Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Got to poker room around 9pm. Place was packed. The room is super nice and spacious. When you first get into room they have the typical desk going with all the automated boards of what's being spread. I saw they had a seat open for 10/20 limit so I tried to get on that list.
Go to find out that there wasn't a 10-20 game going and that table was actually a 1/2 NL so I end up playing that.

The 1-2 NL is $75 min, $300 Max, 2-5 NL is 500 max and the 5-10 NL is 1000 max. The only limit games actually going were 2-4 and 3-6 and I think there might have been a low limit 7 card stud game going.

They had a 5/10 limit O8 game going that I played for a little bit shorthanded and it was very tough. I was definitely the fish at the table and gave up on it after I dumped about $200 in it.

The dealers are the worse I've ever seen. There was definitely grade fixing going on at dealer's school if all of these people passed. Dealers couldn't count pots, make change, pitch cards, figure out who's action it was on, etc.

I used chips to keep count of hands per half hour and the average was about 10. A good chunk of the dealers were 40+ year old women who had no idea what the rules of Hold'em were, let alone how to deal. Not a single dealer counted their tray, nor used any of the $3 chips in it for the rake. Any time a person wanted to buy chips at the table the floor had to be called over and the purchase verified. Slowed the game down drastically more.
The floor themselves were mediocre. They were very nice but wasn't structured well from what I can tell. The floor people wander the very large room as opposed to just supervising a quadrant of area to keep the games moving.

The players themselves were the worse I've ever seen. .01/.02 NL online is 10x tougher then the 1/2 NL game. I made $1063 playing 1/2 NL in a span of 7 hours. The players just wanted to give their chips away.

The waitresses were all 2.5's. Service was slow. Alcohol is not free at all and bottled waters are $2, but fountain drinks and coffee are free.

For a very large poker room there was only one exit/entrance in and out of the area which sucked. Theres multiple emergency exits but you couldn't use them. They need to open up a couple of these so you can get in and out of the area much quicker. Even the waitresses had to go way out of there way to get out of the poker area to fetch the drinks.

Theres no smoking in the poker area but on the rails there was tons of chain smokers which caused the smoke to blow into the play area. They definitely need to make the smokers move further away from the poker area.

The training that the dealers and cashiers got was apparently terrible. The cashiers were so bad when I bought chips, the person who waited on me counted out the chips 2 at a time! Buying $300 in chips is a simple 2 stacks of red, 1 stack of white + a stack of red - 4 chips. The cashier couldn't grasp this at all and was to incompetent to even use stacks of 5's.

I really can't reiterate enough how bad the dealers were. Players were stiffing the dealers left and right and I wouldn't be surprised if many of the dealers quit. There was a fair amount of abuse towards the dealers and with the few numbers of hands they were dealing a down + poor tipping and only a base pay of $3.65 an hour; the bad dealers aren't going to afford to last for very long.

The tables themselves are fantastic. They're roomy, comfortable enough chairs, nice arm cushions on the table and automatic shufflers. If it wasn't for the shufflers, dealers would have got in 4 hands a down.

Mountaineer has a lot of potential to be a great room but they definitely need to work out some bugs. I still recommend going highly based off the softness of the games alone. It's easy to forgive bad dealers, some suspect floormen and bad cashier and waitress service when people are spewing chips like they are.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Thanks, I will be going down there shortly

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Thanks for the report. Hopefully the bugs get ironed out. Did you happen to notice if the limit games were as good as your NL table?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Just wanted to add my two cents:

I arrived at 5:30 and was immediately seated for 1/2 NL. Max buy-in of $300 is nice (I heard Wheeling is only $200). Nobody else had bought in for the full amount at my table. As stated above, .01/.02 NL online is tougher than the 1/2 NL I played. I could only stay an hour and a half (was passing through back home to Pittsburgh and had other plans, but picked up a quick $276. Only advice, when you bet, make sure you have the goods because I saw a $75 bet into a $50 pot get called by a guy with K high.

Dealers are mediocre, I wouldn't call them terrible, most were so nervous they were visibly trembling. They should shake the initial gitters off pretty quickly.

I saw limit games being spread from 2-4 all the way up to a 50-100 game (everyone was over the age of 50 except one early 20ish guy). NL was packed all the way up to 5-10NL, and was getting busier as I left.

The room has great potential, give it a week or two and I think the dealers will have worked out the major kinks and it will prove a great place to play for being less than an hour away.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the report. Hopefully the bugs get ironed out. Did you happen to notice if the limit games were as good as your NL table?

[/ QUOTE ]
No idea on the quality of the LHE games. I did play 5/10 limit O8 for about 90 mins or so expecting it to be soft and it was amazingly tough with myself being the only sucker at the table.

I assume the low limit LHE's have to be just as juicy but if they get off a 10/20-20/40 LHE I'll definitely be giving you a report on that game.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Thanks for the report guys.

How about some hands Witzo? How did you make your money?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

The huge hand I won I was in BB with AKs. utg who was a friend of mine (thats very loose aggro) makes it $20 to go. 5 people call. I pop it to $70 straight. Friend calls as does 3 of the 5 people.
Flop comes A89 Rainbow. I bet out $100. Buddy folds (he tells me later he had JJ). Loose Asian guy calls, others fold.
Turn ends up being a Q and I check. Guy pushes ai for $300ish. I go in the tank and finally call him as I had played with him for 4+ hours, he had donked off hundreds of dollars, always overbetting pushing with rags and trying to slow play monsters so I felt like he would value bet me or check behind if he had a monster.
He turned over KJ suited and he had picked up a gutterball and a flush draw on turn. River blanks and I scoop a $1100 pot.

I played on Sat also but trip was uneventful. Finished up $150 and would have been up $600+ if I hadn't flopped top set and lost to a flopped straight when I got it ai on the flop vs another aggromonster.

The dealers were better on Sat then they were on Fri as a whole but there were still some who were clueless...
Woman dealer, blonde. Looks... used... kept on trying to rake the pot $5 on the flop regardless of amount in the pot. Took much convincing that a $7 pot doesn't get raked $5.00. She then pissed off aggromonster #2 when he lost a big pot on a draw and while she was pushing pot to winner she replied to his whining with "Thats gambling sir" which he promptly went into the best Samuel L Jackson a white man has ever done when he yelled..
"I don't remember asking you a god-damn thing.."

Floor really needs to get act together. They are clustering more and more and not addressing calls for floor quickly and efficiently. Of course dealers need to shout what table the floor call is for as opposed to raising their hand like they're in the 3rd grade.

Cashiers were using calculators, abacuses, their 7 toes, etc to count money. Was quite sad. When your sole job is to make change and cash money you should be able to add.

Waitresses were very good on Sat but my table were ordering 6 diet cokes at a time and tipping well so maybe I just got lucky that I was at a good table for drink service.

Dealers really need trained or retrained on the clocking in board. They struggled to log themselves in when they sat down as well as logging in players.

Smoking is getting out of hand and they need to keep smokers off rails as the smoke is traveling into poker area.

Need more then one entrance/exit opened up to poker area.

front desk needs to mark off players once seated.

the 2/5 NL and 5/10 NL needs bigger buyin. 1/2 NL at 300 max is more BB's in chips then the 2/5 at $500 max or the 5/10 at $1000 max. playing a 100BB 5/10 NL seems really poor.

Will probably go back Tues as I'm going to railbird the Colts Monday night. Will see if theres any improvement in their day 5.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

what was the rake?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

I went to also Friday through Sunday. The dealers do need alot of work. They just need time. Play was from good to bad. Lots of Fish and people who watch too much TV. Sunday the play was much tougher at least at my table. Nice room. only live 10 min from the place. I think the weekends are going to be busy and have lots of action from the fishes

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

rake 10% to 5 dollars on 1/2 NL

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

A) When did WV get poker?

B) What towns are the rooms located in?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Good report...I'll be there in a few weeks.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

A) October 19, 2007

B) Wheeling and Chester

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Tables opened up 10-19-07. Law was passed in June. Full table games in 2 months. Wheeling and Chester are the towns.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
A) October 19, 2007

B) Wheeling and Chester

[/ QUOTE ]

Good. I was about to be pissed that I missed it. I was in WV this weekend, but no farther north than Parkersburg and Clarksburg, and with not a lot of free time.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Being in WV is still a beat... but I do wish they would have had poker when I lived in Pittsburgh.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

About the $5 rake- it's a true 10% (assuming your dealer does math correctly). They do not take $3 on the flop like other poker rooms, just 10%. So if the pot is pushed on the flop and it's only $12 in there the rake would be $1.00 as opposed to $3 at other poker rooms.

I saw one or two dealers try to rake a pot that was won pre-flop but this is obviously not correct and they didn't do so when called on it.
I plan on going back on Tues I think and am curious to see if anything has improved.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

so LHE jumps from 2/4 to 50/100? No 10/20, 15/30 and the like?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
so LHE jumps from 2/4 to 50/100? No 10/20, 15/30 and the like?

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was there opening day I saw 2/4, 3/6, 10/20 and 50/100. There was 'interest' for other limits, they'll spread anything with enough people the floor said...

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

opening day their board said there was a 10/20 limit game going but when I tried to play it, it didn't exist.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Nice thread, I'm in youngstown and cannot wait to hit this room on the weekend. As soon as it gets out that the tables are open this room will be swarming with bad players.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
Nice thread, I'm in youngstown and cannot wait to hit this room on the weekend. As soon as it gets out that the tables are open this room will be swarming with bad players.

[/ QUOTE ]
Then word must have already got out from the plays I've seen [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
About the $5 rake- it's a true 10% (assuming your dealer does math correctly). They do not take $3 on the flop like other poker rooms, just 10%. So if the pot is pushed on the flop and it's only $12 in there the rake would be $1.00 as opposed to $3 at other poker rooms.

I saw one or two dealers try to rake a pot that was won pre-flop but this is obviously not correct and they didn't do so when called on it.
I plan on going back on Tues I think and am curious to see if anything has improved.

[/ QUOTE ]

They don’t have a “no flop no drop policy.” If one player raises and everyone folds they rake the sb, bb and the raiser’s bet that equals the bb.

E.g 5/10NL 5+10 +10 (not the whole raise) = 25 – rake was $2 on a blind steal.

I am sure not all dealers know what to do, but I asked the floor (I asked 2 different people) and got the same answer.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Anyone stay overnight? Do they have a poker rate?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone stay overnight? Do they have a poker rate?

[/ QUOTE ]I've heard anyone with a players card gets $39 hotel room during week, $89 on Friday nights and $99 on Sat nights but haven't confirmed it myself.

Just got back from a 5 hour session tonight. Couple notes about the room on my 3rd trip..

Dealers are still wretched. Still don't know what the winning hand is at river. Still not knowing to skip the player and keep dealing if they exposed their card. Don't understand how buying the button works. The dealers had such a bad grasping of using $3 chips for rake drops they ended up pulling the $3 chips from the dealer's racks so theres a closet full of wasted $3 chips somewhere.
They're having a hard time using the comp machine as well. When they need chips they'll forget to push the chip runner button and they have a hell of a time clocking someone in.

I had a dealer tonight, bald older guy name John who bumped the machine and clocked me out. I made him aware of situation and he's like "you're still in" so I asked him what my name is since it'll come up on the screen. Obviously, he can't tell me cause I wasn't clocked in... no tips for him.
Dealers were also letting players buy in short sometimes when they min buyin at 1/2 NL is $70 on a rebuy. I personally had no problem with it as it's usually dead money if they buy in short.

There was some pluses. The cocktail waitresses got hotter overnight it seemed as most of the servers tonights were 5's or 6's as opposed to the 2's and 3's I saw on Friday and Saturday.

There was also 1 or 2 decent dealers. I had a younger guy named Lloyd deal tonight and he was very good. There was another guy named Michael who did his best to keep the game moving at a good clip and I think he'll eventually be an excellent dealer as well.

Floor is still mediocre at best. They're in no hurry to attend to a floor call and they have a tough time counting racks behind dealers or dealing with change issues when called upon.

The dealers also need to be instructed more about guarding their decks. Multiple times tonight a dealer thought the hand was over and essentially put their deck on the top of the muck. The top cards were not mixed and the deck was essentially in-tact but the cards still hit the muck which seems like a big no-no.

I might head back up tomorrow night but so far things are starting to get a little faster and the players are just as horrendous as day one.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Witzo, have you seen anyone else buying in for the full 300 while youre there? Im pumped to go down there in the next couple days. I usually play at Seneca but now that you can buy in for 150bb's there I see no reason to ever go there again.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

this is so f-ing awesome do you think they would ever spread:
pl mixed/dealer's choice
plo uncapped 1/2,2/5,5/10...?
higher limit 8/ob?

these seem like trouble for the dealers but we would tip exorbitantly and then basically run the game for them, i think

so sweet wv rules $39 room rate lol

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
Witzo, have you seen anyone else buying in for the full 300 while youre there? Im pumped to go down there in the next couple days. I usually play at Seneca but now that you can buy in for 150bb's there I see no reason to ever go there again.

[/ QUOTE ]
Only myself and my friends have I seen buy in for the full 3 hundo. Even people I've seen from Seneca or local charity tourny cashgames whose games I respect have been buying in short.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
this is so f-ing awesome do you think they would ever spread:
pl mixed/dealer's choice
plo uncapped 1/2,2/5,5/10...?
higher limit 8/ob?

these seem like trouble for the dealers but we would tip exorbitantly and then basically run the game for them, i think

so sweet wv rules $39 room rate lol

[/ QUOTE ]Bigges O8 I saw so far is 5/10 limit. I did overhear on Saturday the front desk radio'ing a floor person if the room could spread PLO8 and the floor basically replied with "no way".
I think the odds of a PL game going on in Mountaineer right now is less likely then NL Crazy 8's being spread.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

anybody want to split a room saturday night?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
this is so f-ing awesome do you think they would ever spread:
pl mixed/dealer's choice
plo uncapped 1/2,2/5,5/10...?
higher limit 8/ob?

these seem like trouble for the dealers but we would tip exorbitantly and then basically run the game for them, i think

so sweet wv rules $39 room rate lol

[/ QUOTE ]

I would be thrilled to see any of these games go and if I am present will be happy to join them or their waitlists.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

Planning on playing Fri night. Anyone play the 2/5 or 5/10 NL games yet? I'm considering moving up to 2/5 on a juicy Friday night but I'm not opposed to playing 5/10 either.
I'm just not sure if these games are better then 1/2 with a 300 max.
With 5/10 being only 100 BB's is the game actually good or is it just a shove fest? 2/5 is also 100BB's as opposed to 1/2's 150 BBs.

Any advice is appreciated, but I prefer to not play Poker Superstars Invitational push-fests for $1000 preflop if thats what the 5/10NL devolved to.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

The 5/10NL is not maniacal at all. Next time I see you there (I know who you are, not sure if you know I am RJT. I said hey to you the other evening as you were walking by. We’ve chatted before) I'll give you some details. Good chance I will be there Friday night.

You will have no problem in the 2/5 and if your bankroll is fine you won’t have any problem in the 5/10.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

I'm about to leave now. I'll be in a light blue hoodie, jeand and red sox hat. Come say hi, 2+2...

Will stick to 1-2 NL. My first time playing live...legally, anyway. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

I made the trip out there yesterday from Mentor Ohio and I was happy with the way the room way setup. The entire staff was very slow. They seem to be making an effort from what I saw to get it together so I think by the end of November it'll be a little more smooth. I did notice that the automatic card shufflers are in a spot where any money from the first 4 spots on the table gets hung up on it when the dealer drags or pushes money into/out of the pot.

The play was by far the some of the softest I have ever seen. I usually play 2-5 when I go to Seneca but elected to play 1-2 with the 150'bb buy in. I only played for 2.5 hours and won just under 400. There was a guy who had about 600 on my right and he left for another table after about 30 minutes. oter then him everyone had between 100 and 200 and they were some of the worst weak tight players ever. This place is a gold mine.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

The players are really bad still but the room imho gets worse. Just as the dealers are starting to get a little better they have new rules set up by the "lottery commission".

Now every down, the Floor has to come over and count the racks and write things down. Floor still has to verify chips when someone is giving change and once my table got shorthanded we were informed no rake-break cause the "Lottery Commission" won't let them.

I feel like a little kid being told to not be naughty cause the devil will get'cha. They're turning the lottery commission into this figurehead of evil for all the problems with the room.

The lottery commission isn't the one who slowly answers floor calls. The lottery commission isn't the one who's not allowing players to buy the button, and the lottery commission aren't the ones who won't allow live straddles.

I got called to a game last night when a new game started and 12 people showed up to sit down. Of those 12 1/2 of them were never on the list to begin with. What happens? First Come First serve sat down and played. The floor still will not use the electronic board to go over peoples names, scratch off the top 10 and move the game along.

Names aren't properly being removed from the board as well.

Way to blow a lot of money on a awesome system that no one apparently knows how to implement!

I've decided for myself that I'm sick of playing 15 hands an hour and driving solo to do it. Though my win-rate there is currently much higher then playing online the stress of watching ineptness destroy an otherwise beautiful poker room isn't worth it.

If I'm there it's cause I'm with friends and didn't drive solo, or my old man wanted to go up and bet the ponies.

Else I'll give it till thanksgiving and wait to see what improves.

(With that said all my friends are degenerates too so I'll probably be up twice a week with them [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But it's under protest)

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

hang in there, also Pennsylvania will have poker in 2009 and you probably are the same distance from Erie or Pgh as the Mountain,so maybe one of the new poker rooms will have their act together?

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

I'm a tiny bit closer to Erie then Mountaineer.
The thing that irks me is I want to love the poker room. It's roomy, huge and theres plenty of fish.
But when you can only cast your line 15-18 times an hour it's hard to pull em in.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

it'll get better... also it would be a good idea to encourage other players to go to the cage to buy the chips since that seems to be the main thing that is slowing the games down right now.

Re: Mountaineer Trip Report- WV
 

[ QUOTE ]
Wheeling and Chester are the towns.

[/ QUOTE ]

Curious - Why do they say Mountaineer is in Chester, WV when there's another small town, Newell, WV between Chester and the track/casino?

I grew up in Ohio right across the river and used to go to the track (years ago).