State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

So I haven't played poker in Michigan in a long while, but I'm gonna be at Greektown next weekend (Fri. 24th).

I hear that the room has turned into a 3/6 & 1/2NL carnival. Does the 2/2/5 game still exist?

I've never played in it so any insight is appreciated. I did a search and read AZK's thoughts, about how the players are generally predictable and unspectacular, but I just wanted to see if anyone else had any other thoughts or if anything has changed recently. Also I know it plays deep... just how deep is that? I'm willing to buy-in for about a grand on this first pass; how short-stacked will I be?

thx.

Re: State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

"No-limit" has all but destroyed any limit action in Greektown above 5/10. Recently, I observed all the games in the "red chip" section were ALL no-limit, with one 5/10 limit game. It will be a while before I go back, because I am a "limit" player.

Re: State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

It's been awhile since I have been at Greektown(AZK and I both went frequently together before we graduated last year), but you will be fine with $1,000. On avg, you will have 2 guys with 500, 4-5 guys with 1,000-1500, and 2-3 with >2,000. Game is like you said fairly predicatble, but there are certainly some gamblers there to look out for to stack. Dont know if they still spread it, but Friday nights they used to spread a 10-25 NL game which makes the 2/2/5 game a little lighter and a little more weak/tight. Good luck if you go and send me a PM with a trip report.

Re: State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

Here's what I heard from a few reputable sources about Greektown poker:

the poker dealers come from the main floor dealer pool because of union regulations. Hence, most of the poker dealers are sub-par and can not get out enough hands per hour. the no-limit games are timed collection and yield the same take for the house regardless of how poor or slow the dealers and/or players are.

greektown poker management gets bonuses based on profits earned in the poker room. hence, poker room management is concerned at yielding the maximum per table (i.e. time collection) and filling the maximum number of table (i.e. low limit nlhe).

they are trying to "phase-out" limit games because the house take will not beat the timed collection of the nlhe games.

My thoughts:

the greektown poker room is essentially an extension of the house games on the floor, with little or no-room for the player to make any money, except at the bigger no-limit game. The bigger no-limit game should be slightly tougher than it was because of the addition of the $50-$100 nlhe game, which all the weaker players should gravitate to. (when they first spread no-limit, there was no small nlhe game. anyone who wanted to play nlhe sat in a no-cap buy-in game.)

motor-city is slightly better, but the rake is very high. $10-$20 and $15-$30 lhe games are being spread there and should yield profit for some. Also, the $50-$200 nlhe should be beatable for extremely good nlhe players and above average players may even make good money.

I personally am very resentful towards Greektown management for many personal issues which I do not care to elaborate on. But mostly, when they first opened and were strictly limit games, I made pretty good profits from many hours of limit play. With the new changeover in room management, I have to play $3-$6 and profits are small, if any. The growth of the nlhe game made a lot low-limit players go bust because they played it w/o knowing what they were doing and brought a huge slew of young cowboys into the room with whom I dont have the stomach to play and listen to their constant table coaching, odds spewing, sunglasses and poker gear, their awesome calls and awesome lay-downs, and their general inability to play after the flop.

best of luck
-J

Re: State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

Good post.

[ QUOTE ]
Here's what I heard from a few reputable sources about Greektown poker:

the poker dealers come from the main floor dealer pool because of union regulations. Hence, most of the poker dealers are sub-par and can not get out enough hands per hour. the no-limit games are timed collection and yield the same take for the house regardless of how poor or slow the dealers and/or players are.

greektown poker management gets bonuses based on profits earned in the poker room. hence, poker room management is concerned at yielding the maximum per table (i.e. time collection) and filling the maximum number of table (i.e. low limit nlhe).

they are trying to "phase-out" limit games because the house take will not beat the timed collection of the nlhe games.

My thoughts:

the greektown poker room is essentially an extension of the house games on the floor, with little or no-room for the player to make any money, except at the bigger no-limit game. The bigger no-limit game should be slightly tougher than it was because of the addition of the $50-$100 nlhe game, which all the weaker players should gravitate to. (when they first spread no-limit, there was no small nlhe game. anyone who wanted to play nlhe sat in a no-cap buy-in game.)

motor-city is slightly better, but the rake is very high. $10-$20 and $15-$30 lhe games are being spread there and should yield profit for some. Also, the $50-$200 nlhe should be beatable for extremely good nlhe players and above average players may even make good money.

I personally am very resentful towards Greektown management for many personal issues which I do not care to elaborate on. But mostly, when they first opened and were strictly limit games, I made pretty good profits from many hours of limit play. With the new changeover in room management, I have to play $3-$6 and profits are small, if any. The growth of the nlhe game made a lot low-limit players go bust because they played it w/o knowing what they were doing and brought a huge slew of young cowboys into the room with whom I dont have the stomach to play and listen to their constant table coaching, odds spewing, sunglasses and poker gear, their awesome calls and awesome lay-downs, and their general inability to play after the flop.

best of luck
-J

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Re: State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

I played the 2/2/5 NL game there when I was visiting family for the holidays. At the time (weekday early afternoon a couple days before Christmas), there were 2 tables; 1 must-move and 1 main game. The must-move was awesome, with a new donkey sitting down and losing his $200 (minimum?) buyin every 20 minutes or so. The main game looked soft, too, but would've been a totally different experience as there were several people sitting very deep. My stupid friend who drove us there wanted to leave so I never got a chance to sit in the main game so I can't comment directly on that; just on what I saw while I was waiting for my seat.

To get a little off-topic, why do they use so much red in a NL game like this? The one thing I really like about the Foxwoods 2/5 and 5/5 games is that they use a lot of green chips instead of all that stupid red. I hate that a reasonable river bet in a lot of 2/5 games requires 40 chips. I thought maybe it was just a Greektown thing but the 2/5 games I played in Vegas a couple weeks ago were primarily in red as well. I guess Foxwoods does something right after all.....

Greektown review #2
 

Here are some more things that irked me about Greektown.

As I posted before, management is primarily interested in generating the maximum take per table, without any thought to long term success and stability (to the poker room manager's credit, his contract is only short term, and most likely he would be axed if he did the smart thing and took a slight decrease in profits for long term stability and player contentment.)

Here are some games they axed because the take was not as big as the timed nlhe games:

O8B- chopped pots and dealing four cards took too long and slowed down the hands/per/hour.

7stud- no ante made for a dry tight game generating no rake. Instead of switching from spread limit to fixed limit, they just axed the game.

here are some other retarded things about greektown:
they put non-smoking tables on the smoking side of the room.

they have no board to see where you stand in the list and you only have 5 seconds to claim your seat. think about this.

they have pagers, but they havent activated them yet.

they pay monthly leasing on automatic shufflers that have been installed on every table. however, since their dealers are so slow anyway, they have switched over to time raked on 80% of their tables, except the $3-$6 game. think about this. the shufflers do not gain them any extra profit, whereas in a raked game, they might.

this should tell you how bad their dealers are. even with shufflers, the management was not content enough.

their tournaments always have messed up formats because management does not care about players. The vig on their $100 multitable is $100+$25.

Their comps are for food that is not fit for a dog. Also, their snack bar, for which the comps are good for, closes early and comps are not good the next day.

Their VIP lounge food is contaminated grade D beef and duck meat, mercury laden crab claws, raw shrimp, undercooked rice, etc. The food in the VIP is so bad I would not eat their if you payed me, let alone for free.

The pokerroom supervisors are patronizing, abusive, and irratable.

Let the party begin and end at Greektown.


-J

Re: Greektown review #2
 

Exactly....Excellent post. Some of the same things mentioned are applicable to "Majestic Star" and "Resorts" in NW Indiana. Some folks think those are "normal" poker rooms.

[ QUOTE ]
Here are some more things that irked me about Greektown.

As I posted before, management is primarily interested in generating the maximum take per table, without any thought to long term success and stability (to the poker room manager's credit, his contract is only short term, and most likely he would be axed if he did the smart thing and took a slight decrease in profits for long term stability and player contentment.)

Here are some games they axed because the take was not as big as the timed nlhe games:

O8B- chopped pots and dealing four cards took too long and slowed down the hands/per/hour.

7stud- no ante made for a dry tight game generating no rake. Instead of switching from spread limit to fixed limit, they just axed the game.

here are some other retarded things about greektown:
they put non-smoking tables on the smoking side of the room.

they have no board to see where you stand in the list and you only have 5 seconds to claim your seat. think about this.

they have pagers, but they havent activated them yet.

they pay monthly leasing on automatic shufflers that have been installed on every table. however, since their dealers are so slow anyway, they have switched over to time raked on 80% of their tables, except the $3-$6 game. think about this. the shufflers do not gain them any extra profit, whereas in a raked game, they might.

this should tell you how bad their dealers are. even with shufflers, the management was not content enough.

their tournaments always have messed up formats because management does not care about players. The vig on their $100 multitable is $100+$25.

Their comps are for food that is not fit for a dog. Also, their snack bar, for which the comps are good for, closes early and comps are not good the next day.

Their VIP lounge food is contaminated grade D beef and duck meat, mercury laden crab claws, raw shrimp, undercooked rice, etc. The food in the VIP is so bad I would not eat their if you payed me, let alone for free.

The pokerroom supervisors are patronizing, abusive, and irratable.

Let the party begin and end at Greektown.


-J

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Greektown review #2
 

[ QUOTE ]
Exactly....Excellent post. Some of the same things mentioned are applicable to "Majestic Star" and "Resorts" in NW Indiana. Some folks think those are "normal" poker rooms.

[ QUOTE ]
Here are some more things that irked me about Greektown.

As I posted before, management is primarily interested in generating the maximum take per table, without any thought to long term success and stability (to the poker room manager's credit, his contract is only short term, and most likely he would be axed if he did the smart thing and took a slight decrease in profits for long term stability and player contentment.)

Here are some games they axed because the take was not as big as the timed nlhe games:

O8B- chopped pots and dealing four cards took too long and slowed down the hands/per/hour.

7stud- no ante made for a dry tight game generating no rake. Instead of switching from spread limit to fixed limit, they just axed the game.

here are some other retarded things about greektown:
they put non-smoking tables on the smoking side of the room.

they have no board to see where you stand in the list and you only have 5 seconds to claim your seat. think about this.

they have pagers, but they havent activated them yet.

they pay monthly leasing on automatic shufflers that have been installed on every table. however, since their dealers are so slow anyway, they have switched over to time raked on 80% of their tables, except the $3-$6 game. think about this. the shufflers do not gain them any extra profit, whereas in a raked game, they might.

this should tell you how bad their dealers are. even with shufflers, the management was not content enough.

their tournaments always have messed up formats because management does not care about players. The vig on their $100 multitable is $100+$25.

Their comps are for food that is not fit for a dog. Also, their snack bar, for which the comps are good for, closes early and comps are not good the next day.

Their VIP lounge food is contaminated grade D beef and duck meat, mercury laden crab claws, raw shrimp, undercooked rice, etc. The food in the VIP is so bad I would not eat their if you payed me, let alone for free.

The pokerroom supervisors are patronizing, abusive, and irratable.

Let the party begin and end at Greektown.


-J

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree completely with J's assestment of Greektown. However, I still play there. I play the 100 max NL game and I will until I have 20 1k buyins for the bigger game because the games are completely juicy : guys going all in for 60 bucks with A5 in early position, ok there are a lot more examples but for a patient and intelligent skilled player it is a gold mine over extended # of sessions.

Management is the absolute worst, they can give two chits about the player and that is clearly dictated by the way they treat the players and how even the cage people treat the players. For every 1 good dealer there are 5 that are bad.

I come from a limit background and have played on and off here for over 2 years and in the past six months as they have been pushing the NL games and the limit have become extinct I have been experimenting with NL and things have been very good. I probably play once or twice a week here on average. The players in this game are sooooooooooooooo bad.

Food is bad, dealers are bad, management are bad (especially Ed and his [censored] one suit and military cut haircut hahaha) The NL games are suprisingingly good though.

Ok last thing about Greektown then I will move on to Magoo's comments. 16 tables and 1 or 2 are limit that just seems so messed up to me.

magoo,

You mentioned Resorts in East Chicago. Well, ironically, that is were I got started playing poker and though the room is extremely tight (16 tables) I do enjoy it more then the other places such as Trump. They offer a ton of limit game spreads 5/10, 10/20 kill, 15/30 kill, 20/40 kill, and 500 max no limit, as well as stud and the 5/10 omaha hi/lo game on saturdays. I don't think the dealers are bad there, the games are a lot better then trump in the upper limits and if you have a players card the comps arent that bad and even though i used to live close by they offer $59 hotel room rates with 4 hours playing talk to Gordon, poker room manager.

I will say its no Vegas or Tunica but it is a lot better then not having a poker room within an hour of Chicago.

Re: State of Greektown\'s 2/2/5 NL game
 

I used to play in both cardrooms regularly, but now I am sticking with Motor City. Motor is a much better run facility in my opinion. Both have the 2/5 NL "big game" and both I would say you need a min of 1k to start. It really just depends who is there and when you go as far as how "short staked" you may be. I have been going to Motor and playing their 1/2 $200 max NL game and it has been juicy as hell. The Greektown 1/2 NL $100 max game is a joke b/c you are constantly faced with all-in situations and their are so many new faces. Motor is smaller and their are many of the same faces. By the time I get to the "main table" after coming from the must move at motor the average chip stack is at least $500 or more which is a lot of money on the table. Hope this helps.