I know there's already a thread on corona, but I'd like a dedicated discussion on people's predictions for when they think live poker will "open up" again.

Strict regulations in social distancing has been able to keep the virus down, and the country will begin to re-open in the next few months, but there's a decent chance that they'll keep certain activities closed that have a high chance of spread -- poker could be included in that.

I'm curious, because this would heavily influence my living decision when my lease is up in a few months.

Seems overly pessimistic...

“Will begin to open in the next fewmonths” how about in the next few days. Not quite but in a couple to few weeks certain areas at least will begin to reopen.

Some form of live poker will start somewhere before Labor Day probably before July 4th. BTW I am not saying this is good or bad just what I believe will happen.

At some point states are going to let grown ups pick their own risk level. Also their are way live poker could be made safer even at 9 handed. Might take room changes and procedure changes. Casinos may not want make these changes even players may not like them

Anyone have thoughts when live mtts will be played again? I’m worried that a lot of casinos will go under which will even hamper the mtt scene where I’m at. I’m not really close to any solid mtt hubs (Vegas, AC- is 5 hrs away from me, etc). I honestly wonder how casinos will do after this really long break from action as I don’t see casinos opening up too soon potentially.

As for live mtts, any chance we have option to play at end of 2020 (thinking late summer and later?). I would guess fall might be earliest time where live mtts go on but who knows honestly. I just bumped my 401k allocation up as I need no money for live poker lol. I find the online game kinda meh at acr so I’m waiting for live poker to come back but I feel it’s going to be months.

Finally, I really think it’s a joke the wsop hasn’t commented on their series. I feel they should just cancel the wsop. I don’t think they are going to get great #s anyways so why not just bail and promote some sick online wsop series.

i don't think any of us realistically know how things will look live 6 months from now
it's just baseless speculation

As for wsop- it wouldn't start for a month and a half. canceling it now is a negative free roll for them.

My initial thought was no. The reason is that a poker table can't hold more than 3 people and leave 6 ft of space between them and the dealer.

However, I admit I didn't think about two factors. The first is that there is no intellegence test needed to be a governor of a state. NV's governor is already jonesing to restart the casinos. The only practical way to do this is to eliminate or render useless social distancing. My guess is that at best the dealers and cocktail staff will be told to wear cloth masks, patrons will be asked to self police themselves if they are sick and the chips will be washed on an "enhanced" basis (1/month instead of 1/quarter?). Contact tracing will be a joke when you have 100,000 people from across the country come in for 3 days, mix together, then go home across the country.

The second is that the gambling addiction outweighs everything else. If someone is going to borrow money with little real intention of ever paying it back, getting someone sick with Covid-19 isn't that big a deal. Especially if you can tell yourself, "it is just a bad cold."

So I think it will happen soon now. However, I also see it stopping again before the end of the year as it becomes obvious to even the densest governor that it isn't a good idea.

there should be felt that replicates casino betting from home. like its your turn to bet and you push out physical chips.

They could have etables - somewhat cleaner than chips as players can wipe the screen and there will be no need for dealers. This is a hybrid solution that can temporarily help.

As for the distancing, if you do have these tables I am sure you could configure the to be further apart... Not sure if people would trust these machines though as they do seem to bring action!

I don’t think the most important factor is if and when casinos open back up and offer live poker. It’s about which players those games would attract.

In the vast majority of small stakes games, a decent amount of money comes in through older players. Will they still play if that might expose them? Will they play in those 5max or 6max games they usually hate on if that’s what the casino needs to do to implement social distancing?

In most higher stakes games, at least in my experience, a substantial amount of money comes from business executives, doctors and other highly paid professions. What will they do? Do you take the risk if you work with patients during the day? Or if you’re self employed and depend on being healthy? How will your professional network react to rumors you got sick because you felt the need to degen away some money?

I just have a very hard time to see how games won’t get significantly less profitable if losing players are replaced by 21-49 year olds with plenty of 6max experience from playing online.

Personally, I definitely won’t take the risk of getting me or my family sick to sit in a game where I might not even be able to beat the rake.

It wouldn’t be a negative freeroll for them if they were spending even half as much as they claim on preparing for the WSOP. For years, when players complained about high rake/fees, they always said how much work goes into planning and setting up stuff months in advance. If that was true, they had canceled already to save a decent chunk of that money.

I think the first full ring games will be on tribal land. Not subject to any governors order. The mainstream casinos will start full tables by Aug 1.

Thats my prediction from my gravel ball...

Isle of Capri ( Pompano )
Re opening next Friday the 24th,
Florida is opening everything,

Only problem is they are NOT opening poker,
Poker will not be open until at least July 1st...

But at least you can get some food from Byrons...

is this public info? I couldn't find anything online.

Ugh, I hope other casinos don't follow suit. That said, if the majority of casinos opt to keep poker rooms closed and one reopens as the only game in town (or state) business should boom.

We'll definitely see live poker again in 2020, and IMO we'll see some places reopening in May. I'm not saying it's right or wrong to do so, that's just the way things are looking right now to me.

That was my answer to a vague question of whether we'll see live poker again this year. An entirely different question is to what capacity will we see live poker return? I think that's much more complicated. All I'll say to that is I believe we're still a long ways away from the live poker scene looking like what it did in Jan/Feb. Openings will happen sporadically, and there will be many varying methods for those reopenings. While I do expect to hear of at least a few isolated reopening sometime in May, I think it's a flip on whether we'll see nationwide reopenings of all poker rooms without occupancy restrictions during the remainder of the calendar year.

One state opening and generating revenue going to put a lot of pressure on other neighbors.

Lot of good points being brought up -- i.e., even if a few rooms re-open, how many rooms, will there be player caps per table, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, will the recs feel comfortable coming back right away?

Recs who feel like they are proving certain people wrong will come back because they want to "own" those people. Recs who are bad at risk assessment will come back because they don't know what to be afraid of. Recs who are complete degenerates will come back because they're going to die at the poker table, one way or the other.

Recreational players comprise the overwhelming majority of the live player base. If they don't come back we won't have any games, literally.

And I think they will. People are really getting fed up with shelter in place.

9 handed is not few enough for social distancing. Even if that impliemented a 6 max with session fee, or a reduced rake, people will complain too short handed, and the dealer is still to close from players across the table. But the slots, along with BJ and baccarat can all be played with the 6 foot social distancing. Slots open every other or every 3. BJ and Baccarat play with a single dealer for up to hundred of people like on the dynasty gaming machines.

They bring action due to double the hands per hour. They had then in Toronto at the old woodbine. Problem is when people who consistently lose, start losing at twice the pace they blame game being fixed and just quit. If they open that, a demo needs to be available in all poker areas showing how games are no different than a live game or pokerstars.

I've heard rumors that the casinos might outlaw eating hot wings with your hands at the tabled until there is a vaccine.

Can anyone confirm?

I heard rumors that the CDC will announce Tuesday that hot wings sauce kills the virus on contact.

I certainly hope not.

I heard today of a local player who's trying to organize a home game. He's elderly, obese, and probably has other underlying conditions. So live poker is not dead, but he may soon be.

A card room is an ideal environment for the spread of this virus. People sitting practically on top of each other for hours on end. Dealers and chip sellers and servers and floor people circulating around the room. Everyone touching the same cards and chips. Masks won't help because laypeople don't use them properly. They're constantly adjusting and removing them to eat, drink, and even speak. And people bump fists and lick their fingers and pick their noses without any conscious awareness of what they're doing, or that it might be risky.

Will casinos and card rooms reopen this year? Yes. And then there will be outbreaks centered around them in the same way there are now outbreaks in nursing homes and meat-processing plants. Both customers and staff will get sick. And how healthy is that population to begin with? We're talking about lots of people who are elderly, overweight, sedentary, and/or smokers. So some of those who get sick will die. Rumors will circulate. Maybe the place where the outbreak occurred will be forced to close again; maybe those who understand the risks will simply stay away.

Things aren't going to return to normal quickly or gradually but prematurely and in fits and starts: three steps forward, two steps back. It could be two years before the pandemic itself is fully under control—and the economic recovery will take even longer than that.

WSOP is rock/hard place. ALL of the LV casinos need to be on standby to see how the public responds to loosening guidelines, if and when they occur. Assessment dates don't seem to move more than 2-3 weeks out at a time ... other than the schools making broad decisions very quickly.

Granted the Rio is 'soon' to be no more, but income is income and if other LV resorts open up ... and there's a decent response ... then they will feel compelled to get something on the books for this year. It would look extremely foolish if they made the decision to cancel and by June 1st there's anything close to 40% of the normal traffic LV sees on a normal basis.

July is historically the highest airline passenger volume for LV (+30-40%), followed by June (+15-20%) and May (+10-15%). Certainly WSOP influences that volume ... but what about the 'normal' 165-180K of traffic that comes every month? Will conventions still take place? I would really love to know what percentage of convention reservations take place more than 1 month out from the date held?

IMO, as I've expressed before, they should make 'tentative' plans to host the $50K and ME in July, but hope to start holding tournaments as early as June 11th. The WSOP is in such a tough position since they would need to be able to staff whatever their trying to offer and then cross fingers on attendance. The other casinos can hold smaller tournaments and not really have the outlay that the Rio will burden the WSOP with by tying up all that space.

As far as social distancing ... there isn't a table game out there that accommodates 6' between the Dealer and the Player(s) ... please. If casinos are to open and patrons decide to enter, it will be with the idea of 'best practices' and fingers crossed with 'agreed to' liabilities across the board ... just like a sports stadium, 'enter at your own risk'. GL

PS ... to finally answer the question. Yes, there will be live poker in May at the facilities that have major investments in poker. But I think there will be a delay in offering poker at the smaller casinos ... which does sound kind of backwards when you think about trying to control the spread of 'anything'. Poker will be last to open for sure. It's labor heavy and you may see some casinos go back to sharing Dealers with the Pits until traffic picks up. That will make poker cumbersome ... but eventually most Players will get the itch and wander back in.

I also think that it will take until almost winter to get volume back up to 80% of what it was at most places. There will be A LOT of self-awareness and pressure from families to think twice about going into those types of public settings. IMO restaurants are different, they can give a sense of comfort in their preparation of the booth and you are only exposing yourself to who you already choose to sit down with.

The bar scene will be interesting to watch. There are still singles out there and humans get horny!!

The more comfortable society can become with this virus the quicker things 'may' go back to the way they were. GL

That’s something I thought about yesterday. Do I really want to sit next to someone like that?

And how do other players react if someone starts coughing for example? People might even do that on purpose out of frustration or whatever. Sounds stupid, but not more ridiculous than the people who cough in grocery stores to clear an aisle. And that happens quite frequently, at least according to a friend who is a manager at WholeFoods.