Congratulations! You just became the manager of a Vegas poker room!

[steamboatin]

You're fired!

TT must stand for Trying to be Trump. You are fast on the firing button my friend.

I don't get out to vegas very often so I have to use the Midwest market but I think they are similar.

The No Rake idea when the game is -5 is really good. Free food is also good. I think you would need to extend the free food idea to the entire poker room. Start a short handed game and if the game is still -6 in one hour, everybody eats free, something like that because you will need to establish a culture of starting games short.

The current culture (Midwest, but I assume local nits are consistent across all borders)is to never play short at anytime for any reason. I think this is the change that needs to be made and it won't be easy but I think it is very doable. (Is doable a real word?)

The players that are willing to start games and play short until the game gets going need to be made to feel special. I am not certain how this would be accomplished, if you made a special "Game Starters Club", hooked them up with a jacket or comps, gave them a special chip protector or anything that makes them feel special.

We need to ask ourselves, as poker room managers, why would someone come to our room and play short handed? To my knowledge, there is currently no good reason for a player to change where they play to go start a game at another cardroom.

there has to be an incentive but you don't have to give the farm away either. Value is precieved, so as smart poker room managers, we need some incentive the players will appreciate that isn't cost prohibitive. It might as simple are teaching the floor and the dealers to extra nice to the members of of "Game Starters Club" instead of just barely tolerating the players existence, like normal, actually pretend to like the members of "The Club".

I will probably get fired for rambling and taking up to much time in the boardroom, ratings drop if the meetings are boring.

[SplawnDarts]

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1) On the board, have players indicate whether they will play short or not

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Now thats creative thinking! I like!

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

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To sort of expand on the idea, the goal is to have the board be accurate and useful to floor personel, so you make the right decision about whether a game can start as quickly as possible. Some thoughts that might, or might not, help:

1) have a "lounge" for players to wait for games in comfort, with chairs, coffee tables, and poker-ralated reading materials. Extend drink service and food delivery service to those wating for games so they don't leave looking for a drink.

2) Make sure there's a close restroom so you don't miss players taking a leak.

3) Put up signs kindly asking players to remove their names from any lists they're no longer interested in - remind them that the speed with which you can get them into a game depends on their cooperation.

4) Give out those restaurants pager-coasters to those on the list, so that they can go play table games or get food and still be paged when their game is up.

5) Offer to take down a cell number when someone goes on the list, and if they miss first call, call their cell.


One other idea is to keep a cell list of those willing to play various games at various limits. Call them if their game is almost up, or would be up if they arrived. Since you'll start games with 4 instead of 12 or whatever, this will be much more useful to the players than the calls currently placed by rooms because if they show up, there probably really will be a game.

[Durs522]

When considering all possible promotions for this game it is important to realize what we're really trying to do, which is keep this game going "forever". We don't want this game to run only during whatever promotion we come up with, we want it to stay for the life of the poker room. It is important to realize that whatever promotion we use must involve getting the player in the game, and then keeping them there through service and quality that won't stop after our "gimmick" is finished.

That said, I think we should do some sort of "rake-free" promotion. I don't think this should occur strictly when the game is short, but instead it should run on a time spent basis. For example, for every X number of hours you play you get a free half, either rake free or no time, whichever is charged for the game. I'm not sure what the X number would have to be here, but I'm thinking maybe in the area of 5-10 hours. Obviously this will depend on the other factors we are not aware of in this post. I think the benefits of this are quite abundent. First, you aren't paying for a dealer to deal to a table of people playing for free. Instead you are allowing one player to play for free. This is really only costing you money if there is a list for a game. During the first couple of months this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Second, this will keep players in the game. If someone is coming back to use their free half, they most likely aren't going to just play the half and get up. They will instead put in a complete session in the poker room.

For starting games short I would suggest that we offer double comp dollars for any game 30/60 or over that has fewer than 5 players. This is basically the same as half rake, however these players must come back to use their comp dollars. I'm not really sure how feasible this is with regard to the comp system in the poker room. It would require a little more work swiping players in and out a few more times, however if we're dedicated to getting this game going then it is worth it.

Giving things away for free the way the Venetian did when they were getting the 40/80 game going doesn't seem to work. Players will play there as long as they are getting free stuff, and then once that stops they will just return to the Bellagio. It is important to not cater to these players, but to give them a reason to come to our room. We want them to want to play here, instead of basically forcing themselves to play just because of the perks.

The whole key to this promotion in my opinion is the service we provide. If the players are happy with the way they are treated and the quality of the games, they will have no reason not to come back.

[bigalt]

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The No Rake idea when the game is -5 is really good.

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it seems like it would be tough to pass that threshold though, with either the aware player not wanted to play with rake but still semi-shorthanded, or all the people giving him the evil eye as he went to sit down.

[growlers]

How about:
calling the list and stating "the game will start in exactly 5 minutes, and if you are seated when the game starts the house pays your first orbit of blinds".

My experience of trying to get the 8-16 started at RR is that people sign up and then when the adequete list is called everyone mills around still playing in their game until they see 5 or more people sitting, which never happens because everyone is milling about and won't sit down.

Another thing would be when you approach the desk when your name is called is for them to ask if there are other lists you are on that you want to be taken off of or added too. This would make the lists more accurate so easier to start calling when it gets to 8-10 instead of waiting until 15 since classically half the people don't want to leave the game they are in.

[SplawnDarts]

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The No Rake idea when the game is -5 is really good.

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it seems like it would be tough to pass that threshold though, with either the aware player not wanted to play with rake but still semi-shorthanded, or all the people giving him the evil eye as he went to sit down.

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That's why a scaled reduced rake is better than no rake. No "rake bubble" = no cranky players.

[MicroBob]

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Giving things away for free the way the Venetian did when they were getting the 40/80 game going doesn't seem to work.

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My understanding was that the room was not managed so well and the dealers were pretty lousy.

I still believe that actually running the room well and catering to the players (lose the Bellagio-floor attitude) including hiring competent floor and dealers would be huge.


Here's a crazy set-up:

Why not just make the 30/60 tables no-rake for a month or two?
Or perhaps just an insanely low time-charge like $2 or something.

And then after that make them no-rake at 5 players or less to make sure you are still getting the games started.

you need to get the 30/60 players to walk in there in the first place if you're ever going to get them to play there consistently.

This 1 or 2 month promotion is crucial.
Have competent floor and dealers working these games. You are trying to win these players over FULL TIME.

Venetian got players in the door but they just kept having problems from what I read on here.

You don't want rookie dealers because that annoys players.
You don't want rude staff because your customers will decide that if they want to get treated like that they can just stay at the Bellagio.

Welcome staff and good dealers and practically free games for a month or two.


Am I re-hired? Does this have a shot in hell perhaps with a little tweaking?

[habsfanca11]

How very much like management to present a problem, demand a solution and not provide enough direction or at the very least the parameters that need to be held to. TT - what's the budget? What are the profit expectations? How long is "management" willing to front-load this initiative?

OK, I'm going to assume that management is willing to front-load this endeavour - in other words, that we don't have to be immediately profitable and there is some money to spend on marketing, spiffs, comps what not for a period of time to establish a viable running game.

Other's have mentioned this but let me summarize: 3 "vectors" for a game to be established and run regularly (in order of importance): 1) good game/profitability of the game; 2) service/ comfort/ environment; 3) Comps/ costs/ drain on winrate.

To make the games consistently good you'll need the tourists. Advertising and promotion are one means of encouraging a tourist player pool. But essentially whatever you do it must be FUN! Tourists are there to enjoy, have fun, to party - yes to play poker and win but the "fun" component will be the draw. Some ideas/thoughts on possible promo's - Play with the Pro's - there have to be several/dozen's of recognizable pro's that you could hire as props. Of what I see of Matusow, he can't be doing well enough where he wouldn't jump at the opportunity to get paid to play. I can guarantee you you'll have the tourists flocking to the game to be able to sit and chat with "the Mouth" or others - where has "the Crew" disappeared to. Anyone who has any TV time at the main event will do. Hey are you Po Kim? (lol). Not anywhere as good - but what about having a low limit high hand promotion where you stake the high hand winner to a hand at 30/60? This one is tricky - the 30/60 guys would probably love the soft money entering but hate if it should happen to take some money off the table. Add to this the others ideas above about reduced rake for shorthanded and possibly double comp points for shorthanded and you've got the makings of a good game - as long as you can consistently get the tourists out to subsidize.

Service/comfort everybody else has mentioned. It is what will keep your regulars/locals around once the "specials" have expired - assuming the games remain good. If a good job at advertising and promotion have been done.

Perks - mentioned in others comments. There are many good ideas presented by others. As I think many have realized you'll want to focus on subsidizing short handed play. Reduced rake and double comp points etc. etc.

All in all I think your main aim is to really try to generate some word of mouth that your new room is "Bellagio but better - we treat our players with the respect and service they deserve."

If this is really something that you are trying to do for real - let me know as I have some PR ideas and viral marketing type of stuff that should be effect in generating soem "groundswell noise".

[Grasshopp3r]

I like the 6 max table idea for all limits. I also think that the tables should be round or smaller so that you can see other players better. 6 max should have a lower rake to offset the greater number of hands played.

[nyc999]

How about some 5-10K buyin major tournaments to bring in the high(er) rollers and professionals? I guess this depends on the size of the room, but this seems like a great way to jumpstart some higher-limit tables.