Wheeling Island Poker Room *update*

[frommagio]

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On my way there now! Will post TR when I get back which will be late!

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God, I wish I could go tonight. Too constrained all weekend long, grrrrr..... after all this waiting.

[RR]

I used to go to school in Wheeling. This would give me an excuse to go visit.

[GoStillerz]

I went to Wheeling tonight. Poker room was full. Waited 45 minutes just to *check in* and then talked to some dude who said he had been waiting two hours since he checked in and still didn't have a seat.

Looked from the board like there were about 8 1/2NL tables, and ~100 people on the waiting list. 2/4L was almost as bad. 3/6L was not as bad, but still quite a wait. Lots of "interest" registrations but no indication that that interest would turn into tables. There were about 8 people "interested" in 2/4 Omaha Hi -- I'da played that game, but wasn't really willing to wait.

As might be expected, most of the staff was pretty clueless; on my way out I signed up for the players club. The guys said, "This is our first night. We're still figuring things out. Apologies. Please come back again." They said that for right now, they're crediting one players club point per hour sat. Kinda crappy; Play 24 hours, get $5 in food. They still have a lot of working out to do.

Really, I wish I had gone to Mountaineer. I may try again tomorrow. It's about an hour drive from where I am. Not too bad, but a bummer to drive there and see that I basically wasn't going to be able to play in a reasonable amount of time. I don't do slots or dogs, so there wasn't anything else to see there.

Crowd consisted mostly of blue-hairs, meathead college dudes and local-WVa-looking people. Looks like it'll be bumpin' for a while.

If anyone else has any reports from later in the night I'd love to hear them. If I go back this weekend I'll go midday and bring a book for the wait.

I'm stoked to have something open, but they need a few weeks to figure some things out. Hope others had fun. Please post and let us know.

Go Stillers!

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]
I went to Wheeling tonight. Poker room was full. Waited 45 minutes just to *check in* and then talked to some dude who said he had been waiting two hours since he checked in and still didn't have a seat.

Looked from the board like there were about 8 1/2NL tables, and ~100 people on the waiting list. 2/4L was almost as bad. 3/6L was not as bad, but still quite a wait. Lots of "interest" registrations but no indication that that interest would turn into tables. There were about 8 people "interested" in 2/4 Omaha Hi -- I'da played that game, but wasn't really willing to wait.

As might be expected, most of the staff was pretty clueless; on my way out I signed up for the players club. The guys said, "This is our first night. We're still figuring things out. Apologies. Please come back again." They said that for right now, they're crediting one players club point per hour sat. Kinda crappy; Play 24 hours, get $5 in food. They still have a lot of working out to do.

Really, I wish I had gone to Mountaineer. I may try again tomorrow. It's about an hour drive from where I am. Not too bad, but a bummer to drive there and see that I basically wasn't going to be able to play in a reasonable amount of time. I don't do slots or dogs, so there wasn't anything else to see there.

Crowd consisted mostly of blue-hairs, meathead college dudes and local-WVa-looking people. Looks like it'll be bumpin' for a while.

If anyone else has any reports from later in the night I'd love to hear them. If I go back this weekend I'll go midday and bring a book for the wait.

I'm stoked to have something open, but they need a few weeks to figure some things out. Hope others had fun. Please post and let us know.

Go Stillers!

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The comps sound kind of like the Seneca Allegany - you basically need to play a 40 hr week to get a buffet dinner. This area ain't Vegas.

[franknagaijr]

Just in from a session that I don't care to talk about, but here's some random thoughts about the card room.

* Completely smoke free, since the neighboring spaces are also smoke free
* The cage folks really need more training in terms of doing very basic things quickly. If it takes them 2 minutes to figure out how to give you $100 in chips, and there's 10 people in line, you'd better get your chips well before its your turn to play. Seemed to take 4 minutes plus for any player to cash out at the cage.
* You can get food served tableside. I didn't partake, but it didn't look bad. Drink service was generally competent. Soda pop is free, all others pay.
* The dealers were uniformly competent and trained, but generally on the green side.
* Actions made out of turn are non-binding
* The only relief from the ridiculously long wait for Hold'em was to play stud, with 1$ ante, and 1-5$ spread betting. The wait for this was generally shortish.
* Omaha was put on the board, but it was obvious that the game was not going to go, because it would have involved killing a hold'em table to do so. Once things calm down, there may be 1-2 NLO high only. They also took lists for 5-5 PLO and 3-6 O8.
* The floor was really struggling to keep control of how many empty seats they had and how to fill them, despite some very sophisticated buttonry on the fancy tables
* The players at my table were all home-gamers, which meant that general casino rules, such as '1 to a hand' were not generally respected, and some of the dealers were too green to enforce this. I suspect this will get better.
* I think that within a few months, this will be a pretty decent place to play.
* The great state of Ohio is losing boatloads of revenue to its three casino-offering neighbors. I hope the lunkheads in the capitol building cave in soon.

[sirfoldalot]

Ok here is my report....

Arrived at 7pm-ish. There was a huge line just to put name on game queue as expected. There was a kiosk for those with players cards. Glad I got one at the soft opening since there was no one at the kiosk. Signed up for 3-6 and 1-2NL. 1-2 had the most tables but a huge wait.

Here are my quick observations:

- Loved the dealers. Most were well trained and very few mistakes were made. This is outstanding for an opening night. Many exchanged $1 for $3 chips for rake which is nice. Dealers were a little timid to enforce some of the lighter rules such as minor string bets and such but once again that is to be expected on the first day.
- Room is setup nice. It is open an airy. Needs more televisions though.
- Computers to manage open seats is useless right now. I was at the front desk watching the screen. I could see open seats but the front desk refused to call them. Part of the reason is my next bullet which is the cage. Hopefully that is only a result of opening day.
- I got my chips when I first got to the room because the cage had a long line. The cage staff must be extremely nervous as they took quite some time to count out chips. This long line also is what caused confusion at the front desk as they for some reason couldn't lock in a seat. Since players were waiting in line at the cage the front desk would announce they need to wait to determine where those players will be seated.
- Drink service was slow. We were in a a corner table and it was hard to get their attention. Once again, first day and it was a mobscene. Soda/water type stuff was free. All other items have a cost.
- The cards and chips are fine. Normal poker size plastic cards and the chips are the paulson top hat/cane design with logo insert. Chips are sharp and hard to shuffle because they are so new.
- The table limits are as follows. Don't bother asking the cage at this point. They barely know how to count chips and they have no knowledge of what is going on in the poker room. I don't think the dealers would enforce this too much anyway as I am unsure they know the limits.
1-2 - 200
2-5 - 500
5-10 - 1500

That is about it for now. I ended up at a 3-6 table hoping to get on a 1-2 but pretty much gave up on that thought. Want to give a shout out to Mike from Athens who gave me the equivalent of a 'sup bro'.

Even with the mobscene and the room management issues I had a great time. Can't wait to go back!

Mike

[sirfoldalot]

One other note...

The gaming commission is not allowing the dealers to take cash for chips for rebuys. They had chip runners going around asking for those that needed chips. All cash for chips needed to happen at the cage. This was quite cumbersome and I would imagine will change once the commission allows it.

[sem25]

[ QUOTE ]
One other note...

The gaming commission is not allowing the dealers to take cash for chips for rebuys. They had chip runners going around asking for those that needed chips. All cash for chips needed to happen at the cage. This was quite cumbersome and I would imagine will change once the commission allows it.

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That's how it was over at the Argosy Casino in Cincinnati. Wasn't a real big fan of that.

Anyway, any other higher limit games that when on? like 6/12+?

[GoStillerz]

5/10 was the biggest I saw. About to head out to go back, will post when I get home.

[Tcchap]

franknagaijr, were you at the table where the guy had 6-2 offsuit with flop of A22 almost jumped out of his seat to call my all in out of turn. I had AK and this guy called a preflop raise of $15 with 6-2 off. The turn comes 6 but the river came an Ace.

If you were at that table, which dude were you? I was the guy that came in @ 11:30 pm and sat in seat 10.