We changed it to potato salad!

Alright, we have updated the chip rule a couple times since we have opened. Originally, just deal the player in. Then it was, give the lammer to your neighbor for chips until the chip runner comes back. I apologize for changing it again but we need to find what works the best. Which I'm sure you all understand. All the lammers are for is to represent how much money is coming back. The above example is precisely why we have decided, that if you do not have chips you are not dealt in. You can not exchange lammers for chips from another player. You must just wait for your chips. I know it could cause someone who just busted out to wait a few hands but I think it will be much less confusing in the long run. The other option is to go to the cage to buy more chips. Some ask why the dealer just can't sell. They can, but we don't want more than the $500 in the rack. So the only time they can really sell is in a 1-2 game when the player is re-buying up to $200. As many of you know, from the other casinos it takes a long time for some dealers to count lots of cash and to do table fills.

The dealers, chip runners and floor have all been informed of this rule. So if you see a dealer not doing it correctly please come see myself or a supervisor and let us know.

It is calculated daily. When I said a couple thousand I just shot that out there. I should not have said anything because I have not seen the numbers yet. I see you spent alot of time doing them and I hope it is as high as you are calculating, because the promotions can then be that much better. (We have 34 tables by the way).

All the money is accounted for by accounting. When we do a promotion I will post it here first thing. I think that's funny everyone keeps asking what the promotions are, as soon as I can tell everyone I will.... I know you want to know where your money is going...

The promotional dollar is not taken at the 5-10 NL and higher. So when we have a huge freeroll promotion they will not be eligible.

All of our limit games have kill pots and the dealers have been pre-shifted this for a week. I'm not sure what the deal is with this rule. When the supervisor opens the game it should be mentioned then.

The milk shake thing is new to me. I will find out.

Correct......

This system works pretty good when the buttons are pushed correctly. We just can't trust the dealers every time to just send a player back. So many times the supervisor will inform the front desk. One of the hardest things for the supervisor at the front podium is when they are trying to fill seats and someone comes up to them to get on the list, when the other person at the board is checking in. A new person coming into the room for the first time might not know this but they can see everyone else in line. That front podium is so big and inviting. So we are thinking of putting the person that has to fill seats in a different location. I tried using the funnel method with the ropes at the front podium to get players to stand in line and this has helped a little.

The latest I heard on the milkshakes is that they now simply do not have them... period! One of the cocktail waitresses (dominique?) said last night that they stopped making them because they were too labor intensive and too many people were ordering them, whether they were charging or not.

And it needs to be reiterated...

ALWAYS park at the pavilion. Its 10x better for poker players. Just pass the first parking deck entrance, and then take a left towards the valet, then right into the pavilion deck. That side entrance is great. It's also nice that JB's is much closer to the poker room now.

Yes, there surely is a problem with the phones. I, personally, stood waiting to be put on the list while one of the persons at the podium was on the phone trying to give someone directions of how to get to the Shoe from Majestic Star.

First of all, there could be an answering system installed that when you call in for a seat. - Press 1 for 1/2 game. Press 2 for 3/6 game etc. State your name when you press the one/two or 3/6 button etc. The room could offer the most popular games that are played(depending on what all 9 numbers on the phone would be used for). When you get to the casino you could always add yourself to one or two other games that are running or to an interest list. The person who is in charge of looking at the monitor and noticing when a seat is open could also monitor the call-ins and add them to the lists.

The people at the desk should not have to answer a bunch of insignificant questions to callers. As far as directions, use map quest or ask some friends how to get there. Or post your questions in a Forum. Someone will likely answer you on a Forum.

My observation of this room is there are enough people. But they each should be assigned to only one or two responsibilities. After a period of time they could rotate those responsibilites and eventually you will have well trained people.

Yes, there is a problem here. Last Friday, the list for 1-2NL was literally 100 deep...

...and my friend successfully got a rake reduction because his table had three empty seats.

100 players...

Sounds like 2 floor people should have started 8 tables and just grabbed folks.

"you, you, you and you come with me..."

How hard is that with the new comp system they just swip in at the table.

Unless we are saying there arent enough dealers?

Every table was open so not much we could do there.

There were many people standing around up front. When we went through the list we just called the top name and if they did not answer we went right to the next name. We are working on getting pagers to be used on weekends. These can help if someone wants to go play something else while they are waiting. But can also take longer to fill seats because you have to wait for everyone to show up, so we'll see.

Rarely will you see a rake reduction with a list. Especially when there are three seats the players let you know right away. When there are three seats with a list it is usually because they all opened at the same time.

The 2-5 PLO Is Were Its At. Two pair = the nutz right. Couple of nights ago they had a feeder table too. Hope it is a sign of whats coming. PLO>NLH

I played there last night for the first time.
I was really impressed with the decor of the room and the casino overall.
I got the phone number from here and called ahead so the wait was like 6 minutes once I got there.
I did not see many of the dealers from Majestic which made me a bit sad.
I had all newer dealers (except Roberto) and they were pretty sloooow and made a few errors -but they were nice about it. I guess they will get better as time goes on. Most all of Majestic's (old) floor people were running the show there ( Jeremy, Tracy , Matt, + Jose ).
The play was pretty good at my table. No real donks making huge plays with 10 2 offsuit !! My queens got cracked to trip 10's and that wiped me out. My fiancee' said the play at his table was terrible , terrible.
My one big complaint was about the parking garage. It took us like a half an hour to get out of there because people were leaving from the STP concert. I think maybe there should be a separate garage for just the Venue as people who want to gamble and gamble only may get a little aggravated about taking so long to leave !!!

OK. OK.

Most posts I have had in one thread...<insert small cheer here>

Besides the brief reply a few posts ago, any longer details/TRs on the 2/5 PLO table? Again, is this a split (hi/lo) game?

I am still deciding between 2/5 NL, 2/5 PLO or perhaps 5/10NL...so welcome more details on all.

38 hours from now, I am on a plane to Chicago so that makes about 41+ hours from now as a time marker when my butt got out of bed in Dallas and 802 flying miles later, the aforementioned butt will be sitting in a chair in Hammond playing poker.

To quote Phil Collins at Live Aid concert after playing at Wembley (London) and Philadelphia on same day....

"Funny world, ain't it?"

Will put description of myself again tomorrow night. Look for me on Sunday afternoon because I rarely get to get up North (did I mention it was 110 degrees here last week) and won't be back for another year or so.

So come and take my Texas money....

To give you some numbers, we have 120 some dealers. Around 35 of them came from Majestic, 30 or so from Resorts 20 from other expierenced places and around 40 out of class. So if you did not get many Majestic dealers you previously liked, you will, as they are spread out amoungst all the shifts.

Great room. I would like it to succeed in every way. Even though these comments seem negative - They are there to help this room become THE GREATEST POKER ROOM IN THE MIDWEST. There are many things that are distressing and an example of one of them is the following:

I have seen people come up to a table and ask if the seat is open and indeed, it is. However, there are 6 or 7 names on the list and no one is calling these names. So, a person (not on the list or at the bottom of the list seats himself). This happened twice at our Omaha game. One person, who did not even ask if the seat was open, sat down, was asked if he wanted to post and did so. He posted TWO DOLLARS and the game was 5/10 Omaha 8. The dealer did notice that he only posted $2 and told him the post was $5. He evidently did not hear the dealer and the dealer didn’t wait for the $5. When he got 4 cards, he was shocked and said “What game is this?” He threw in his cards and took his $2 back. This was allowed. He got up with his $2 and the rest of his money and left the table and started canvassing the room again for a seat. It was very obvious that he was never sent to the table.

I have seen in other poker rooms where the dealer calls out “Player In” and the board says we did not send anyone. Or the board says "Lock up a seat for John Doe" so the dealer is aware that a player is coming in.

The Pokertech tables here are the nutz. People play every hand for their buyin and 10-25bbs preflop is very, very common. PLEASE ADD A THIRD TABLE OMG PLZ.

Last night there was a $0.50/1PLO Pokertech for about an hour, and it was half-full with NLHE players who had never played PLO seriously. It featured one player who raised my 40bb bet to 80bbs on the river with queen high. Lol. I think he said "your hand is good" and I almost responded "no ****, Sherlock" but of course I said "oh, nice hand" and e-scooped. He would shortly UPS Ground his remaining stack, obvie.

An interesting situation happened at the $0.50/1NL Pokertech last night. My arch nemesis, Shaggy (a poster on 2+), sat down two to my right. Immediately we agreed to do some flop props to pass the time. A woman between us, let's call her Katrina (because she was a broke dike within minutes), objected to our game. She said "you won't be passing any chips over here" and she pointed to the part of the table right in front of her. I told Katrina that indeed, Shaggy and I would not pass any chips right in front of her, and out of respect for her, we would pass them in the middle of the table instead of over her e-poker screen.

She immediately throws a fit and loudly exclaims "NO YOU'RE NOT and I'm going to CALL THE FLOOR if you do." I tell her that I will switch seats with her so that Shaggy and I can be next to one another, but she also refuses this offer and reiterates her desire to call the floor. Shaggy immediately pipes up with "we're going to pass chips, lady" but I shook my head and we continued without prop bets.

I think Shaggy and I were completely right and that Katrina has no ground to ever regulate another player's cash table prop bets. I didn't want to call over the floor because they had just comped us at the noodle bar. Let me know if we were wrong, though.

See you all at the Pokertech tables tonight.

- Smokey

So you got a noodle bar comp? Man, I must look like a person that they can blow off comp requests from...

I have played at least 50 hours at the Pokertech this week and Shaggy has done about 20-30. I don't think this matters, though.

Some random guy only played for 5 hours and got a great comp, so they're comping nicely right now. The only problem is that sometimes slot attendants are in charge, and they don't give out comps like the regular Pokertech staff do. Ask next time and ye shall receive if the right people are in charge.

- Smokey

If you have a better suggestion please let me know.

This is how we do it. We have a supervisor in each section to help monitor this. If someone sits down at a table and the supervisor has not told the dealer that they were coming in they are to noify the supervisor that someone has just sat down. I'm not sure what time you were there last night but I even announced this in the room a couple of times last night that the dealer must notify a supervisor because we caught a few people trying to doing this last night.

I was told by the noodle bar Manager that only players playing in the Asian room could receive noodle bar comps. hmmmmm...

I would love to give these out to poker players...

Shaggy and I could not believe it either. Last time I got a comp for like $5 off at the sandwich place from the Pokertech staff. This is obviously a few levels above sandwiches.

We were personally taken to the noodle room by the host of the Pokertech table, so maybe she pulled a few strings for us.

One minor complaint. Several times with several different dealers a player would bust out of a 1/2 game and rebuy for $100ish. A chip runner would be summoned, but the dealer would sell chips. Usually the chip runner would get there sometime during the sale, at which time the dealer would hand the $100 to the runner for a fill. I don't get what the point is when the runner can just take the money and not slow the game down.

I was the one who suggested to the Pokertek supervisor we switch to PLO and got the game organized. I was also the one who pointed out to her that she was even capable of changing the game from .50/1 NLHE. I was in the black shirt with my back to the bar. However, I heard from Jose the floorman that the poker room has nothing to do with the e-tables, they're run by a different department. I don't think I was the one who bluff raised you with Q-high, but my memory kinda sucks and I did dump a couple buyins in PLO.

I heard it from another player, so ignore it. I tried to clarify because I was thinking ahead to my post in this thread, but whatever. Carry on.

Hammond Horseshoe -- NEGATIVES !

Jeremy,

What a great facility -- and a pleasure to meet you. I'm going to put a longer post up about so many of the positives and maybe another comparing the Grand Opening week to the Lumiere in St Louis. This post is about (the few) negatives.

1. Limit tables are only 9 handed? Why? Sure the NL being 9 handed is better for the house - and maybe some players. But LHE is so much better with a full 10 handed table. Expecially in a big room where filling seats is not immediate. You get a vacant seat, 2 players going to eat, another waiting for chips -- and now you are 5 handed. One guy then stands up and the game stops- maybe breaks. Your manager is from LV. He will know that the Wynn and the Mirage (my 2 fave rooms) both tried this and both have gone back to the 10 handed tables. Your tables are full size and you have lots of room for this. Try to be a Mirage/Bellagio/Wynn type place.

2. An additional $1 drop for promotions is so sad. Its like you are trying to be a Sams Town or a Luxor instead of a world class poker room. Again -- how about using the Bellagio/Mirage/Wynn as a model.

And thats my only negatives. Ignore the complaints about the cocktail service - it was fine. Some of the new dealers' roughness was not a major problem. Mostly it just that they don't know many of the procedures- ie some rules, posting, missed blind buttons, absent buttons etc. The dealing itself was ok. Chip runners were also fine. And the players who want to whine about not being able to play the next hand after they run out of chips should learn a new player skill. Just have 100-200 of green chips in your pocket for a situation like that.