Woot! First the improved buyin structures, now this...awesome! Now we just need to get no flop no drop and I won't have anything left to complain about

Pretty funny. And true.

Always seemed strange to me that if, for example, the player in seat 2 was way too far over, seat 3 would rarely complain. But if seat 5 is 0.0001 inch past the center...seat 6 has a conniption.

In any event, 9 handed will be materially better - both in terms of comfort and play. Good change.

Last time I was there, the dealer mentioned that the buy-in for the 2/5 was under review and may be lowered. Scott - please tell me that isn't actually happening.

I do not see reduced rake coming anytime soon at the THR. As for my comment,i will just wait to see how things play out.

9 handed is a great change. Can't wait for the next big surprise that my crack team of insiders has informed me is coming soon. And this crack team has been very reliable in the past, despite all the crack.

Why is everyone so gung ho about the change to 9-handed? If a couple of people take smoke breaks or slot machine breaks, you are playing 6 or 7 handed. Is that perceived as a good thing? Hopefully Omaha 8 stays 10-handed as a split-pot game played 6 or 7 handed would really suck. I don't see this as a player-friendly decision or as desirable, but as a cynical profit squeeze that may or may not work. Why not make the tables 8-handed or 7-handed if short handed play is such a good thing? Is that the next big surprise machi5? Bad decision, Tom. You've made a bunch of other good ones otherwise, though.

Yes, 8 handed would be better. 7 would be even better than that. Etc.

Actually, 5 handed is ideal poker and what better players should want to play. Everyone has to play more hands, which means everyone has to make more decisions, which means the "better" players will win more.

From the player's perspective, it's a balancing game between wanting to take all the idiots' money quickly before someone else does (the one extreme of playing head's up), vs. making it more even or where luck plays a bigger roll (the other "extreme" of play 10 handed) so that the average/less experienced player has a chance and so will start playing and keep playing.

HR is also obviously trying to balance between more players, but also making the game enjoyable for the regs (most of whom would probably rather play 9 handed both for comfort and for the reasons above). Plus, all things being equal, they will have 10% more tables open, so more rake for them.

There is presumably a disproportionate rate of skilled player on Twoplustwo verus the general public so what is good for twoplustwo posters is not necessarily what is good for the majority. If you assume about 5% of players at the HR end the year with a profit (that’s probably a generous assumption) then 95% of players are not very skilled and would benefit from a table size that favors bad players. That is why I think reducing the table size to 9-players hurts most players and benefits only a few. HR will get more rake and that’s why the decision was made, not to accomodate players. It is an anti-player decision unless the argument is that most losing players are so obtuse they would rather have 10% more room and pay for the comfort with increased losses.

1) The 95% of players you refer to have absolutely no idea that they are at more of a disadvantage against good players playing 9 handed vs. 10. Therefore, they won't care.

2) What rooms are you playing in that are 10 handed? 9 is the standard in the vast majority of casinos/tracks/card rooms everywhere. You want THR to be run more like a "real" casino? This is another step in that direction.

No Flop No Drop would be great. I would like to see the daily blind structure tournaments add a 250/500 level and the Friday 10k move to a 15k Guarantee with maybe a 250+25+10 buy in.

Scott- could you put a link on the website to the high hand promo hours please?

I'd suggest having one banner titled Promotions where you could put links to current/future promos like high hands. That would be the logical place for the link to the progressive info that currently is under the monthly tournaments banner.

Then combine the two existing tourney banners (current and upcoming) into a single Tournaments banner, and have separate links for Monthly Tournaments and any Upcoming Tournaments (like the next WPT)

It's really important to get the promo details on the website, so people can see them.

I'm in town for the holidays, is the 1/1 even worth playing? Or is the rake completely unbeatable. Last time I was here there was 1/2 and 1/3 and the 1/2 was only 100 max.

I haven't actually played it, but I would suspect that the 1/1 would be sort of similar to the $100 cap 1/2, i.e. filled with very small buy ins and people chasing the jackpot. I have played the 1/2 with the 300 max buy in recently a few times, and it's a lot better than the old capped 1/2. Of course it always depends on what table you get, but I've been at tables where 2-3 people have 500+ stacks, several have around 2-300 and then the rest are 100 or less. And there has been a lot of action.

I was actually surprised at how many 150+ pots there were. It seemed like everyone would limp 2, button would raise to 20, and 7 people called. But I don't have enough sample size to know if that's typical now or not.

GL

I was playing PLO and it goes from 9 handed to 4 handed. The players requested time rake and the supervisor comes over and claims that once a table starts as regular rake it cannot be changed for another 24 hours.

Is this new or what?

Never heard this before. Players have always been given the option of paying time in the many instances it's come up in my experience. I'd ask for another supervisor to confirm that.

Scott,

Is there any consideration to dropping the bad beat to any quads beaten?

Thanks

Just play 1/2,buy in 60 min/ 300 max. Plenty of table selection.

Horseshoe Tunica is a 10 handed room.

The 1/1 is so soft as to be comical. The bad side is, the guy who wants to gambool it up isn't sitting there. But if your game is good at playing against loose-passives and nits, the 1/1 is very easy.

The 1/2 is mostly pretty soft as well, so it's not like there is a huge difference in the game, but don't let anybody stop you from playing 1/1 thinking it's unbeatable.

Re: 9 handed.

Not sure I like the move. When the table drops to 8 or less you can feel the anxiety building in the bad players starting to show. That plus the complete non enforcement (or lack of) 3rd man walking rule means too many really short handed tables too often.

It's a lack of enforcement. They enforced it for a few weeks a while back and then slowly stopped again. Fixing old habits needs regular reinforcement.

Played on a 9 handed table a couple of nights ago, and must say I liked it. First, just having some room to spread out was nice. Even the dealers liked it as they weren't crammed by the 1 and 10 seat like before.

As to the game play, didn't notice any difference. Might have even been a little more aggro, but that could have just been the particular players involved. Early in the morning (around 3am on Friday morning) we got down to 6 handed and asked to see how many seats there were. There were just 2, so we just kept playing. But it didn't turn into a chop fest at all, and lots of action. Later when it got down to 5, we broke with 4 seats open and 1 guy went on list.

I think it's a good decision. One guy said the reason for the change was to make room for new chairs that are supposedly on the way. But that's just a rumor at this point. But I hope it's true!

I think that would be a great move. When they first switched from the spade royal to the BBJ, it was any quads get hit. And it wasn't like it was getting hit every week or so. It would still go months sometimes without getting hit. And since it only takes about 2 weeks to go from the initial 5k to the 50k cap, it's not like the big number won't be there to attract people, and there will be plenty of days where it is capped at 50k and generating money to cover the other promos.

But anytime people are winning money more often, the better vibe it builds. Someone winning the BBJ at anywhere from 5k to 50k say on average every 6 weeks vs every 5 months will build a lot more excitement.

It only became quad 10s when we combined with the HHR and were starting at 100k. But that's long gone now, and it's time to readjust it back to a more attainable, yet still very difficult level of any quads.

I would also like to see the Bad Beat Jacpot breakdown change to 40/20/40. At 50k,this would give 20k to the losing hand,10k to the winning hand and almost 3k for the table share 9 handed. It follows along the line of spreading the money around.

Personally, I like the new breakdown of 50/30/20. I just feel like someone who either gets the quads or beats the quads should get the vast bulk of the jackpot. I'm not that concerned about the guy who folds preflop out of turn because he wants to go to the bathroom, runs off, then comes back to find out he wins a big junk of the jackpot. IMO, the two who actually get the two huge hands should get most of it (currently 80%) with a little (20% spread around to the rest of the table.

That is not something we are currently considering.