Venetian: $1 Max Rake for 8-16 & 15-30; $2 Time for 30-60 & 60-120

[*TT*]

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Also, the room was pretty close to full spread, 30 something games on a Thursday isn't that bad. They must be doing something right.

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wait till the WSOP leaves... the room will be dead again. Without the promotion and the added action of the WSOP when it starts, the room will die. Remember the whole point of the promotion is to build up traffic leading into the WSOP.

[psandman]

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The only one left there that I'd recommend to anyone is Ari Mizrachi (day-time shift). Great guy who I feel is stuck where he is without much shot at upward mobility unless the V wakes up and cleans out Kathy.

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Think about the ridiculousness of your statement. Now I'm not saying that your ridiculous, I'm saying we are all thinking incorrectly. Why do we want an experienced floorman as the big boss of a poker room? We should be expecting marketing, operations and management experts, the poker room director should rely on a junior director to manage the rules.

Odd, this just dawned on me today - I have always thought the same as 52s but I just had an awakening. We expect people who are untrained in marketing to develop a poker room, isn't that silly? Kathy isn't a trained marketeer and she has no experience in a multi-room market. Relying on her guidance to fill the seats of the poker room is a huge mistake. I guess its possible to learn some marketing as time goes on in a floor person's career, but unless he is trained in operations and has a marketing person with poker experience with whom he can turn to then its a waste of time promoting a good floor man to an executive position.

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I would rather see a poker person as the head honjcho of the room, and see them use the experienced marketing people in the casino's marketing department.

I've never really understood why casinos with large marketing departments seem to leave marketing a poker room to the actual poker room staff.

I prefer the concept of a Poker person running the poker room and use the marketing department as a tool, to the idea of marketing people running the room as using poker people as a tool, because untimately I want the decisions to be made by the poker people.

[*TT*]

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The only one left there that I'd recommend to anyone is Ari Mizrachi (day-time shift). Great guy who I feel is stuck where he is without much shot at upward mobility unless the V wakes up and cleans out Kathy.

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Think about the ridiculousness of your statement. Now I'm not saying that your ridiculous, I'm saying we are all thinking incorrectly. Why do we want an experienced floorman as the big boss of a poker room? We should be expecting marketing, operations and management experts, the poker room director should rely on a junior director to manage the rules.

Odd, this just dawned on me today - I have always thought the same as 52s but I just had an awakening. We expect people who are untrained in marketing to develop a poker room, isn't that silly? Kathy isn't a trained marketeer and she has no experience in a multi-room market. Relying on her guidance to fill the seats of the poker room is a huge mistake. I guess its possible to learn some marketing as time goes on in a floor person's career, but unless he is trained in operations and has a marketing person with poker experience with whom he can turn to then its a waste of time promoting a good floor man to an executive position.

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I would rather see a poker person as the head honjcho of the room, and see them use the experienced marketing people in the casino's marketing department.

I've never really understood why casinos with large marketing departments seem to leave marketing a poker room to the actual poker room staff.

I prefer the concept of a Poker person running the poker room and use the marketing department as a tool, to the idea of marketing people running the room as using poker people as a tool, because untimately I want the decisions to be made by the poker people.

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My career is dealing with advertising agencies on a day in-day out basis. A few years ago a process called "unbundeling started, where the media department - the buyers and planers of advertising, the media experts - became the AOR (this means the lead department that all others take direction from, including the creatives). What happened is that the people who supposedly know advertising and media placement inside and out (the floor guy at a poker room) actually started to ruin the vision of the clients. Clients started to rely less and less on their agencies which they pay millions for because they "Just Didnt Get It" - which makes no sense, its an agencies job to get it. The new trend is to start re-bundling, bringing media back in house and allow the account executives and the creatives to remain in charge of the advertising vision. Why? because these guys are the real innovaters, the grunts who took control were following a script that their bosses gave them, and therefore the marketing plans did not adjust according to the needs of the consumer demands.

in short foorman = media department = bad for management. A floorman has a different set of skills than is really needed to run a poker room. Conversely you need a fantastic floor or the poker room director is a failure.

[RR]

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I've never really understood why casinos with large marketing departments seem to leave marketing a poker room to the actual poker room staff.

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This seems like a goo dpalce to tell a story about some ads we ran. We had been making out own ads for Poekr Digest and Card Player. At that time we were really pushing our $1-$2 NL (at the time it was the only small stakes NL in Vegas) and our tournaments. This had been working just fine. There was a logo the corporate people decided had to be in the ad. They also pointed we had a marketing department that was in charge of making ads etc. When we saw our professionally designed ad it was aweful (bad enough taht the magizine that ran it gave us our money back becasue they shoudl ahve alerted us how bad it was). Our ad that the "pros" came up with advertised a "No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament with $1 and $2 blinds."

The people that know about the product being advertised need to be involved in the decision making process or at least see it before it is finalized.

[*TT*]

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The people that know about the product being advertised need to be involved in the decision making process or at least see it before it is finalized.

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I agree 100%.. welcome to the world of marketing departments removed from the division. Division heads need to be marketing and management specialists, so they can properly communicate and direct the brand vision.

[52s]

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Also, the room was pretty close to full spread, 30 something games on a Thursday isn't that bad. They must be doing something right.

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But how many of those games were of the 8/16+ variety that they are pushing with the new promotion?

Bellagio tonight (last night, whatever, its 5:20am Vegas time right now) had 4-6 15/30s and 4-6 30/60s running for the majority of the night.

TT - You almost lost me for a sec, but I understand what you're saying. Have the room "director" (Kathy's official position) be the one with the marketing brains while the room "manager" (who the hell knows who that is right now at the V, although I know that from the start that Tom was and is unofficially Kathy's right hand man) be the poker brains. Should note that this set-up only really works for larger rooms; small rooms in town need someone who can have a working relationship with the in-house marketing department.

[CountStackula]

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wait till the WSOP leaves

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I was unaware that the wsop was in town, I thought that it comes in mid/late May.

I really don't know why you hate on the Venetian so much, it is the most comfortable place to play an they always take care of their players.

[*TT*]

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Should note that this set-up only really works for larger rooms; small rooms in town need someone who can have a working relationship with the in-house marketing department.

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Agreed, this is for first class rooms only.

[*TT*]

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wait till the WSOP leaves

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I was unaware that the wsop was in town, I thought that it comes in mid/late May.

I really don't know why you hate on the Venetian so much, it is the most comfortable place to play an they always take care of their players.

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Its a very comfortable room to play in, I fully agree. But for a world class room it totally missed the boat. Bad management, bad dealers, bad floor (I did like Tom, but thats only because he showered us with gifts, as we have discussed previously thats not good in the long run for a poker room but its very good for us at the time until the gifting ends), and the executives above the Poker Room management know it - yet they haven't cleaned house, redesigned the room (Although I love the space as a player, its actually not conducive for marketing the room - weird but true), or done anything that they can do to really bring the players in - instead they do things which are long-term bad for the poker ecconomy such as rake breaks.

In short its not hate, its tough love.

[VegasTommy]

Joey Vegas is now the graveyard shift manager. He was promoted a couple of months ago, that is why you dont see him anymore....