Trip Report: Argosy, Indiana

[Tom1975]

The room is in fact now open. I stopped down there tonight.

The room is on the first floor of the boat in the back corner. It has 15 tables as advertised. The tables are shoe-horned in there pretty tight, it seemed like they tried to squeeze as many tables as they could in to the space they were alotted. There is a wall going around the perimeter of the room, but there are openings in it, so you can still hear the slot machines going. It's not as isoloted as the Belterra or new GV room. There is a dedicated cage for the room on the first floor but it's not in the room itself.

When I first got there around 11:00 pm, they had about 12 of the 15 tables in action. Game wise, they had 3/6, 4/8, 6/12, 10/20, and 15/30 limit; 1/3 (100/300 buy-in) and 2/5 (300/500 buy-in) no limit, and 4/8 O8 with a kill. They also had an interest list for 20/40 limit and 5/10 NL but never got it open. They have a computerzied waiting list system that displays on one of the tv's. The lists for the games that were going weren't that long at all. I immediately got a seat at 6/12. By the time I left around 2:00, they were down to about 6 tables. Of course this was the first night so I'm sure business will pick up once the word gets out.

The tables were pretty standard - padded rails, normal felt, no built-in cup holders. The dealers all seemed inexperienced and I saw a number of rookie mistakes. I had heard that a fair number of dealers from the GV and Belterra were going to argosy, but I only saw one former GV dealer while I was there. I did recognize a couple of former BJ dealers from back when I played BJ at Argosy who are now dealing poker.

They have a bad beat jackpot. They take $1 out of all pots $20 or higher for all limit games 20/40 or lower and all NL games 5/10 or lower. To win you have to have Aces full of 10's or better beaten by quads or better. Payout is 40 to loser, 20 to winner, 40 to rest of table.

As for comps, I was told you get$1/hr with no daily maximum. Comps can be saved and redeemed at any time.

My overall first impression of the room was pretty average. There's nothing horrible about it but nothing really stands out either. I'd say it's on par with GV's new room. My favorite is still the Belterra. If were as close to me as the Argosy I would definetly play there over Argosy. However, I can get to Argosy in 25 minutes versus an hour for the Belterra, so that makes it a tougher decision.

[pokerrookie]

I mostly agree with the OPs impressions. One minor detail is that the 1/3 game has a max buy-in of $200.

After playing there until about 3:30, I drove down to Belterra for the tourney. While the tourney nearly filled up, the place was a ghost town when I arrived. Usually, there are at least 8 tables going on a Thursday, yesterday only 3. 2/4 and 3/6(2) only. They couldn't even get the NL game going until after the tournament. Hopefully it was because Argosy just opened, but one Belterra dealer openly speculated that the room would be filled with slot machines in the not-so-distant future. As someone who travels from Cincinnati (Argosy much closer), this won't surprise me a bit. And it's too bad, because Belterra ran their room pretty well.

[faded]

Awesome, thanks for the info!

[BobbyShaftoe]

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Awesome, thanks for the info!

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Just to recap:

Argosy added poker yesterday. Grand Victoria and Belterra already have poker rooms? When did this happen?

I need to fire my secretary.

[LrdNikon]

It's too bad about Belterra being farther away. They had a nice room. But, like the others said, Argosy is closer...perhaps they'll put in a better room when they get the new boat.

Bobby~ Belterra for almost a year now and GV about a year and a half.

[faded]

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I mostly agree with the OPs impressions. One minor detail is that the 1/3 game has a max buy-in of $200.


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They changed the max buy in, its now $300.

[MichaelOar]

I spoke with the poker room manager on Saturday (or maybe it was Sunday morning---I was there for a while--hehe) and complained about the bad beat on the 10/20 and 15/30. He told me that they would be stopping the jackpot drop on these games once the bad beat is triggered again (it was hit on friday evening for the first time!).

They managed to get a 10/20 stud high game off last night. It didn't break until 7am.

The dealers are generally terrible. I played a little 4/8 O/8--sweet game btw--in one hand I quartered a guy, and it took the dealer about 3 minutes to correctly chop the pot.

The guys running the board are pretty slow. Hopefully they'll get the hang of things quickly.

All-in-all, though, I'm so happy to have the room just 15 minutes from my door, that I'll tolerate just about anything!

Michael

[SenecaJim]

Yeah, I was there opening night. Won about 400 playing 6-12 for 8 hours. Yes , the location ( meaning so much closer ) is a big plus that gives them some leeway.

Also, I know it will take some time with kinks and all. I had 2 dealers that werer former GV dealers, both of them are well above average....the other dealers were TERRIBLE.

Not just slow dealing, chopping, following action, knowing where button is , etc. One dealer started DEALING the flop cards out after he burnt a card. Another time we had to wait on a floor person for 3 minutes cause the dealer forgot to deal me 2nd card on the button and the whole table could not convince him to just give me the top card off the deck,,,,whew. That's why I made it an early night plus holiday weekend for my wife coming up. But, as stated in your post, wow! it is SO much closer.

[deathtoau]

[ QUOTE ]
They have a bad beat jackpot. They take $1 out of all pots $20 or higher for all limit games 20/40 or lower and all NL games 5/10 or lower. To win you have to have Aces full of 10's or better beaten by quads or better. Payout is 40 to loser, 20 to winner, 40 to rest of table.

[/ QUOTE ]

What was the standard rake? Are any of the games time charged?

Has anyone played much since opening day? I haven't had a chance to check out the room yet but plan to be there this weekend. Are the dealers starting to catch on or are most still clueless?

d

[Tom1975]

Rake is the standard 10%, $5 max. No time charge anywhere from what I saw. I played again tonight, and the dealers are getting better. I didn't see as many mistakes as I did opening night.

Game wise, I played the 1/3 NL which was pretty juicy. They also had a 5/10 PLO going. When I looked it over, there were only 5 people playing, stacks ranged from $1-2k.

The only thing I really haven't liked so far is this one floor guy who's a total prick. When I first got there I had my name on the 6/12 list. They already had one game going, but this floor guy decides to open a second game even though there are only 9 people on the list. So about 5 mintues go by and there are only 5 people at the table so far. Floor guy walks by and barks "Come on! Let's get this game going" We're like "Yeah but we only have five people". He says "Well we can't have people just sitting around." He then orders the dealer to starting dealing and tells us we can play at a reduced rake for exactly ONE hand, then we have to either play 5-handed with a full rake OR he'll break the game up. WTF? Keep in mind it was his idea to open a table with only 9 people on the list in first place. In a poker room, the players are the customers and the floor should try accomodate them. This guys has the attitude that it's his room and we should be grateful he lets us play there. Anyway, that's my rant for the night.