Chris Tessitore, GoofyBaller was talking about him earlier in the thread.

conversely from the eyes of the consumer because of unions we get stuck with horrible dealers and staff when they cannot be removed. Lets face it, you really have to screw up bad at most casinos to lose your job - union or no union.

The GoofyBaller part doesn't make sense... since Chris was, last I knew, still the Shift Manager on swing during the WSOP, and last time I went to Caesars (a week or two ago), he was still there.

Good guy, means well, but I know there was some minor internal strife with him from some dealers as he became a bit more "corporate" in his move up the ladder to SM and seemed to lose some of the enthusiasm and looseness he had displayed in the poker room prior to doing so.

Story playing out the last few weeks in the Review Journal.

A laborer was bitching at his boss and boss' boss and boss' boss' boss telling them "you're violating building codes, you can't do this, this is wrong, you have to have inspections, they just drilled through structural support cables and weakened the building, STOP." His bosses told him to STFU. He kept making waves...

Then he asked his boss if he could take home a sample of various types of fluorescent light bulbs to try out and see which his wife liked. Boss said "sure". Security grabbed him walking out with a box of bulbs, he couldn't produce paperwork proving he had permission, and they axed him.

So he called the RJ. They start nosing around and the county tries to brush 'em off. RJ won't go away and keeps digging. County sends the same "in their pocket, it seems" inspector out to look it over and he returns saying "looks fine to me". RJ calls BS--he's the same inspector who let all this happen in the first place.

Turns out, it's all true. All those major rennovations Harrah's did on the Rio and later-discovered, Harrah's itself, were done without building permits and didn't get proper inspections. And yes, they DID fail to fire caulk newly drilled holes, and yes, they DID drill through and break structural support cables.

So the last weeks large parts of Harrah's and the Rio were closed as they tore out walls and floors and fixed things while inspectors watched. At one point, simply because the fire alarms hadn't been properly inspected, Harrah's was ordered to station a security guard on each impacted floor 24x7 to manually report fires.

Moral of the story... don't fire the guy who knows all the dirt.

Or stop trying to cut corners?

Harrahs is kinda the evil empire. Some day, maybe all of the stuff with these guys will come out. I have absolutely no faith that the new owners will be better, given the history of private buyouts.

I'm curious what percentage of Wynn's poker room employees are the original Canterbury transplants - I'd almost expect them to stick it out till retirement.

RB

SIGH. New rumor is the other Harrah's properties have been beaten into submission and all but Caesars are going to join the $5 rake club. Dealers are PO'd, claiming they definitely feel it in their pockets, and it's not just locals turning away from the rooms--they've had plenty of touristy players sit down, watch one full rake go down, confirm it was not an accident, and pick up and walk across the street.

That was me last week. Stayed at Bally's and was shocked they went to $5 plus the $1 for the jackpot. How greedy can you get? Hello Bellagio.

At least you guys get 10% $5 cap + $1 jackpot. Here in LA everywhere is $5 + $1. 1/2NL, 3/6, 4/8, and 6/12 are pretty much unplayable due to the rake. And Nevada these games are still somewhat playable with a 10% capped rake.

I'm a local Vegas player, Caesars USED to be my home room. No more. Myself and several others booked. Until we hear that the rake goes back, neither do we.
Two of the Station Casino's tried raising the rake, and they lost 3/4 of the local play. A few months later they sent out letters to players offering comps for them to come back and apologizing for the experimental raising of the rake. I never went back. Live and learn. Hopefully the other rooms (not Harrahs or Stations) are watching and learning from the others mistakes.

Sounds like the games out there that do manage to go might become noticably better due to this.

It's kind of like the tourneys on Harrah's properties. I know a lot of players won't play any Harrah's tourneys due to the W2-G situation. The fields in the daily tourneys seem to be a little softer at Harrah's properties than at others.

I believe the W2G thing at Harrah's is fixed, isn't it? I haven't played a Harrah's tourney in a while but someone told me they had stopped with the W2G/1099G idiocy until the prize hit $5K.

And the claim is the rake at Caesars will remain capped at $4. They are the recalcitrant child, refusing to join the grand experiment.

I consider this the Grand Inevitable rather than the Grand Experiment, it might take 1-2 years but all of Las Vegas will be switching to a $5 max rake at 10% over time. Its inevitable.

SHUSH! Don't give them ideas!

Anyway, back to the mess at Caesars.

I found out in the past couple days that the place, internally, has become a f'n mess.

People are leaving and/or getting fired left and right.

Brandon (who ran the noon tourneys a while back), gone. Cindy, gone. TJ, gone. Bonnie, gone. Chris T., sucked it up, got his promotion, and ran to China to do some very interesting things.

Jason, who was brought in recently from Harrah's to be the TD, canned. A buddy of his who was brought in, canned.

All that's left from the original floor personel, from what I can tell, from when the room opened is Jed and Bill.

And there are some Full Time dealers that want out, but, they're FT, and there's jack for jobs in town, so they're basically stuck not wanting to give up the hours and benefits.

Not fun times.

That'd be Rich, who also recently left Harrah's to join Jason at CP
Bill is obviously a survivor. He's been around forever and also moved over from Harrah's. Jed is not an original, I don't think...he joined CP from IP after a WSOP.

But yeah, you just named all the floor people at CP that I know and like. At least there are a couple survivors.

Wow, any idea where Brandon and or TJ have landed?

Maybe if Jason & Rich weren't scamming the "2nd chance drawings", they'd still be there.

Maybe if TJ wasn't taking bribes and a $500 juice payment juice to keep his mouth shut, maybe he'd still be there as well.

Maybe if Dwight didn't play favorites and treat certain people like [censored], such as throwing gum wrappers at dealers in the box, he'd still be there.

Maybe if dealers such as Vester (one of the only nice old timers there), didn't refuse to say "Hail Caesar" at one of the buzz sessions, he wouldn't have gotten written up and gotten on Jim Pedulla's shitlist.

Maybe if certain cashiers such as Terry and Gina weren't stealing the dealer tournament tokes, maybe they wouldn't have gotten fired as well.

Maybe if Caesars didn't have their nazi-like box variation point policy, the games would run a bit smoother instead of going through a hassle when there's a $1 overage/shortage for the table bank.

Maybe if all tourney downs were recorded, instead of sometimes forgotten about when it gets time to get paid weekly for all tourney downs dealt, there wouldn't be so much frustration in the room.

Maybe if floor wasn't keeping 30% of the dealer's downs, the employees outlooks would be a bit brighter.


And maybe if Jim Pedulla didn't feel like he was the 2nd incarnation of Adolph Hitler, the room would be a better place for all.

But wtf do I know, someone like me has less than 100 posts here so you can all just ignore this post.

Why ignore? This is juuuuuicy.

Ladies and gents, the Caesars Palace Poker Room - it's FAAAAAAAAAAAAN-TASTIC!

Can you elaborate on the TJ thing, though? (Likely in PM). Bribes? Keeping his mouth shut? For what?

All hail Ceaser

Thanks for all the crappy break in dealers on the time games.

F*ck PM's.

Bribes as in pay me to get a good spot in the lineup. (Think back to the Miami Heat/Lisandro incident at Caesars a few months back.) The 2nd night that game took place, there were dealers that dealt a full 8 hour shift that didn't even deal that game once- and there were only about 4 live games in the room that night. TJ would reroute people's lineups just so they wouldn't deal that game- regardless of whether they broke a table or not. Why did they get rerouted? Because they didn't juice him the night before.

But the clincher is this-
Jason & Rich used to be roommates. (maybe they still are?) Anyway, one day, when the 2nd chance drawing was pretty high (over $2k), for some reason, Jason Halperin (the main TD) decided to call the name for the 2nd chance drawing- something usually done by either the board ops or the floor for the main room. Well guess who was called? Rich. And this was before Rich even worked there. Coincidence? Definitely possible- until TJ (who was floor that night) inquired about Jason calling the winning name, and it happening to be Jason's roommate. So a few hundred went into TJ's pocket to keep his mouth shut, and all was well. Until one of the many pissed off Caesars employees dropped a dime on all of them a few months later.


Karma is a bitch. And Jim Pedulla will be the next one to realize that.

Any complaints regarding their "crappy break in dealers on the time games" should be posted on the following link-
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/newpost.php?Cat=0&Board=cardroom&page=0

Very interesting........
For the record I always liked TJ, but it sounds like some sh*t was going down, for sure. What is your involvement in this whole ordeal?

Oh, and one other thing regarding everyone loving TJ and thinking he was the best and a great floorman-

He couldn't even pass his original dealers audition. Just what we all want- a floorman that doesn't even know how to deal. Similar to Jim Pedulla. A cardroom manager that couldn't even tell you what a qualifier is in an 8 or better game.