*ATTN Winstar Players*

[TxRedMan]

I understand many of you enjoy the room, that's wonderful. I know many of you will continue to play there despite what you hear about the room, but I hope that as a poker player you will take into consideration what I'm about to say and at the very least make your voice heard.

Yesterday I was at Winstar for some side game action. I was playing at several short handed tables. I was playing 2-5 PLO, 5-10 NLHE, and 5-10 PLO. First of all, a small concern, was that none of the dealers knew how to handle a pot limit game. Small problem, no big deal, most of them came out and said it and I didn't have any problem helping them with the pot. Still, it would be nice if they dedicated a few dealers to the PLO games who were experienced with pot limit betting.


The primary concern is the rake. Four days ago I was playing heads up 40-80 no limit at the Wynn. The time charge was $12 per hour for the two of us combined. Yesterday I was playing heads up 5-10 PLO and my opponent quit me, mostly because he got in an arguement with the floor who tried to tell us we couldn't straddle the button, and then wouldn't lower the rake from $3 per pot, and they were also taking $1 for the bad beat jackpot, a jackpot we were informed we weren't eligible for, despite paying for it every hand. So last week playing HU 40/80 NL at Wynn I'm paying for both of us, $12/hr, and at Winstar at smaller stakes we're being charged roughly $160/hr. So they refused to drop the rake, and the game broke, and the table stayed empty.


After six hours of play I asked the floor for a food comp. I was told it would be no problem by one floorman, but the guy he sent over with the comps asked me if I had a players card. This must be something new? Oh, and it costs $6 to get a players card. Nevermind that I'd tipped all the chip runners, waitresses, dealers, (floor cant accept tips) like I usually do.


The situation with the rake isn't just screwed up for a heads up game. They take the bad beat jackpot out of the small blind. I feel cheated everytime they do that. It really bothers me. And as I assumed, per one of the dealers, they dont payout the entire jackpot- there's some sort of administrative fee or something.


I dont know how many live players think about this, but assuming your winrate is the same, you might make $10 more per hour plus better comps if you were playing the same game in a different place. For someone like me and most of you reading this, players who play 30+ hours per week, that's considerably more than $10,000 per year in middle limit games that would otherwise be in your pocket. If you figure 30 hands per hour, winstar is taking $180 per hour off the table. The same game in other rooms would be $108 per hour coming off the table.


Please keep in mind that when your table becomes less than full, the rake becomes exponentially worse!


I'm going to write a letter to the poker room. I suggest anyone who plays there to do the same. For me personally, after seeing a poker room that gave me the impression they didn't give a [censored] about their players and didn't care if they gave the worst deals around, I'll never play there again, and I'm going to tell everyone I see in Dallas, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles about their room and their unaccomodating practices and ridiculous rake that includes keeping money from the bad beat jackpot.


I still cant believe they could actually take $1 per pot for the bad beat jackpot, but we weren't eligible to hit it even if we did. You must have five players at the table to qualify. So why do they still take it? Because they're greedy bastards who dont care about poker players.

[censored] 'em.



-Tex

[westhoff]

I've always hated Winstar. The taking of the BBJ before the flop drives me nuts. I can't imagine how pissed I'd be paying it and not being eligible to hit the [censored] thing!!! What a joke of a structure they had for their big tourney this weekend also. If I want to be raped, I'll stay in Texas.

[Triantafylidis]

Great post, i completely agree with everything you had to say, keep em comin

[sirtimo]

Tex, I agree with what you say about the rake, the BBJ etc. The players card being required for comps is pretty new, but they didn't charge me $6 for mine.

Bottom line for the VAST majority of their Dallas/Fort Worth clients:

Winstar= 1 hr drive
Shreveport = 3 hr drive

Winstar is a new room run by persons inexperienced in poker and without any (legal) competition nearby. It is what it is.

[gettym]

I <3 Winstar, didn't know they don't pay out the entire BBJ though, that's definitley [censored], might bitch at floor about it next time i'm there. Players Card should be free, was for me and everyone I know...

[TxRedMan]

The asian floor guy who's about 5'2 told me it would cost me $6 to get a players card yesterday. I thought he was kidding. He wasn't.

It's sick when I'm starting to think that The Wynn is slowly becoming the best room to play in. Wowowowow. But it makes Winstar look like a [censored] racket and a half, might as well be [censored] Johnny Moss's room at the old sands or whatever. [censored] thiefs.

[hime]

[ QUOTE ]
The asian floor guy who's about 5'2 told me it would cost me $6 to get a players card yesterday. I thought he was kidding. He wasn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

That guy's command of the English language is non-optimal. Perhaps there is confusion?

[hime]

I'm 99% sure that it doesn't cost money to get a players card. I've just never gotten one because it doesn't seem to offer any real advantage to me.

No casino pays out the full jackpot, I've read other threads on here that say as much - it's a buffer for the casino to ride the float.

As for complaining about the rake, I have to find it funny that a 5/10 PLO player is complaining about it, but then I play 4/8 limit and 5/10 O8.

You sound a lot like a guy I was talking to the other day who was saying he could bring a 20/40 game to the room but he would want the rake dropped to $4 instead of $5. Uh, ok...

[TxRedMan]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm 99% sure that it doesn't cost money to get a players card. I've just never gotten one because it doesn't seem to offer any real advantage to me.

No casino pays out the full jackpot, I've read other threads on here that say as much - it's a buffer for the casino to ride the float.

As for complaining about the rake, I have to find it funny that a 5/10 PLO player is complaining about it, but then I play 4/8 limit and 5/10 O8.

You sound a lot like a guy I was talking to the other day who was saying he could bring a 20/40 game to the room but he would want the rake dropped to $4 instead of $5. Uh, ok...

[/ QUOTE ]


I never spoke to you about a 20/40 game. If I ever have enough clout in Texas to get a game together on a regular basis, I'll open my own room or take the game to a place that respects the players. You couldn't pay me to send players up to that bleeding [censored] hole. When Texas legalizes poker, I have every intention of opening a room that gives poker players a fair shake. As a business owner and a poker player, I'm apphauled at the practices in some poker rooms, and the utter lack of common sense and intelligence displayed in some rooms, Winstar especially. It's almost as if some junior college MBA wannabe is running that room, someone with no poker experience, and no business sense. If they legalize poker in Texas, I promise you Winstar's poker room will be a ghost town.


But I really want you to understand the following point, please read it carefully and really try and think about what i'm saying, because it applies to you and everyone else, and it has a huge impact on your hobby or career as a poker player.


When I first started playing, I didn't care what the rake was. I was excited to drag a pot, and I didn't care about the rake, and I used to tip $5 per pot. I was a losing player at that time. Then I found twoplustwo, I got chastised in the forums, and I started to analyze my game and grow as a player. Slowly I started to realize lots of things. One of them was that I played a lot of poker, and I paid a lot of rake. I realized at that point I had played live poker for a year, and that I had likely paid $30,000 in rake alone, combined with an estimated $15,000 in tips. I realized that if I didn't have to pay the rake, I would have been a winning player that year. Then I started comparing the rake in my underground Dallas game to the same game in different places. I realized that in the same game online, I would have only paid about $10,000 in rake, plus I wouldn't have tipped a dealer, making me a winner for the year. The same game in Las Vegas or Los Angeles would have cost me about $15,000 in rake. So if I had been playing somewhere besides Dallas, I would have been a small loser, and if I had been playing online I would have been a decent winner.


At that point I also realized I'll be playing poker for as long as I have the ability to do so, and that I'll be paying rake as long as I do. So where I give my action is dependent upon the competition and the rake. Just to give you an idea of how abusrd your comment about a 5/10 PLO player complaining about rake is- if I gave my action for the next ten years to Winstar at their current rake, the difference in dollars would be roughly $150,000 in comparison to the legal card rooms elsewhere in the country. Just because you might see me dragging a $5000 pot doesn't mean I'm playing at stakes that are impervious to the rake.



That's what recreational players dont understand. It's one game, and it never stops, right? We've all heard that before. Stop thinking about the $150 pot you just dragged in your $4-$8 game, and start thinking about the thousands of pots you'll drag over your tenure as a player, and think about the long term effect of what that extra rake does to your bankroll. I can pay $12 per hour at The Wynn and earn $1.50 per hour in food comps, and I can assure you that Steve Wynn isn't running a poker room that's losing money. He makes money off that room. Same goes for the Bellagio. They've got the biggest market in Las Vegas, they make money, and they dont rip off the players like Winstar does. So why does some greedy and poorly run poker room in Oklahoma get away with charging double, triple, sometimes more than quadruple the rake for the same games while simultaneously being cheap and greedy with a simple food comp? You have a voice, and you have a choice. If you want to play at Winstar I have no problem with it, but for the sake of the poker community, please consider forming an opinion on the rake they're raking and compare it to other casinos, and then write a letter. I wrote a letter this morning.


For me, I'd rather play online or spend more time in Las Vegas than pony up to the table feeling like some sucker giving action to someone who might as well be laughing in my face.




-Tex

[ICallHimGamblor]

[ QUOTE ]
Tex, I agree with what you say about the rake, the BBJ etc. The players card being required for comps is pretty new, but they didn't charge me $6 for mine.

Bottom line for the VAST majority of their Dallas/Fort Worth clients:

Winstar= 1 hr drive
Shreveport = 3 hr drive

Winstar is a new room run by persons inexperienced in poker and without any (legal) competition nearby. It is what it is.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is, of course, the Choctaw casino in Durant, also an hour drive. The problem is that they rarely have 2/5 or greater running except on weekends. If more people went there and demanded a higher or different game, I know Larry would run it. As it is, I am always the one person on the Omaha list.

They don't take the BBJ out of the small blind, players cards are free, and the servers are all hotties from some nearby college. It would be awesome if we could collectively change the way the games are spread there.