I'm a local, and have played at Hard Rock Hollywood since they opened, when the poker room was inside the main casino.

Wanting to make room for table games, they relocated it to a restaurant that "lost it's lease". Hence the bathroom situation with the funny sink. If you exit the poker room, there are nicer bathroom facilities just outside the main casino entrance on the left, or inside the food court on the right. I make the walk rather than use the poker room facilities.

The poker manager, Peter xxxx ( I forget his least name) is not longer there. A new poker room manager is being searched for, and in the interim (about a month now), Larry Frank (General Manager Gaming) is overseeing the room.

The quality of dealers, brush, and floor is mediocre. Lot's of room for improvement, but probably not going to happen. The Hard Rock is strictly profit oriented, and your complaints will fall on deaf ears unless it actually costs the Hard Rock money.

They think they are a world unto themselves, unwilling or unable to build games, and retain players. I've been playing elsewhere more often and stopped frequently the HR, except when I have free slot play or food through a mailer, or a poker promotion that interests me.

ALL the room are competing with daily poker room promotions, Aces Cracked, High Hand, etc.

Someone commented about the WPT. It will not be well run at the Hard Rock. And the fact that they rake 10%, rounded UP from $6.00, and taken in dollars, plus their $2.00 jackpot drop makes lower limit games excessively expensive and difficult if not impossible to beat.

Unless you hit a mega bad beat jackpot.

+1
I couldn't agree with this more, HR sux for poker nowadays and I have given up on playing there completely. While other poker rooms are listening to what us players want and are continuing to improve the poker experience in south florida the HR just continues to screw things up and push players elsewhere.

has anyone played in the satellite for the WPT this Nov yet, they had one a 6pm Wed and another Thurs at 11am, $50 rebuys, every $530 in the pool gives one ticket to the $530 satellite on the weekends. this WPT is a $5000 entry not on TV but there is another coming this spring that will be on TV.

I was going to just play the $530 satelite on November 6th, but curious also if anyone plays the $50+R and if it's worth our time to bother with that, not sure how structure will be etc.

I didn't make it either but they have it again on Tue a 6pm the Thurs at 11 am. I might try it but I really hate rebuys for satellites

that 2 dollar jackpot really killed me when I heard they were doing that, plus now the other rooms are starting to copy.. great.

The Israeli clan killed the room with their collusion and management did nothing to stop it. It really was disgusting to witness if you were at a table with them just blatant cheating. It has to be the worst run poker room I have ever seen. I'll would drive an extra 20 minutes to play at Isles

do they offer free liquor while playing at this location? i heard they did

Hell No. I think Dania has some kind of deal(I read about, never been there).
Gulfstream gives free alcohol after Midnight I believe(check with them to make sure)

my buddy down there just told me if you are physically gambling they have free drinks but they take forever (15 min ) he said to get the drink.

You get free alcohol at both Hard Rocks, only if your playing $100 min. tables or higher BJ or other table games.

Examples of blatant cheating ?

Peoples names ?

Well, there was a group of the Israelis who had table '48 set up just for them, and they all sat on the north side of it just sorta doing their thing. Then around '6/7 there was a week or so (six days?) where there was a fight between them and a table to the south. Eventually they took over the table to the south as well, and part of a table over on the East side of the room (by the wall).

It's been an ongoing fight ever since as to who controls the room.

How is that cheating? Cheating would be if they were singling, soft playing, squeezing players out, showing the cards to each other when hand is still going on.
Now these all happen there but what you say is just being a DB.

Most players there don't know the rules, most dealers there are tired of arguing with them and the floor is just there to pick up a check. Now with the $2 drop for the BB it is even drawing in a lower limit crowd that plays straight 2 for the BB and high hands.
Also I like how they removed one of the Big Screen TV's instead of fixing it.
The place is a dump, will always be a dump and they don't care because it is not even close to a main source of income for them. They could crush all the local casinos if they were not so greedy, they pay no taxes on the poker room like the local casinos do, so they could give more promotions and still drop the rake to $4 and have a higher profit then the rest. Plus it would fill the room, so in turn it would be busier.

Damn sons of Abraham...

Next your going to tell me table 48's name is going to switch to the gaza strip or west bank....

Ahhh....someone got it. Thought maybe I was being too much of a smartass/pretentious a**hole for my own good.

lol. The only problem is when your all in and they check it down. But when I was there (in the 100 buy in days). I never saw them showing cards. I know they will give each other a kick sometimes if they have a strong preflop hand which can make you lose out.

Cubans, Haitians, Israelis all run the joint.....its the worst place to play anything.....including tournaments......the floor mgmt are arrogant snots, the dealers are chicken **** and they get treated like garbage. They pay them more because they cannot keep anyone.

When I play blackjack in higher stakes, they won't even fan the decks....they are brought down from "upstairs" pre-mixed.....and if you ask to see the decks, they refuse....they are accountable to nobody, and the commission is seminole......the fox is guarding the hen house.

I have won a lot of money counting cards from them, and I won't be giving any of it back to them, ever.

The poker room is the worst in the state, but so are the patrons, dealers, management.

They treat players like crap, and I am amazed that the WPT has put their eggs in their basket......then again the WPT is on the balls of its arse anyway.

When Harrahs comes to Florida, the real "game" will be ON.

So again the bLatant cheating ?

Lol

I read this entire thread from the start, and I hope I get in everything I want to say. Thanks for the info and keep updating the thread.

I got 4th in a $100 tourney 3-4 years ago for $1k. It was a good experience since it is still my largest live cash to date (not that I have played any live tournaments for more than $60 since).

Thanks for mentioning the change of venue for the poker room on the property. I went back there last spring and was confused as ****.

I have been to the Isle much more since when I'm in FL, I'm visiting my dad who lives in Lauderdale by the Sea.

I don't know how you Floridians did it for all these years because the $100 cap was stupid. $2/$5NL was OK, but there shouldn't even have been a $5/$10NL game in Florida casinos.

About the WPT: I'll be 21 in Dec, so it won't personally affect me, but I know this is going to be a question. Will this be the first US based WPT event to allow 18+ to play? I can't see why the WPT would have an issue with this.

Finally, are black chips in play now in FL rooms? What about higher denomination chips for the occasional $25/$50NL game?

if you have any question as to if there was blatant cheating in the 500/1k sngs ask somebody in the room to point out to you somebody that played them.

inquire from sng player about the cheating and there's a 75% chance that person will admit to cheating and give specific details since the sngs don't go off anymore.

I disagree. The 5/10NL game with $100 buy-in was easy and very beatable. I averaged over $40/hour over the course of around 200 sessions.

A 10BB game with re-buys is beatable when playing vs. people that have no concept of how to play a short-stack. Plus, usually multiple stacks would grow to over 2k during a session--So now you have inexperienced players playing deep. It was the best of both worlds. Even better, was that most of the skilled "2+2" type players stayed away because "5/10NL with 10 bb's is ridiculous and not beatable". I think someone even wrote an article about it in a major poker magazine. The title was something like, "Anyone who plays 5/10NL with 10 BB's is a donkey".

Granted, my hourly at 5/10+ has significantly increased now that we can play deeper, but it was always a pretty easy, low stress game. Pre-July, It was rare for me to lose over $1000. I think I hit my maximum one session downswing ($1500) only twice in almost two years. Yet, I had multiple winning sessions over $1500.

I win more now, but my swings are much larger.

I played these ... Usually people would soft play each other and it was bad for both of them

yeaaa they cheated, but didn't do so well. it was obvious, and i'm not even sure it gave many of them an advantage.

still gave the recreational losers something "credible" to blame their losing on, which was actually tangible and gave them reason not come back.

Update: You can now buy in for up to $200 at $1-2 NLHE tables there now. This was changed a few days ago, the max buy-in used to be $100.