or alcohol into the poker room from the casino yourself because you have to exit the main casino and re enter the poker room. Security will either complain when you are leaving the casino or when you are entering the poker room.
-Only 1 table has USB chargers. There's often a row of phones along the wall being charged. I would imagine players would prefer working USB chargers over new felts/layouts. Staff says the other tables will get USB chargers
eventually.
-The location of the room is terrible. It's completely separated from the rest of the casino. It's as if management views poker as the red-headed stepchild of the casino. Unless you know where it's located you are unlikely to find it. There is
zero walk in foot traffic at the new location. It's a maze to get there. They had to erect a bunch of signs to keep people from getting lost in the bowels of the casino back office.
-The room feels like you are at a convention waiting for someone to take the mic and welcome you to a real estate seminar. It's like a drab office building but without windows.
-the employee "break room" is quite literally the broom closet at the end of the hall. Management was nice enough to give the dealers a couple chairs to sit on in the hallway during their breaks.
-all payouts now require heaps of paperwork and lots of patience. This is true for both high hands and the pay for play. Payouts have slowed to a crawl. They require your ID for everything. It appears they are filling out and requiring you to sign W2Gs every time there's a payout. I would not be the least bit surprised if poker players will now get some combination of 1099s and/or W2Gs at the end of the year so they can pay taxes on their own jackpot rake.
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they have now reduced the high hand promotion from $200 every 20 minutes to $200 every 30 minutes. I guess paying $600 per hour was too much so now it's $400 per hour.
At this point there are usually one or more 4/8 limit games going and one or more 1/3 games going. That's it. 3/6 limit is going sometimes but not always. 3/5 spread does not go every day. The 5/10 spread only fires on Mondays at this point. It's mostly a combination of 4/8 limit and 1/3 spread limit at slower times of the day.
My guess is upper management would be happy to close the poker room, fire the staff, and bring in another 100 or so slot machines to make more efficient use of the space. It's pretty frustrating.
