Hi Nick:

Okay.

I think these estimates are about right.

Best wishes,
Mason

A professional efficient dealer who pays close attention to the game and puts out lots of hands, in my opinion, makes the most money.

And one other thing, every poker room manager who I have talked to about talking dealers and the problems they cause, and there have been a bunch of them over the years, has always agreed with me. Yet they seem to do little about it.

I agree with your other points.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mason:

I’m a little confused. Are you writing the book just about the card rooms you frequent? There were a couple times in this thread where you dismissed valid complaints as irrelevant because that’s not how it is at the rooms near you. Just because the rooms near you don’t have the issue doesn’t mean it’s not an issue. Especially in the age of COVID.

Example number two is the comment about soft play. You said the rooms you visit don’t have that so it isn’t in the book. But the reality is soft play and collusion are pretty rampant in some of the smaller rooms.

Hi ballin4life:

I'm not a fan of bomb pots because they affect the balance of luck and skill and make the game bigger than what some players want to play. Also, I don't see why your #5 is true. Perhaps you could explain.

That why the pots are raked, and raked pots can produce more revenue especially if the game is short handed even if the rake is reduced (and very few people know this).

Good point and I'll add it to the book.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi maverick:

Well, none of this should happen, and if it does and you can go above poker room management to complain, I would do so.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Gzesh:

If it is, they're not doing a good job.

I thin all of this can be addressed by making sure the poker room offers games where the proper balance of luck and skill is about right. When that's the case this stuff is less likely to happen.

I agree and I'll try to address this in the "Forgetting the Regular Customer" chapter.

This is an interesting idea but can it be done in such a way that the majority of the promotional money goes to the live ones. If the answer is yes, then I would be in favor of it.

I agree. And if they are able to get some of the promotional money, they'll be even more likely to return and most of that money will again go to the winning players less rake.

Again this can go in the "Forgetting the Regular Customer" chapter and is a very good point.

While this sounds good in theory, I'm not exactly sure how this can be done. But if you read the draft of the "Promotions" chapter that appears in Post #21 you'll see that we're thinking alike.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Gzesh:

I don't quite agree. Nits do at times help start games and keep games going, so I don't think they're as bad as you say. Plau I've been called a nit on a few occasions.

One of the chapters in the book is titled "Playuer Meetings" where precisely this type of stuff ends up getting implemented. And it's one of those problems that most poker players aren't even aware of. I'll have more to say on this topic in the book.

Again, this goes back to the proper balance of luck and skill and is part of the illusion that makes a recreationalo player like poker.

This can vary a lot from player to player, and in any case, minimum buy-ins are low for most games. It's the max-buy-in where I see problems.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Apex:

I'm not so sure. First, I don't know enough about this subject and I don't always think it's that bad since the stakes are usually very high which would eliminate most players in the poker room anyway.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi BDHarrison:

I plan to mention something about this. In general, casino executives will get more complaints from their poker room than they will from everything else in the casino. So, one of the jobs of the poker room manager is to stop these complaints before they rise to the higher level. Again, this all goes back to a well run poker room.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Dr. Meh:

If I'm not knowledgeable about something I can't really write about it. But there will be plenty of things in the book which I'm sure that cardroom mangers will benefit from and this includes a nuber of things which I'm sure that many of them never even thought about before.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason, what do you mean by”proper balance of luck and skill”?
Thx
Burt

Hi rbmadd:

Real quick, there needs to be enough luck in the game so that the recreational players, even though they are long term losers, will have some winning nights, and enough skill in the game so that the very good players will be winners after a reasonable length of time, but are not guaranteed to win the next time they play. View the proper balance of luck and skill as sort of the sweet spot of poker that helps to keep the games thriving.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason,
Thx but
this begs the question “can the proper balance between luck and skill be quantified and if so how”? This may not be proper post for the topic of interest, though.
If not, I apologize.
Burt

Ive dealt full time in two rooms with spending some time off and on in a third room in my career and here is what I have seen from my point of view in what can hurt a room.

What hurt the first room I worked at was the fact that we were the most outskirt poker room in our city, at one point in its history it was the largest and most popular but those days had long since vanished with newer rooms opening. When I started as a break-in the room was on life support mainly because of poor management from the long-time manager who was in charge who in all honesty was stuck in the 90's as far as poker. A new manager took over a few months into my tenure and slowly started to build a good tourney player pool but cash games were always tough to populate. One thing that hurt was we had three props and while one was a very nice older gentleman the other two were nasty crotchety older men who drove more players away the helped bring in but the old management would not get rid of them because of fear they would take players with them and without them the fear is what little cash action we had would be gone when in fact that was the opposite. Along those same lines we had 2-3 players who were regulars who only played in our room because it was literally the last room they could play in in the state. These 2-3 made games insufferable while playing and drove away players by droves. The worst of the three actually caused a full game to break one night because not one player at the table would play with the guy but once again our management was worried about banning three of our maybe 15 regular players thinking it would kill the game the once again the opposite would happen.

As far as promotions go I feel its a double edge sword. At one point our room had an incredible aces cracked promo that was arguably the best in the country and while it did bring in new players the promotion was too good. Our promo fund while it held steady for awhile it eventually dwindled to pratically nothing so when we had to cut back the promo it killed our player pool but at the same time the only way a room like my first one could generate a pool was to entice players with good promotions.

Another thing we tried that we thought was fool proof was run a 2-100 spread limit game with only a $3/half hour time drop and it only went two or three times and fizzled. We advertised the hell out of that and we could never get it off the ground, personally my belief is that low limit players while they may not like rake would rather have the rake and promotions then nothing to entice.

Thoughts and observations from my second room in the next post.

I don't know if it can be quantified precisely and is probably somewhat situational. However, I think what Mason is trying to bring light to is topics that clearly skew towards the wrong end of the spectrum.

One situation I experienced was in a mix game where no limit 2-7 single draw was part of the defined mix. Too many live players would go broke during this round and the decision was made to remove this game from the mix in order to prolong the sustainability of the overall game.

Interestingly, there has been a lot of discussion about stud games. I'm sure this is off-topic, but I'd be curious on Mason's perspective of where stud falls into the balance of luck and skill spectrum. Clearly stud is a form of poker where the element of skill can be much greater. That said, it is usually played in limit format, so the effect of the skill edge is spread out, as opposed to some of the more punishing no limit/pot limit variants with large or uncapped max buy-ins where players go broke much faster.

The second room I worked in for two years and while it was the third biggest room in the city our claim to fame was that our 4/8 and 5/10 LHE game was legendary for its action. We had a great pool of regular players who were there to drink and have fun and gamble. Capped pre-flop with seven players to the flop was normal for the game. We would constantly hear from players who were visiting for the first time or players who drove an hour away once in awhile absolutely love our room because of the action.

While our room had a solid and loyal player pool cracks began to form in our foundation as a room and our biggest problem was not any decision made by our manager (I honestly thought the room manager was one of the best) or any floors or any of that, these decsisons were made by bean counters in the "big offices". While our room was known for action our biggest fault was our absolutely terrible drink & food service. We had a horrible time keeping was few good servers we had because their manager would burn them out by making them handle a full room of 16 tables on busy nights which no matter how good a server is nobody could successfully handle that. When we had "proper" coverage it was usually 2-3 servers who were lazy as hell and would not hustle and would forget orders and just not give a dam. No matter how many times our poker room manager tried to work with the F&B manager to fix things he would not listen.

Another bean counter move in the last year I worked there before covid was F&B department shut down our restaurant in the casino after 11pm on weekends and 3am on weekends and only muffins and overpriced pre packaged sandwhiches were available until 9 am which that decision alone killed our late night games.

Another thing that hurt happened before I started there but our room and our sister property had a mandatory hand count that a dealer had to average. While on paper that sounds good for players and the house what happened was several of the older dealers who worked there who normally would rarely if ever make mistakes would really push to try and achieve the number and would get sloppy and make mistakes. Even younger dealers who were border line were more prone to mistakes that would not have happened had the pressure of a hand count not been there. One mistake one night ended up costing the table a jackpot which hurt in "publicity" because word of mouth of that incident spread like wildfire.

I have more observations I'll post tomorrow or later this week.

Hi KaiserChefs:

In many ways limit seven-card stud is the best game for the proper balance of luck and skill. That's because it is a game of great skill, and as you move up in stakes the skill level of the best players increases. However, this can be balanced by increasing the relative ante which introduces more luck into the game.

For example, $15-$30 stud was always (in Las Vegas) played with a $2 ante, while $75-$150 stud was played with a $15 ante which would be like playing $15-$30 stud with a $3 ante. But the best stud players at the higher limit were usually much more skillful than the best stud players at the lower limit, but the increase in ante brought the needed balance of luck and skill back to where it needed to be and the game thrived.

When I first came to Las Vegas in 1987 large stud games went around the clock and this lasted for a long time. But a change in structure when The Bellagio first opened hurt things, and I'll probably address this in the book, and then in 2003 the TV games featured no-limit hold 'em.

Also, when you talk about "topics that clearly skew towards the wrong end of the spectrum" it's actually either end of the spectrum. For example. limit Omaha never caught on, there was too much luck relative to the obtainable skill.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mason

There's another aspect to promotions which I think should be considered, which is how they affect the play, specifically whether or not it induces recreational players to lose more to winning players.

For example, at my local casino pre-covid (Crown in Melbourne), there was a Royal Flush jackpot, where if someone flopped a royal flush, they would win a jackpot (ranging from 1k-150k). I was a player there when it was first introduced, and it seemed to cause a significant number of players to never fold a hand which could flop a royal flush, even to a pre-flop all-in. These players were definitely losing more from this adjustment to their play than they could expect to recoup from if/when they hit the jackpot.

I've also heard similar stories about some places which have a BBJ, where losing players are much more inclined to play suited connectors and pairs pre-flop (or even post-flop) due to their jackpot potential. I'm sure you're also aware of the countless stories involving players limp-calling AA due to an Aces-cracked promotion.

It's my opinion that a good promotion should not entice losing players to play significantly worse, since it will lead to a net increase in the money going from their pockets to those of players who aren't putting it back into the room. Whilst such promotions may initially entice some players into the room, I doubt they are good for its longevity.

The recent advent of bomb-pots (which seem to cause 'decent' players to make a lot of mistakes), especially those where the house contributes, seems to be a good alternative to previous promotions. The combination of these bomb-pots taking decent players outside of their field of expertise, as well as the fact that bomb-pots are a natural increase in action, seem to be a big draw for a lot of players.

Additionally, when the money for these promotions is taken from a drop, typically the recreational players are paying more into it, since winning players are seeing less flops, which could offset the increased likelihood of a losing player winning the promotion money.

If someone tanks for 5+ minutes when you are paying time, other players at the table are more likely to grow frustrated and speak up about how they are paying money just for one guy to take up most of the time they paid for. I've seen it on a few occasions with comments like "hey we are paying time here". Excessive tanking is still discourteous in a pot raked game - I just think it's more obviously so in a time charge game.

That is the case in some markets but it presents its own set of issues. It either means the dealers tips are being skimmed which is illegal in many cases, or they're getting tips from players for doing them favors. Floors most willing to break rules for a greased palm are going to make the most.

It sounds like Mason agrees with my estimates about the proportion of women playing limit poker in earlier generations.

We need to face the fact that it's not just that women make up a small portion of the poker customer base. More importantly, they make up a severely declining portion of the customer base. The problem is not just failing to get better, it is actively getting worse.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past in which a critical mass of women were interested in poker. Now, the number of new, younger women entering poker is approaching zero. It is a downward spiral. The fewer women that other women see playing poker, the less likely those women are to get interested in playing poker. This has nothing to do with natural interests or abilities.

And it probably has little to do with open sexism or harassment at the table. I'd be willing to bet that they is actually much less of this today than there was 40 years ago. It has much more to do with the way that poker is portrayed and marketed, and the types of games and environments that are available to causal players.

Self admitted recreational fish checking in here.

"Everything bad" about poker rooms starts with marketing.

I have a friend of mine who is a marketing VP. She took a small tourism related company from $10M in sales to $60M in sales in less than 2 years precovid. She also plays poker. How did she help this company achieve record sales?

It was simple... She spent time, effort and money getting to know her customers.

How does that relate to a poker room?

Think about the type of person you want to attract who will show up and spend a few hours in your room. That persona may not be same persona if you are a cardroom manager in Florida vs. a cardroom manager in the Bay Area, CA.

Next, think about what barriers are keeping them from showing up. Perhaps they have a husband or wife and leaving the home for hours and hours at a time solo is a barrier. Maybe the casino could create promotional bundles to entice each person to show up and spend money?

There is no uniform right or wrong answer... However.. the biggest problem for poker rooms often exists within thier own walls... The rest of the casino. The VP of the casino would much rather any patron sit down and torch $500 in a slot machine vs. torching $500 at the poker table.

The crazy thing is that casinos don't have to dig deep to get insights on specific players. If you swipe your players card, they already have a good idea of what you like and don't like and they can build packages to entice you to come in.

In many markets... Poker must be viewed as a loss leader. Until poker is on ESPN 12 hours a day again and USA online is legal in all states... You won't ever see what we saw 15 years ago.

I could write a whole chapter on this...

Favoritism, both the impression of it and the practice of it, drives negative feelings. While on one hand, most people understand treating your best customers, your omipresent regulars, and your pit playing degens well, that only extends so far. Too often, the outlying bad actors that fall into the best customer category are given too many free passes for things ranging from bad behavior all the way to outright cheating. Mind you, this is a small subset of players, but it's a few rotten apples that spoil the proverbial bunch. I've had the experience of floors saying that they understood not playing cash with certain regs that look like a team, of watching floors allow a reentry in a tournament after the reentry period ended, of non-random reseating in reentry tournaments, and of sweeping away terribly rude behavior of favored players, behavior that would get a regular person 86'd in a heartbeat. When you see this kind of behavior by the people that run the show, it creates not only an unfriendly environment but also raises the question of whether the games are on the up and up because nobody really knows just how far the house is willing to go to keep their best customers happy.

Can anyone give some examples of poker rooms that are run well and specifically why they are run well? I've read through the thread and I've seen lots of abstract reasons why doing X or Y will make a good poker room and I've seen posts where people say X or Y poker room is run poorly.

But what about the poker rooms that are doing it right? Which poker rooms would be considered the gold standard right now and why?

At the lower stakes level, I would consider South Point to be the best-run room in Las Vegas, but I seldom play live anymore, there or elsewhere.

They have good dealers, good floor people, a good sized room, decent promotions/traffic, in a nice venue, good restaurants/food on site ... a mix of players, with enough poor players to make the games beatable.