LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17

[BobbyArmani]

*TT*,

What do you think Venetian management is doing wrong? When that room opened I was hoping that all the Bellagio action would find its way there since the room was new, clean, unbelievably spacious and the floor was on their best behavior. It seems to me that inertia has kept them from being able to regularly spread big games.

The same thing happened with chessclub.com (the world's biggest chessplaying site). They got there first and no site was ever able to seriously compete with them since once they had the players (fish and GMs alike) no one was ever able to pull significant numbers of players away from them no matter how many trainloads of cash they threw at them.

Bellagio had the lion's share of the action when poker came to TV and that almost seems to make them the winners by default. I'm not saying it's impossible to unseat them, just very unlikely given the inert tendencies of human beings in general. That goes double for gamblers.

Even Steve Wynn wasn't able to seriously dent the Bellagio's action. I figured that if anyone in town could have and would have done it, it would have been him.

Again, are they (Vm) necessarily doing anything wrong?

[*TT*]

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There have been some long and very interesting threads about the over-expansion of the Vegas poker market as well as what happened last time there was an over-expansion in this forum already, if someone can share the links I'm sure you would find the topic very interesting

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I read those threads and I didn't find the arguments presented by those in favor of contraction to be compelling. I feel even more strongly about it now that some poker rooms are trying to get away with $5 rakes.

One thing that I would agree with you on is that I hope rooms owned by Harrah's close shop. The less presence Harrah's has in the LV poker world the better.

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To clarify when I talk about whats good for poker, I really mean whats good for the industry-player relationship, not what is good for me the player. For example if it was me the player I'd be pushing the Venetian to spread limit games, however I know thats bad for the industry and the Venetian poker room to continue to advertise games that they dont get, hence I have been advocating for them to take a "NL only room" marketing stance. Of course they should still spread limit games, my reference is to their advertising and how they manage the lists - it should be limit games by request only and the computer should only include limit games when they are running or there is a legitimate interest list. Empty lists only turn off potential players, there needs to be action to encourage action. I hope this small example shows how I think about casino-player relationship concepts.

Now back to the subject, I have traveled the nation playing in major and minor poker markets. In every city there is one constant, poker is strong 24-7 in markets where there is consolidation. We are only going to talk about low to low-medium limit games since the rooms that ideally should shut down only cater to that consumer. LA - 2 major rooms and 2 medium rooms - the perfect storm. AC - 2 major rooms and 2 medium rooms. Phoenix - 1 major room and 1 minor room. Vegas - 30 or so total rooms, only 4 of them are "major". Also keep in mind Echelon and City Center are opening within the next two years, both are expected to have large poker rooms and Wynn is rumored to be expanding their room when Encore opens. Now imagine if 8 of these tiny strip rooms closed. O'Sheas, the Strat, Monet Carlo, Luxor, etc and all of their business consolidated to create one giant low-limit room. Pretty hot eh?

The mistake players make is they think "I want the power of choice", they think choice is many rooms. Unfortunately this leads to many rooms with 1-3 tables of action with games that often break, and the consumer loses the ability to change tables. Compare that to Commerce's field of games 24-hours a day, almost all players would choose the large field over the small field of options.

last week a student of mine and I spent 2 hours traveling around town just looking for a game to sit in together at 10am on a Monday, I can guarantee that in AC or LA that would not have been a problem.

[*TT*]

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*TT*,

What do you think Venetian management is doing wrong? When that room opened I was hoping that all the Bellagio action would find its way there since the room was new, clean, unbelievably spacious and the floor was on their best behavior. It seems to me that inertia has kept them from being able to regularly spread big games.

The same thing happened with chessclub.com (the world's biggest chessplaying site). They got there first and no site was ever able to seriously compete with them since once they had the players (fish and GMs alike) no one was ever able to pull significant numbers of players away from them no matter how many trainloads of cash they threw at them.

Bellagio had the lion's share of the action when poker came to TV and that almost seems to make them the winners by default. I'm not saying it's impossible to unseat them, just very unlikely given the inert tendencies of human beings in general. That goes double for gamblers.

Even Steve Wynn wasn't able to seriously dent the Bellagio's action. I figured that if anyone in town could have and would have done it, it would have been him.

Again, are they (Vm) necessarily doing anything wrong?

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Bobby - all of this has been discussed before in very long threads over the past two years in this forum, some of them are linked in the forum sticky, its a good place to start for classic threads.

[SNOWBALL]

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management in a few rooms now realize that Mason wields a mighty strong pimp hand, he influences more poker players than any other resource besides television.


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That's an incredible overstatement.
As a poster, Mason isn't very well liked, or respected on 2p2. If he initiated a campaign to boycott a popular room, I think the effect would be quite negligible.

[MicroBob]

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The folks who are playing at the Hilton will (mostly) not find somewhere else to play, and those that do will be few in number.

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Not that there were that many players to begin with. But when I played there awhile ago quite a few of the 'regulars'...maybe props, I don't know...were talking about having played on this night or that at the Bellagio or the Mirage tourney, etc.
They seemed to be semi-regular LV poker-players who just happened to include the Hilton on occasion as part of their tour. Again though, it was awhile ago and I don't really know. And if those players are just going to take all their play over to other places instead of dropping out completely there aren't going to be many of them obviously.

[Smartluck]

TT, I was wondering your thoughts on poker markets such as Tunica, Stl, or the much lesser known areas like Miami, OK. Being from the MidWest (Bootheel of MO), LV, AC, and LA are all very very far away. I by no means am a professional but I do play my fair share, I play mostly 1/2 NL or 2/5NL but occasionally play 4/8 or 6/12 limit at a hole in the road casino (Casino Aztar Caruthersville MO) because that is the only game around. I'm aware that it is a different situation since I don't play professionally but are any of these locations good for poker and are these locations going about providing poker the right way? I know you may not have an answer for this since these locations are far less populated and are insignificant, but it seems I've never had trouble finding a game in Tunica or STL...

[*TT*]

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management in a few rooms now realize that Mason wields a mighty strong pimp hand, he influences more poker players than any other resource besides television.


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That's an incredible overstatement.
As a poster, Mason isn't very well liked, or respected on 2p2. If he initiated a campaign to boycott a popular room, I think the effect would be quite negligible.

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Snow - you have no idea how wrong you are, Mason is the puppet master, he controls our group-think much more than you realize.

[*TT*]

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TT, I was wondering your thoughts on poker markets such as Tunica, Stl, or the much lesser known areas like Miami, OK. Being from the MidWest (Bootheel of MO), LV, AC, and LA are all very very far away. I by no means am a professional but I do play my fair share, I play mostly 1/2 NL or 2/5NL but occasionally play 4/8 or 6/12 limit at a hole in the road casino (Casino Aztar Caruthersville MO) because that is the only game around. I'm aware that it is a different situation since I don't play professionally but are any of these locations good for poker and are these locations going about providing poker the right way? I know you may not have an answer for this since these locations are far less populated and are insignificant, but it seems I've never had trouble finding a game in Tunica or STL...

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Tunica is similar to AC, its a strong market year round. Oddly Vegas is not strong year round at all, its mystique is more romance than reality. I don't know enough about Miami, as a player it doesn't interest me. I'll be visiting St Louis within the year because my friend is opening a nightclub at the Ameristar, at this point I don't know enough to give feedback.

[Moneyline]

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n every city there is one constant, poker is strong 24-7 in markets where there is consolidation

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This is just plain wrong. Foxwoods is the only room in its region, and it's a giant clusterf**k. In LA the rakes are humongous.

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Now imagine if 8 of these tiny strip rooms closed. O'Sheas, the Strat, Monet Carlo, Luxor, etc and all of their business consolidated to create one giant low-limit room. Pretty hot eh?

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This theoretical room would almost certainly be able to get away with a $6 rake due to the lack of competition from other rooms. Pretty hot eh?

[Smartluck]

Thanks, I appreciate all the info you have given in this forum. Being one of the few "young kids" that prefers playing poker live the B&M forum has given me much insight. I have lurked around the B&M forum for a while and tried to read as much as I could to learn the game I love, and having someone like you to learn from, I feel has helped me understand poker, not my game per say but all the other parts of playing poker that doesn't involve the cards...

I think I learned some important lessons from many of the regs in B&M about poker without having a ton of experience and I know it has helped me prevent many mistakes I would have made otherwise.