There's no real shot of legislation changing the NL rules or brining online poker is there?

https://wsgc.wa.gov/
They have public meetings at the gaming commission. I'm sure if people bothered to attend and voice support for the changes it could happen. Or if anyone organized an email campaign, there's a link for that too.
The link to public meetings gives me a 'page not found' right now.

Here you go: https://www.wsgc.wa.gov/about-us/pub...eeting-archive

The website isn’t the most functional.

FWIW, a lot of previous “half” attempts have been made to increase the betting limit, but it’s almost always the same silly approach rehashed.

It might actually work if real effort is put in.

OK, time for some semi-Devil's advocate...

Who are these folks willing to go out and play live poker, but only if they can bet or raise more than $300? I don't recall it being much of an issue at the $1-3 level. At $2-5 it's more of an issue, I'm sure, but those aren't really entry level stakes. In any case, it's hard to imagine recreational players who would go out to live poker, but only for a "true NL game."

IME the people most bothered by the bet cap are those who feel it interferes with their winrate. Obviously bringing in more pros isn't the solution to make poker grow in Seattle, though. If anything, the experience of CA is that severe buyin caps help keep a small-stakes player pool solvent; seems like if anything, a bet cap would have the same effect.

Anyway, just curious what conversations y'all have had with people staying home because of the bet cap.

No doubt a good thing but also doesn't seem like the silver bullet. I do recall times when the Dragon and Fortune seemed maxed out. I can't recall if anyone perceived this as leaving significant unmet demand or hampering growth. (When the Dragon seated me upstairs on a Friday night, it was a pain, but still took less than half an hour to get seated. And none of that excess demand was enough to save the Hideaway.)

I'm curious what all has changed in the 3 years since I was there, specifically the link between those two points and the desired outcome of a poker renaissance.

Great posts. So, poker wasn’t really a draw but all the tribals think sports betting will drive up traffic.

That makes sense about quest because they literally have a self branded chucky cheese type place there that is always empty. Would be interesting to see what the poker room makes in a year though.

I wrote bunch of stuffs then realized that it's completely moot arguing with someone who's not even part of the players pool in Seattle.

Poker in Seattle sucks, plain and simple. Can it be better? Yes I think so.

What can we do to make it better? I offered two simple changes.

If you are not adding to the discussion by providing anything that might make the game better...why are you posting?

I have been following the meetings just a little bit, so I might be a bit off. Here is a link for those who are more interested: https://www.wsgc.wa.gov/sites/defaul...n%20Packet.pdf

Biggest difference between sports betting and poker is the fact that sports betting doesn't require much real estate within the casino: Though bettors must be on tribal casino premises in order to make the bet, they can do so on their phone and be anywhere within the casino.

Basically they can lose money multiple ways while sports gambling and not require more than a handful of staff to actively manage the action.

Plus sports gambling has a bright future, especially including esports, whereas poker is...far more limited.

Not moot at all. (1) I've played there quite a bit (2) might move back sometime (3) am interested in the discussion because it applies a lot of other places too e.g. Arizona, Minnesota.

I'm open to being convinced. Maybe there really is evidence of a player base so put off by the max bets who will start growing the game if the max is rescinded. Great!

Obv you don't have to justify your opinions to anyone, but IMO evidence-based discussions are the most valuable kind, even if it's just that you know three whales who hate the $300 max so much that they fly to Vegas instead.

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"providing anything that might make the game better"

OK. I tend to separate my personal preferences from those of "serious players" like the population of 2p2, and yet again from those of casual players who add most of the dead money in games. It should be self-evident it's the last group who matter to sustainable, profitable games.

I'll advocate for the opposite of "proper NLHE" because proper, deep stacked NLHE is one of the surest ways for donors to get their asses handed to them. The sharps' edges in PLO are probably even bigger nowadays but the variance is huge and effective stacks end up tiny, so at least some of the donors get to have a few good nights in a row.

However, almost 20 years on, televised NLHE tournaments are probably still the top driver of new players. (Late rounds of a tournament aren't "proper NLHE" either, of course.)

Ultra-short-stack games like in LA small stakes are probably the best kind of NLHE for sustainability but you can't put that toothpaste back in the tube without pissing off a large portion of your player base. Still, if market research were to show a bunch of "poker curious" who want to blow $300 on entertainment and are scared of being bullied by $1000 stacks -- even if that's a silly notion -- I'd say they should be accommodated to.

----

So, what's the most constructive suggestion I can offer?

Do the research. (I'm sure management already has.) Focus on bad players. The rest will follow. I'll learn Cincinnati and Follow the Queen if that's what bad players want to play. So knowledge is power.

You can be a little paternalistic to keep the donors solvent, but then keep doing the research to see if those new players who you've nudged to less destructive games can come back. (Yes, I do hope fixed-limit or spread-limit games come back, and I hope for more non-HE. Those are personal preferences, but the former is also a principled one. However no market research is going to show that new players want to play limit games, and you need to cater to what they want enough to get them in the door.)

But the law gives you crazy latitude in using the promotional fund (see Snoqualmie!) so use that as your carrot to build more beginner-friendly games, whatever you judge that to be.

Key concept: It's not the room's job to direct the sheep to get slaughtered, even if they want to be. But either way, you'd better do the research and understand your market.

AKQJT is completely right. Seattle is completely wrong. 15yrs ago the max bet in all non-tribal rooms was $40(!!) and players still came out to play then. To think there’s players sitting at home and not going out to play because they can only bet a max of $300 in any given action is one the most galaxy brained things I’ve ever heard.

Overall I’d say the poker ecosystem in Seattle is pretty good compared to almost every city on the west coast( except for L.A, Vegas, Calgary, and possibly Phoenix. All 3 rooms in the area are packed on the weekends and you can find at least one 1-3 game going 24/7. Fortune is one of the most well run poker rooms in the country, and the action at Red Dragon is almost always good.

Ya what am I saying. Poker in Seattle is awesome.

Don’t change anything.

No one is saying that. I agree with Yuliial that it's pretty good in Seattle compared to many other parts of the US.

I'd add the Bay Area to Yuliial's list too. But the Pacific TZ punches vastly above its weight in poker. Seattle is much better for poker than several bigger non-Western metros: Detroit, Boston, Atlanta, DC, Chicago. I'd include the Texas metros too but I don't know how regulated or how player-friendly those newer clubs are.

LOL.

Portland > Seattle.

Sacramento > Seattle.

San Jose/SF > Seattle.

But what am I saying? Seattle #1! Don't change anything. Watch how it went from 5 card rooms on Hwy 99 to 1.

3 tribals to none.

Not to mention countless other little rooms that no longer exist.

But hey, we got Red Dragon and Fortune!!! Everything is awesome!

Gonna bow out of this "discussion" before I get any dumber.

Not to be argumentative, I'm legit interested in this one because I visit that area 1-2x/yr to see the in-laws.

• I like Capitol quite a bit actually but it's in a rather bad part of town. Games are very good, including 6/12 or 8/16 Omaha 8 which is a hard stakes to find. 2-5 NL was very juicy when I played it.
• Stones is apparently still in business, so if a room that enables cheaters is your thing, there you go. Nice looking room at least.
• Graton (45 min away) and Thunder Valley (over an hour) look like your typical casino poker rooms with a few NL tables, a 4/8 limit or something, looks like Graton has one PLO game.
• Cache Creek (about an hour away) had one table on a weekday the one time I visited. Looks like it hasn't restarted or has no games going at 21:00 PDT on a Wed.

I guess variety of rooms within 90 minutes is greater, with the number and variety of games about the same. And you can be to the East Bay in not much more than an hour, from the west side, or Reno in two hours from the east. Just curious what you consider Sacramento poker's strong points.

The card casino nearby (not next door) is actually Silver Dollar. There are two other Fortune Casinos (no poker) but they are farther away.

The new Maverick promotions are so laughable that I don’t even know where to begin.

$1,000 daily free roll from Monday to Thursday, free entry to first 24 players registered.

And they do that at the expense of high hand and Monte Carlo board.

This is why any recommendation of operational changes is moot. Given the opportunity, rooms will simply try to run themselves into the ground.

Do you think this is going to hurt the player base and/or quality of the games? I am ok if just all the 4/8 limit players move to fortune but anything more could be bad.

It looks like they sort of copied Commerce/CA room promos (two jackpots etc), which is whatever. Under the old promos I felt like players had a good deal compared to rake and now players are getting the worst of it. I don't care about the monte carlo board and the rest but I also live a couple minutes from Caribbean, so unless something drastic happens, I will keep playing 15 hours a week there.

For weekend players - not much changed.

Just think of it this way, a lot of JP money is going to tourney-only players. So if you’re not a tourney player…

For the HH, players are at least paying into the drop to qualify. For these $1000 daily free rolls, you just need to be one of the first 24 to show up.

Not to mention there is a $2500 monthly freeroll and guaranteed money going into the daily $50 tourney. For example, there were maybe 25 players today, but the guarantee is $2500.

Pretty awesome if you are these donkament grinders. Not so much for everyone else.

Actually I was told that there were roughly $800 collected today.

Which means Maverick gave away $2,700 worth of jackpot money without taking in a single dollar in these two tournaments. If you are a hold’em player paying into the drop, you should be outraged.

Huh? Portland has just a few semi-legal casinos which spread only tournaments and psuedo-cash game tournaments, sometimes they players have to deal themselves (because that's what the law actually says) plus whenever the police get bored some place (or all of them) will get shut down for awhile, because none of the clubs are actually following the laws completely.

That's better than the Seattle area, which has several actual fully legal full-service cardrooms?

What room is having these "Maverick promotions"? Those do sound outrageous, and I can't even imagine how they're particularly good for the house. Seems like people would just be coming in for the freerolls and then leaving after they're over.

That's like saying Seattle > Texas.

Portland is running its cash game exactly like a cash game - no silly bet & 3-raises cap, true NL, and it can go non-stop without having the option to cash out every 60 minutes.

Until it is actually shut down, Portland > Seattle by a mile.

Mavericks new tournament thing is cool and all but the tournaments need more chips and the monthly needs to be a larger buy in. No one wants to play a 200$ monthly plus rake with 15k chips starting 50-100. They should up the daily to 20k, the weekly to 30k, and the monthly to 40k. Make it a 150$ weekly and a 350$ monthly tournament. The structure sheet doesn’t say they are doing antes..they might have left it out idk. It also doesn’t mention rebuy/re-entry which is great, and another reason why the tournaments need more chips. I get they want the daily’s to end quick but the weekly and monthly come on..

I suppose I get why they’re doing this. They’re trying to build an entry into top of funnel to get new players into this game.

Not sure how it will work out but it’ll be interesting.

I will say though, there are a lot of kinks to be worked out…for example, coloring up after 1st level is just too funny.