Maybe there will be an explosion in Chinese poker?

i cant imagine anyone wanting to play BJ with another player at the table anyway, regardless of whether or not there was a virus, it would make it harder for him to win.

And what about the asian gaming? That's where the casino's really make some dough, big whales, most asian players. How many players will be allowed in mini baccarat or full baccarat? Or paigow?

And I think there will be at least 1 poker room in Vegas that will take a shot and open up, even with the 4 player max. Not sure right away but maybe within a month as more casino's open I can see a Wynn or Venetian room opening up. Now how many players show up is a completely different story.

winning card counters (you're not one btw- you don't have the discipline for it)are few and far between.
basically almost everyone playing blackjack would lose less quickly playing at full tables.

This rec is more likely to play 4-5 than 6 or more given the covid. But PLO, stud hi lo or big0 ... fun games not HE. Bring the mix if you want the recs.

I'm interested in hearing the thinking behind this.

Eh, plenty of recs playing NL still, I'll take my chances. The Orleans has plenty of mixed games if you ever find yourself in Vegas again

Online is so soft right now that live can take its sweet time coming back tbh.

Hopefully this leads to online coming back and maybe in 2-3-4 years more bad players live. I’ve been struggling now for 7 years. I only play maybe 20 days a year but I used to regularly clean up in 2-5 back in 2008-2012 and then as soon as the online feed to live of bad players ended that was over

I agree with this. For sure, less surface contamination is better than more. But unless one could guranantee 100% clean surface, then you have to assume your hands are contamintated and keep them away from face.

Daily/every hour or so cleaning of everything OK, why not? But cleaning everything after any player/dealer leaves...seems over the line and unrealistic of NGCB to require.

Furthermore, NGCB is sort of the gold standard for gaming regulation (shhh dont tell DGE in NJ), possible that many other State agencies in US adopt similar/same guidelines.

askenshak posted something about this earlier ITT but cant find. memory is that Vegas recovered fairly quickly. This is going to be a whole other layer of hurt from both revenue and expenses, the double whammy of pain.

lolz. who are you? I recognize your screenname from something but cant place it. The way you talk and come across Ive found at least one similar dude to you in about every card room I've been in.

edit. oh had no idea he was a thing. I still rem screename from something on 2+2 but cant place it.

This is a question whose answer can be searched for.

Not as bad as you’d think they were. The big change in Vegas the last 8-10 years is that increasingly more business is coming from trade shows. That’s going to be gone now for awhile. We basically may reset the trad show/convention business to Vegas back where it was in 2010. There were fewer and fewer slow weeks for Vegas as we went through the last 8 years. Nobody knows this better than me as an airline employee who sees the marketing aspect and would travel there for slow periods to do my gambling. The week after Thanksgiving was my week, then Amazon started having a conference that week which ended it being a cheap week. That’s just one example. There were 4/5 other notoriously slow weeks that got a major convention as well. I think this aspect will take forever to recover. The weekends will gradually return to being big again and be back to normal probably by early next year

Please, of all the trolls to feed, don't feed sevencard

I played this at Excal back then. Once.
If they brought them back now, don't have to pay dealers, no touching cards and chips, could set the rake much lower than $5+$2. But for now could still only be 4 handed. Don't know if it would be worth it for them.

I think we all just need to accept that live poker won't return to what it was pre pandemic until 2022 at the earliest. Theres also a chance its never the same. Depressing but true.

If any major tournaments ran in 2020 I would be shocked. WSOP has almost no chance of happening, and I would say 2021 will also be a big ?.

At this point I'm hoping NY being broke will help accelerate them legalizing online gambling. More hopeful for that than live returning to what it was.

I can say with good authority that it would not.

p.s. lolz on AQs.... table is totally rigged

This is part of my argument for why poker demand will be greater than regular gaming demand in the short term. I don't think any of the measures being described sound like very much fun.

As for the 2009 recession, it has been discussed in this thread and elsewhere, but it took Vegas about two years to return to pre-recession revenue levels. Common sense would indicate that it will take even longer with this situation since it is obviously very different from a societal behavior standpoint. However, the federal government is injecting significantly more stimulus into the economy this time around. Therefore its really hard to say how long it will take to recover.

I do feel like there is a lot of pent up demand for life returning to normal. The speed at which that demand is unleashed will largely depend on how quickly regulations are eased and also what we learn in the next few months with regard to the COVID-19 virus itself and treating it.


Agreed with all of this. There are definitely still slow times in Vegas, like much of August, Christmas, etc. But its not nearly like it used to be. I mean, long ago all of summer was considered dead, but in recent years with the advent of all these pool clubs, it seems like that is no longer the case. And now with new and expanding sports leagues and related events, I think there's going to be something going on in Vegas virtually every weekend. That was, of course, until Covid-19. But eventually things will get back to that. As soon as large gatherings are allowed again, conventions will begin the process of returning to normal. It won't be right away, but Vegas has tricks up their sleeve for enticing them back.

As soon as they are allowed to have them, you will see tournaments and tournament series. Initially you will not see the sorts of guarantees we are accustomed to in many of them, and certainly not the field sizes. But they will happen. There is no reason for these not to be scheduled other than them not being allowed.

Of course, in order for this to happen, large crowd gatherings will have to be allowed. According to current re-opening plans, this could happen in as little as 6-8 weeks, depending on location. That is obviously a best-case scenario and is therefore unlikely. A more realistic timeframe is sometime in the last third of 2020.

There is certainly the possibility that it could be longer than that. But I think your suggestion that it will not be until 2 years from now is also extremely unlikely.

Yes, I didn't realize who I was replying to. Thanks.

If you're counting cards, someone else at the table reduces your volume during times when the count is in your favor.

i mean those table restrictions are probably super temporary. like for a month after it opens, maybe less. june/july will be full tables again.

In general, like at gas station convenience stores, Target, grocery, etc, these dividers are only going to be replaced with bullet proof replacements. Especially in larger cities.

In casinos, if they install these, they'll be in place through the winter at least.

We'll remember when you used to deal with strangers face to face.

Makes sense. Thanks.

They may increase them slightly after a couple of months but you probably won’t see them go back to normal numbers until next year at some point

I'd like to add an important reason poker is 'different' than table games: the players interact with each other.

Chips go back and forth in poker.

Cards go back and forth in poker.

Blackjack usually has the dealer handle the players' cards. In craps they can pull out dice and 'clean' them after the roll ends. Roulette has no player touching the balls.

Roulette / craps / blackjack can route chips from the bank 'in' to players and chips from players back 'out' to the bank to be 'cleaned' before another player touches them (obv not that simple). How do you get around poker players exchanging chips?

Also players must hear each other, so there is slim chance of a pexiglass between them (thank god), so a long time for 9 handed tables.

I suspect that if they offer poker at 1/2, 2/5, it may quickly evolve to a video screen instead of chips and cards. Higher stakes will have rake go up to $10 hand max and more.

Can you imagine having fun, playing at a video screen for 12 hours a session?

Why would rake go up? They're not having to pay a dealer, they don't have to refill the rack. I would think that an etable is cheaper to operate per hour than a traditional table.

I don't play 12 hour sessions, but in general, I would prefer it (and I played on them before). More hands per hour, no tipping, no people blaming the dealer for their cards, no calling the floor for dealer mistakes or if someone's action was ambiguous, etc.

The first two reasons alone would increase win rates for winning players if it attracted the same number of recs. Not sure that it would, though. Maybe this new environment would be reason enough for people to give them more of a shot.