Oh I get that, that it makes it easier to tell the difference between the games. I just don't get why you'd want to play the same players at two stakes at once.

Of course, I'm biased by the suspicion that I'd win at the lower stake and lose at the higher one.

They can't use two colours of the same denomination? Or as someone else said, play one 5/10 game with 2's and 5's and one with 10's and 1's?

I agree. However, I'm having a hard time articulating why this is the case.

this looks like such a blast! not



I might add, that these games are legal in states that do not allow live tables games. There are several iterations.

OT... much love for this post

OT again... not so much for this one


But, as it relates to Aria and MultiAction poker, I happened to be in town for a Table Games industry conference and Adam was nice enough to let me participate in the first night of action. I'm about to post TR in the B&M forum.

cliff notes:. we played limit holdem, full ring for 3-4 hours. It was confusing for the first 5-10 minutes or so, but once the players and dealers got the nomenclature down and we got into our rythym, I had a blast. The game had a very social, fun homegame feel. scooping two pots at the same time and having the button at the same time in both hands were two of my favorite events.

although we only played limit, I think the news of all the angles, and logistic problems are mostly overated. Playing limit alone eliminates many. The well thought out table game design and competent dealers elimimate others. The main ones are being addressed with improved table layout and diff color chips for each hand (a must have which as mentioned above that we solved that night by playing 3/6 and 5/10 with diff denom chips).

I believe this game has a place. Is it going to consume the poker world, no. But there is a market for this sort of poker experience.

Here is a shot as we were setting up for play. some old school 2+2ers might recognize the guy in seat 1 (or is it seat 6, not sure ) Tim Frazen, game inventor, who I met that night is in the white shirt and tie. Very nice guy and loves poker ! Please spare us the obvious NVG photoshop of him with two heads and four arms !!

[IMG][/IMG]

I hope it works out for them -


if the red and blue on 1 table gets congested, maybe they could have a see-through plexiglass table 6 inches above the table top and play on 2 levels....

I cannot wait to come to Vegas and play this! Thanks for innovating.

I applaud you and am an even bigger fan of your venue now.

Ignore the cry babies you have them every time. Where do u think apple would be if they listened to cry babies.

You are doing something amazing and will be rewarded.

Hello! My name is Tim. I am the inventor of Multi Action Poker (MAP). I would like to give everyone a brief background on myself and on Multi Action Poker.

I have a pizzeria and love to play poker. Most of my play is B&M, although I would play a few online MTT’s (Sunday million etc) and SNG’s. I started playing poker in late 2006. I have done alright in live trnmnt’s, but I like the action of cash games better even though I am usually considered the donkey at the table. (please no verifications are necessary in later posts) FYI, I am getting better at PLO and Mixed games. I am currently on the 40-80 mixed game list of interest as well as the 1-3 PLO list at the Aria as I write this.

While playing B&M poker, I Get Bored, and I like action. How many times in a single night can I watch the same rerun of ESPN while a player tanks for 10 minutes (or longer) and then folds? Please don’t accidentally expose your cards on a 10-minute Hollywood—that always tilts me. That is why I created Multi Action Poker. I want to play it!! I want the Action and I don’t want to get bored.

I brought MAP to the Aria because I feel that the Aria Poker room is cutting edge. I felt it would also take a poker room manager who would welcome innovation and had to be experienced and knowledgeable from a player’s and dealer’s perspective. Adam Altwies is that poker room manager (Thank you Adam). With that said, Adam and the Aria agreed to try the game. That was in June of this year. Unfortunately, I know about pizza and not about the Nevada Gaming Control Board and the rules and laws involved in developing a new game.

MAP was designed to have two different chip sets, different distinguishable playing cards front and back, two different buttons, and two different etc. The Nevada Control Board gave approval for the game with no trial period, but required 2 different sets of chips to be used in each separate hand. However, the Aria, understandably, was not willing to invest the money in another chip set. This is where many of you are thinking “how much $ could that be? Casino chips can’t be that much.” Yes, that is correct, the chips are not. However, the real expense is that Casino chips are basically a currency and are regulated. They have to be reported, approved, and documented by Nevada Gaming Control. Every cashier, dealer (poker and pits), and pit boss has to be informed and trained on accepting them. So the NGCB gave us a trial period using 1 chip set, with some of the conditions being we use a divider between the 2 different chip stacks, only play limit games the first two weeks, and enforce strong consequences in no-limit for players cheating and moving chips.

There has been a lot of skepticism on 2+2 about Multi Action Poker. I appreciate the thoughts and ideas from the most knowledgeable poker community in the world. This is why all of the FAQs on mappoker.com came directly from this forum. I will be more than happy to answer any questions about MAP or explain the how’s or why’s. I am very interested and excited to get feedback on how to improve the game, especially from the people who have played it. That is why after the first night the game was officially played at Aria, I listened and actively talked with the players playing in the game to improve the experience for the players and dealers. Saturday, the new table will be out and live at the Aria. It will be so much better because of all the players who gave their input. I would like to thank you all for doing that. I will continue to listen and improve the game.

I feel this post has already become too long. I will add more details later and try to answer more questions and concerns. For example, the “casual player” concern.

Thank you all for taking the time to read it.

Tim

Hi Tim.
In regards to 10 minute tanks, I haven't seen anything in the discussion that prevents them in this new game. The chances of 2 simultaneous tanks by one player or by 2 different players does not seem that remote.. I'm not a math person, but my intuition tells me it is equally likely to happen here as it is to happen on any two tables.

Now, if you said "That can't happen. We've instituted a shot clock to prevent it." my appreciation for your and the Aria's efforts would increase dramatically.
If the true objective and the primary benefit of the game is continuous action, I think it should have a shot clock, or some other means of keeping things moving.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck with it.

**** just got real

thanks for dropping by tim, bol with this.

Duhhhh why are u talking about a shot clock?! What does it have to do with MAP.

Tim thank you for doing this. Multi tabling live would be sososos awesome. I hope your systems finds its way into all the pokerrooms in the world. I actually think it will since you found a way to double the action and double the revenue!

I can't imagine any of the concern are really show stoppers. 2+2 is simply a community where 90% of players are negative posters so focus on the valuable posts.

And thank you! And Adam.

.. because I like action.. and Action is this game's middle name. It wasn't named Multi Tanking Poker. Heaven forbid that it earns the nickname.

This sounds like it would flow really well with limit, would be cool to play 20-40 $5 red chip game and 40-80 $10 chip game at once

lets keep what happens the same that way it's fair for the comparison, which is 2 players tanking for 10 minutes on different hands:
there is nothing stopping someone from tanking for 10 minutes on a single hand at a regular table, correct? or from another player tanking for another 10 minutes in the next hand? so that is 2 hands played in 20 minutes in this equation.
now in the scenario you introduced, player a tanks for 10 minutes on one hand while player b tanks for 10 minutes on the other hand. that is 2 hands completed in 10 minutes. because there are 2 hands being played at any point, players tanking don't really have more or less influence on the number of hands played per hour than they already do at a single table.

Good post and I don't want to take anything away from it because I think you're right, however what does the bolded part even mean?

Sick level.....

I used 10 minutes as an example only because Tim did. That's a really long tank and would never be allowed in live cash at these small stakes. Practically speaking, slow players delay things by 10 or 15 seconds, sometimes on every card, and a tank might last a minute... But be that as it may..

Your summation seems fine with me. If one hand stops in MAP, hands per hour parallels a normal table.

Ordinarily, MAP offers roughly twice the number of hands per hour. That is the main attraction. Ideally it's twice as fast as anything else out there.

And that is why I see room for possible improvement.
Nobody will play MAP anticipating or desiring a "normal" rate of action. If action slows to that of a normal table (due to just one hand in the tank) they'll likely be disappointed.
There must be ways to maintain that "abnormally" high rate of action.

First I'd like to say that I'm all for innovation, and appreciate what Tim is trying to do. So IMO pointing out potential trouble areas doesn't mean someone doesn't think it shouldn't be tried at all.

I'm a fulltime live 2/5NL player. Not a pro per se, but a fulltime rec player. I've never mutli-tabled online. But I think the main problem will be with how live rec players play vs the multi-tablers.

My impression of multi-table players is that they click on a table, see what the action is to them, maybe look at a HUD, and then make a quick decision and move on to the next table. that's great. But that's not how a live rec player plays at all.

Even with just one game going, you usually have a table filled with people who go "who's it on?" when it's on them. They act out of turn. They go "who raised" when they realize they're facing a raise. They also go "why so much; will you show me if you fold; did you flop a set; and they stare at players looking for tells because that's how they were told "real" poker players do it. So that's a big reason why live games go so slowly, even with just one hand in play.

Now add a second hand. The sample player above, facing a raise, starts his process of "who raised, etc, etc,". But now he gets two other cards dealt to him. Looks down at AA, and raises. What happens next? Most likely he will try and follow the action of the hand he just raised with, seeing if anyone calls, or raises, etc. Or he can go back to trying to get a soul read on the guy who raised him in the other hand. But he can't do both at the same time. So most likely, he will do them sequentially, which means he will probably let whatever decision he is facing wait while he observes the action on the other hand. If he is a rec live player, he has no background in moving back and forth from table to table, making decisions quickly with partial information. So the game will end up slowing down to a crawl.

So IMO what you will end up with is the rec live players avoiding the game, since it is uncomfortable for them to play, and limits the social interaction they enjoy from live games. And those who play the games will be almost entirely former internet multi-tablers, which means the fish they seek won't be at the game.

But if you take that to its logical conclusion, then the answer for the internet multi-tablers to most closely simulate that experience in a live casino is the PokerTek (or any other digital) tables. One of the main reasons they were rejected by live players was that people said it was too much like playing at home on a computer, and lost the trappings of a live game. Most of those table trial tests were done at the peak of internet poker, when the true online players didn't go into casinos at all.

So IMO MAP appears to be an attempt to replicate the speed of multi-table internet games with a live table. But if the real intent is simply to play faster, then go back to a computerized table. I believe rec live players will not find the MAP tables as meeting what they are looking for when they play poker. The internet players will find it gets closer. But then those games will end up tough and they will go back to fish hunting on the regular live tables.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts around how/if it will be possible for MAP games to be as soft as "regular" games, seems unlikely to me, as least for quite a while before people get used to it.

But wouldn't this create less action? Fewer players on average seeing a flop in each game?

I'm less likely to play a bad hand if I'm getting twice as many hands per hour to look at.

Good on you mate... and thank you Tim for coming here to answer questions and alleviate fears. one thing that has not be answered is while at the table can a player opt to sit out of one hand and play the other... as in if the game happens to be running PLO and NLH and someone wanted to skip the PLO for a while, are they allowed to do this or are players compelled to play both hands? another approach might be that I understand a player can move cheques between the two games if they happen to get felted on one game, but can a player OPT to only play one game after they get felted on the other or are they compelled to move cheques to the second game?

This is a good point but shouldn't variance be lower with more hands seen? With almost twice as many hands the edge of a more competent player is a big plus.

My main concern is the rake. From what I understand so far is the rake for each game(dealer/hand) is $3. Is this the same price of a single dealer game or is there a discount of a dollar or two?

If the MAP tables fully rake each game at normal rates then it is not worth playing. IMO as mentioned above people will not spew as much knowing they will see more hands.

Overall, hope the idea works and is implemented in my local casinos.

Right now, I am about to oversee the install of the new 8 player Multi Action Poker table that will be on display and reopen at the Aria at approx 6pm tonight. It looks Awesome and is TOTALLY different. We listened to the suggestions of the players and dealers and used their input in making changes. It is more clearly marked for players and dealers. I can tell you this, there is no longer blue and red and there are no longer circles. If you live in Vegas, I would stop by the Aria and check it out. For all the non Vegas poker community, I am sure someone will take some photos and video for you. I am sure there will be more modifications to come, but this looks pretty good for a table revamped in just 2 days. Thank you Maria at Rye Park Gaming for the super rush job.

FYI I will try to respond to most of your questions and comments by tomorrow.
Tim

Nice. Might stop by after the Pacquiao fight or tomorrow.

Hey Tim, great idea.
I will be checking this out when I am in Vegas in March for some pizza convention. Do you know anything about the pizza convention in Vegas in March? I know it's off topic.. But my girl friends family owns a pizza shop and are right into pizzas.
Other than that, I am curious about the business side of inventing a game like this. If this takes off, are you entitled to a percentage of the rake or is your idea sold out right or leased to each establishment if they want to use your game? I don't mind the casinos making double the rake if some of it goes to the person who came up with the idea. Things like this seem so cutthroat. I hope you have your intellectual property properly protected.
For what it's worth, I am a low limit rec player (admitted fish) and I think this will be a blast to play! I actually prefer limit and think this style suits limit the best.

Is there any chance we can play two games of $5/10 Omaha 8 tonight. One using $5 chips only and the other using $10 chips with $1 chips for sb. That game is more sustainable than limit Holdem and will fill and play through the night guaranteed.