Hi wonderwes:

I don't know enough about these clubs to write knowledgeably about them.

Best wishes,
Mason

I think bringing new players into the game is the absolutely most essential thing that poker rooms need to be thinking about, especially as we emerge from the pandemic.

The audience for live poker has been stagnant for several years now, but now even many of the regular players from the pre-covid period may never go back.

The next year or so may be a perfect time for poker rooms to reset how they think about drawing in a new audience. In particular, I would love to a rooms making significant and radical efforts to attract a significant base of female players.

Hi Nick:

Also, keeping the new players that do come may be even more important. This book, if the advice is followed, should help do that.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mason, love the idea and looking forward to reading more.

At the core of this, as with most businesses, we will find what I think is the essential question: how do we get the card room to prioritize long term success over the short term?

I used to work in the restaurant industry, and of course the question needs to be asked: why are there so many sh*tty restaurants? Anyone who eats in restaurants can make a bullet point list of what makes a good one good, so why do so many miss the mark?

For card rooms, the list would look something like:

Good atmosphere
Good customer loyalty programs
Good service
Good food
Etc etc

The problem is, these care rooms choose to increase their short term profit margin by skimping in these areas; to me it as simple as that. They want to provide the bare minimum to ensure they are pulling in $x.

A good business owner will know how to toe the fine line between looking out for their customers while ensuring profit, but I think that casinos especially (because of their unparalleled captive market) feel as if they are able to get away with basically anything.

I also think casinos/card rooms put little to no effort into marketing to the younger generation, I feel as if the current 18-25 group has less exposure to cards than any previous group.

Hi TroothSayer:

I actually disagree with some of what you say. For instance, I think your whole list can be replaced with just one line: good games. Of course, to get good games things need to be done right, and the book will address this.

Best wishes,
Mason

MM:
thank you for the reply.
We may be talking about two different customers. I agree that regular, experienced players hate big rake, feel that a low limit game is hard to beat, given the rake and jackpot drops.
What I am talking about is the brand new player. The one that expects to lose, because he is on a learning curve. No one plays poker, in any variant, for the first time and expects to clean house. The brand new player most likely knows they are in need of experience. And, they are quite willing to pay a bit to get that experience. It is best they do it in a low limit hold'em game. IN a no limit situ, they will get cleaned, gutted and tossed in a fryolator.
The game needs to do a better job of getting new customers. People seem to learn how to "play" in fun-money online games. This is not close to IRL poker. Rooms can do a lot better in garnering new players.
This discussion and entire thread is a breath of needed air.

Basically short deck! (not that I think short deck is a good/sustainable game) Or just envision an NL game where each player posts a small blind and the big blind posts as usual and then normal action begins.

Hi Dave:

When I began to play, the game was $3-$6 draw poker in Gardena CA and the time charge was 50 cents every half hour. While a simpler game than no-limit hold 'em, the small rake contributed to me being able to learn the game well enough to survive. Today's high rake, especially in small limit hold 'em hold 'em games, in my opinion, doesn't allow that.

And while I don't have to be right, in the small no-limit games, because of the way so many players constantly limp in (and the blinds in no-limit are much smaller than the blinds in limit), I think a new player has a better chance of surviving than in limit. This is just one example of the way the games are currently out of whack.

Best wishes,
Mason

'Promotions should be offered during peak times when weak players are more likely to be present' is not necessarily correct. For example if a room is operating at capacity on a Saturday, the room itself is extracting the maximum amount of rake it can already and thus the only consideration here is a more complicated one of 'are these max-capacity Saturdays sustainable?'

If you increase the total number of table-rake-hours for a long period of time, that's a better situation for the house.

You can apply logic similar to why restaurant chains offer their best promos on days like Tuesdays.

Now if the situation is that unlimited space/capacity is available, the problem is different. I just don't like the black and white application implied where the impact of timing of promotions is quite complex.

I totally agree that poker is doing a poor job marketing to a younger generation.

And it is true that this group has less exposure to traditional card games, and casino games in general, than older generations.

But the ironic thing is that this generation has MORE exposure to games in general, and are more willing to embrace a games a primary hobby than older people.

And although games requiring both a great degree of skill and technology (such as League of Legends or Fortnite) get a lot of attention, in reality the greatest number of people are playing games that much more casual, while still requiring a skill element (such as Candy Crush/matching games, word games, or hidden object games).

For too long, poker's attempt to appeal to a younger generation has focused almost entirely on men who see games as an opportunity to engage in conflict and assert their dominance over others. I.e. Poker is framed as a war game.

But it could just as easily be framed as a puzzle game to attract the larger, more diverse, and more casual audience. Instead of being a game where players win by intimidation (as so much of the marketing over no-limit poker suggests), poker could be marketed as a puzzle where players win by figuring out what their opponent's hand is before their opponent figures out their hand.

Guys promoting gambling imo is bad. Why would u want kids to be a pro in today’s environment. Kids could lose their whole savings

Hi float:

No. What about other days when the room is not full. If promotional money goes to live players it should come back to the poker room and some of them will now be able to play on the slow days when before this wouldn't happen. If promotional money goes to the strong players, it'll be gone from the poker economy.

It may be counterintuitive to understand that when a live one gets additional money, he'll eventually lose it and that's to the benefit of the poker room since part of this money will go to rake and tips. But when a strong player gets it, only the strong player benefits.

And assuring that the live players get most of the promotional money does this

No. A poker room is much different from a restraurant, and restraurants don't have winning and losing players

Best wishes,
Mason

Most of these are probably frivolous, but w/e.

There should be 3 decks at each poker table. The card shuffler should have room for a shuffled or unshuffled deck while it's shuffling. A walk, chop, or a raise and take it often leaves the dealer having to shuffle when they shouldn't.

Bravo Poker sucks. They seem happy to provide the bare minimum. It's amazing there isn't competing software. I suppose the overhead could be high with the table hardware, making for a higher barrier of entry and a low ceiling.

The four color deck should be at all casinos. It really feels like as much of a no brainer as the BB ante.

Ante-less tournaments should be illegal.

Question: What's the best poker promotion? (In terms of getting players in the door) I personally think it's the high hand giveaways.

Hi persianpunisher:

I was always against the four-color deck. That's because when a card flashes in a live setting you'll know its suit, and that can give an unethical player an advantage. Notice that this is not an issue on the Internet.

As for ante-less tournaments, one reason for the antes is that they are beneficial to help create a proper balance of luck and skill. Without the antes, the skill element may become too large and the weak players would have little chance, and if the weak players can't cash some, most of these tournaments would dispappear.

Best wishes,
Mason

My biggest pet peeve is soft play amongst regs. I see this in a lot of limit games I’ve played in across the country.

In the mid-stakes limit game at my home casino, many of the regs have an agreement that if they are heads up against each other they will check it down. I should mention that many of these regs are old school players (comes with the territory of limit poker I suppose), but I feel like it’s really bad for the game. New players to our game are often confused when they see this and feel like there is collusion going on (which is technically true) and it leaves them with a sour taste in their mouth. For this reason, I feel it is a detriment to attracting new players to the game.

Also more often than not, the floor turns a blind eye to this type of behavior.

Hi KaiserChefs:

I don't see this happening in the limit games that I'm familiar with. But I do remembering it happening among props in those cardrooms that use a lot of props. Clearly, it's a way to reduce variance which allows these players to play in bigger games with less fluctuations. And the cardroom should not tolerate it. I'm not sure exactly where in the book this can go in, but it might be worth mentioning somewhere.

Best wishes,
Mason

Placement of the poker room seems to be a big issue. Back in the day, MGM Vegas hand their poker room near the entrance, where the bar is now. Lots of traffic from random people walking in and that was the first thing they saw. Now, it is in some corner and it is a shell of its former self.

The biggest issue I see with most card rooms is the lack of open seating. No one wants to hang out and wait for 30+ minutes for a seat when they can just go and deposit money into any random machine within spitting distance. I don't know what the solution is, but this is a big problem. It is intimidating for new people to come play, and this just adds another barrier to entry.

I fear without these regs coming back a lot of rooms will just close.

As far as attracting female players- on a whole women just aren't that interested in poker. I really don't know what can be done to bring more of them in.While some women may like poker but don't play live bc they don't want to deal with men harassing them,very few women were even playing online.

California rake is notoriously high but with that said it's also a much different time than when you first started playing poker.People learn poker a lot differently than they did back then.Rooms just aren't going to spread games with tiny rake making it easier for people to win these days.

Hi borg:

When I first started to play in California, and this was the early 1980s, the rake in the small games was quite reasonable. But the rake in the big games was high.

Best wishes,
Mason

As a regular the only thing that matters to me is how much action the game has and I think if you get down to it regulars and recreationals alike are more likely to put up with some bullshit to get in a juicy game with a lot of action rather than sit in a nitty game with good food, good service, good everything. Some of the best games I've played in are at Commerce, it is over crowded, players are rude, half the chairs are broken, the carpet is disgusting, and food is mediocre but they pack the house everyday because it is convenient and lots of money in town. Having all the bells and whistles that attracts players are nice but that alone doesn't bring them to play cards. Recreational players play for fun and I think card rooms should aim to streamline the experience so it is the most fun for them. Allow as many straddles as people want, allow rabbit hunt. The best games are usually in cardrooms that attracts gamblers rather than poker players. Every policy should be directed towards attracting the most numbers of gamblers to your cardroom A couple other thoughts:

- rake in small stakes is fairly large on a bb/hand perspective and that makes it theoretically correct to play super tight, which makes for a bad game. I just think time raked games are so much better because it is GTO to play more hands which is more fun. Even if 90% of the players don't think 'what is correct' when they play I'm sure the new 1/3 player will be less inclined to open shitty hands when they raise it to $12 preflop, cb the flop and took it down and made a $6 profit on the hand after the rake, BBJ, high hand and tip. Game and rake structure should be designed to promote max action and highest vpips. Yes sure lower rake is benefits the regulars but it indirectly makes the game more fun for recreational players because there's less incentive for the regulars to just nit it up at the tables. There's nothing less fun for a rec player is to show up at a cardroom trying to gamble and see 4 walks in the first round at the table.

- Although I am guilty of it sometimes people always on their phones or have headphones on super off putting. You're playing live poker, try to have a conversation and have fun. People looking at charts or watching training videos while playing should be thrown out and banned imo. This is not a card room problem, I don't have a solution for this but some sort of etiquette education or reminder could make a difference.

- Bomb pot promotions are great for the game because it encourages action. Big BBJs that are impossible to hit are not because the winner will most likely take that money out of play.

- Rack counts and deck change always disrupts the flow of the game. I understand it is likely a necessary evil but having that minimized will be nice.

- Anything that disrupts the flow of the game needs to be minimized. Slow dealers, slow players, etc... I cannot emphasize how important having good dealers are to the game, I know it is not easy to staff a large number of dealer at their pay rate and have them all be good but a good attitude and better training will go a long way into fostering a fun environment at the table.

i agree that i prefer time games both selfishly and i just think it's fair. with that said as you already pointed out commerce consistently has the best action and yet their rake sucks.while i'd love a great game with low rake, a casino offering super low rake isn't exactly going to be drawing in players who make for a great game.

Hi NWJIm:

I only have a moment and will get to the rest of your post tomorrow, but I 100 percent agree with your initial point. Good games are the key, and the poker rooms need to do those things that promote good games and not do things which they think are good but which do not promote good games.

Best wishes,
Mason

Cool subject for a book. Here are some big issues for me (you address some of these in the outline all ready):

1. Unwilligness for floors to discuss rake and other incentives with players more candidly.

A. Often when the rake is too high floor may not have a good understanding of why - i have had painful conversations trying to explain why raking shorthanded o8 games the same as a 1/2 game is punitive to players.

B. I have seen floors forced to use bad rake structures by mostly detached management, with negative consequences for players and staff.

C. I have had floors say things like 'we don't talk about rake here' if a player brings it up in a cash game. If nothing else, floors should always be ready to articulate the value proposition the room and casino provides to justify the take.

Willl continue in another post.

2. Game diversity.

There are a number of reasons that can lead to rooms not spreading much besides NL holdem.

Some notable ones are 1) less rake per hour, 2) dealers not trained to spread other games, 3) underestimating the widespread appeal and benefit to other casino operations 4) reliance on hosts for other games 5) lack of community support and polling for new games