*ATTN Winstar Players*

[TxRedMan]

I didn't threaten you, or your job. I told you that you should consider what you say in a public forum to a customer of your establishment. As an employee you're a representative of your company, and since you've chosen to discuss a matter specific to your job, your employer can hold you responsible for what you've said. I believe in free speech, but I also learned many times that free speech also has consequences. I think the management should know that they have an employee in a public forum sarcastically saying they're going to throw a party now that the player has said he wont return. That's the whole point- your attitude is reflective of the attitude of the room. Instead of offering a solution, instead of offering some form of appeasement or debate, you exaggerated what I said in a highly defensive manner and came out attacking me personally, something that's very unproductive and uncalled for, especially since i'm your customer and I had never said anything to you or about you specifically. In fact, if you've dealt to me, you'd recognize me and probably think I tipped well and was a nice guy, b/c I've never had ill words with any dealer in your establishment, and I'd bet a half dozen of your dealers would tell you that I tip well and I'm friendly to them, even only having dealt to me a few times.

My problem isn't with the dealers in general. My problem is with the rake, and my objective was to let others know that it's too high and non-competitve with their counterparts.


And I paid the time charge for both me and my opponent for the same reason I was even playing 40/80 NL- I had a considerable edge and didn't want to slow the game down for the dealer to chop up chips and explain a time charge to someone who had never paid one before. Unlike your poker room, I dont bite off my nose to spite my face. Why even stop the action for a minute to sort out a time charge that could save me $6/hour when I've made 200x that amount in the past hour and am in a position to make more?



Your room is greedy. Your casino is greedy.



If anyone doesn't believe me, what would you call a casino that made blackjack players ante every hand? I'd call them greedy, and I'd hope that if you had any doubts about my description of their poker room, that their ante policy at the blackjack tables might persuade you to believe I've not exaggerated the claims I've made against this establishment. Just draw some logical conclusions about a casino that takes some sort of administrative fee out of the bad beat jackpot, has a considerably higher rake, charges players for non soda, water, or tea beverages, makes blackjack players ante every hand, and has a dealer in this forum attacking one of their players.



And why do I care, you ask? Because I want every player who otherwise wouldn't know, every player who thinks it's the norm, every player who's never been to a better room- I want them all to know that in my experience, Winstars poker room is at the bottom of the food chain and is nothing short of a con.


I'd have been much happier if we could have spent this time considering ways to improve the room.


And LOL at me being a jetsetter.


Furthermore, I'd advise you to learn some discretion. In case you're infamiliar with the term, discretion is what I use when I dont out the name of the card room I play in here in Dallas, and why I dont take strangers from the internet to said room.


TY to Primogenito and even mrmr for backing up what I've said, and mrmr, I'm doing a photo shoot for M&F next month, so I'll be sure to send you the pics.


And if you want the last word dealerguy, it's yours. Feel free, b/c ***You are now ignoring this user***



-Tex

[rageotones]

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this is pretty much common sense and a basic business/economic comcept.

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No.

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you pretty much proved your point here. i admit defeat

[mrmr]

By the way, I don't play blackjack in Oklahoma or in Vegas, but it is my understanding that ALL Oklahoma casinos charge the ante; Winstar did not invent this practice, and is not at liberty to change it. The government and the Indians work out all these details on a state level. The same is true of the so called bad beat jackpot. Winstar isn't ripping off it's customers; the system is ripping off it's customers. But that isn't even limited to Oklahoma -- Pokerstars takes, what, 10% ? of it's bad beat jackpot as an "administrative fee" -- an administrative fee for a completely automated part of their software. And so do the card rooms in California that I've visited. And for that matter, all the card rooms I've played in in Dallas and Austin (low stakes) rake much more than Winstar, and I have no doubt they flat out steal from their bad beat jackpot, whereas Winstar is following the state guidlines.

[westhoff]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, I don't play blackjack in Oklahoma or in Vegas, but it is my understanding that ALL Oklahoma casinos charge the ante; Winstar did not invent this practice, and is not at liberty to change it. The government and the Indians work out all these details on a state level. The same is true of the so called bad beat jackpot. Winstar isn't ripping off it's customers; the system is ripping off it's customers. But that isn't even limited to Oklahoma -- Pokerstars takes, what, 10% ? of it's bad beat jackpot as an "administrative fee" -- an administrative fee for a completely automated part of their software. And so do the card rooms in California that I've visited. And for that matter, all the card rooms I've played in in Dallas and Austin (low stakes) rake much more than Winstar, and I have no doubt they flat out steal from their bad beat jackpot, whereas Winstar is following the state guidlines.

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While the ante and BBJ is the same at every casino in Oklahoma, the practice of when to eliminate/cut the BBJ out and drop the rake lies within the floor people at where one plays.

And Pokerstars does not have a Bad Beat Jackpot.

[hime]

I guess casinos other than Winstar are not inherently greedy! I learned something new today.

(Yes, I know. Joke.)

[theJDogX]

I play 1/2NL and 2/5NL live. I have been playing at Winstar off and on for about two years. When I can find a game that offers a lower rake I Don’t go to Winstar. That is my experience with low limit underground games in Dallas. The random nature of Winstar’s comp system is very frustrating and confusing, as a repeat customer I don’t think I should have to waste floor person time begging for comps. Let me know the rate and I can deal with it. I have no doubt that most of the floor do not have much poker expertise. It is very easy to see that they still have a ways to go when it come to higher stakes side games and tourneys. The floor could not show me a tournament structure for the $1100 game a week before it started. They looked at a sheet of paper that had words crossed out and corrections written in, but it was still not official. I have seen structures for a lot of their crapshoot tourneys, and have seen the line at the bottom about after the last blind level on the printed sheet that the blinds would just double after that. That being said with a smile there is absolutely no excuse for the blinds doubling at the Round Up final table this year due to this oversight. I just hope that Cloutier had a few words with the tourney staff before he left town. How much money did they spend on highway billboards, but still can’t get the marketing dept to set up a webpage with useful info for poker players. My talks with the poker room staff allows me to not put all blame on people I can see in the poker room.

The dropping a $1 before dealing cards is stupid, and players should be allowed to chop. Dropping it in a non-qualifying game is not even worth more comment. The issues dealing with voluntary shorthanded tables are not too surprising since the limited poker background of management. It is a stranglehold on the low limit games for the only reason being that you can’t legally play Texas Hold’em in TX.

On the good side, I was happy to see the other tourneys that were run before the $1100 Round Up. They had a $220, $330, and $440 with playable structures and hope they continue that on a regular basis. The only down on those were that 10% of those payouts were seats in the $1100. My point being that they are still moving in a positive direction with the tourneys.

Just another desperate Dallas player

[gettym]

I was there this weekend, played alot of 4/8 and two tourneys, anyways theres was a weird incident late Tuesday night / Weds morning I thought I'd share.

4/8 LHE and some guy who has no idea how to play and has been incredibly obnoxious leaves his cards right near the muck line unprotected. The dealer has warned him numerous times that when they touch the line he mucks them, protect them etc. Anyways it's the Turn and a guy bets, and the dealer mucks this guy's hand. At this point the guy is like "Wtf, what do you think you're doing?" The dealer says "Sir your cards crossed the line, they're mucked..." Player replies "You better gimme my cards, I ain't playin with you... etc." Dealer says "They're dead they're in the muck, protect your hand next time." and then the guy says "Seriously give me my [censored] cards." and proceeds to pick up a handful of $1 chips and chuck them at the dealer overhanded... WOW. Dealer calls security, little asian floor guy comes over and this guy gets escorted out. I was simply baffled how pissed he got over it but I lol'd. Sorry I suck balls at telling stories.

[PrimogenitoX]

Did you get the vibe that the dealer mucked them on purpose to "teach him a lesson" or it was accidental?

[Guruman]

just chiming in:

TxRedman has consistently posted in a manner that is worthy of respect over a long period of time in these forums. Less can probably be said of me. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

In my own experience the winstar dealers and floor have been accommodating as far as reducing rake when games go short, but in the lower limit games they're also quick to break short games if possible. I haven't played O8 at Winstar yet, but I don't doubt that some dealers there would have problems reading the board. They're all competent at holdem at least.

Chip runners are slow. Food service on weekends is nonexistant. Comps are cheap and the drive is long. The lounge is nice. Players are generally bad but only occasionally horribly brain-dead. None of this is news.

regarding the original topic of this thread: I agree that the rake and comp systems are very far out of whack with other poker rooms accross the country. Unfortunately they are not that far outside of the norm for the immediate region of the casino. I don't believe that any amount of letter writing or bellyaching will change these policies because they are based entirely on what the market will bear, and given the relative monopoly that Winstar holds on Dallas-based poker the market will bear quite a bit.

Live poker is unique from online poker in that the players are generally worse live and they're not tracking you nearly as well as they are online. You pay a premium to play in that environment these days, and if you live in Texas (as we both do) and have to commute to a poker room, then you have to factor everything into the whole live equation when calculating hourly rate. This would include:

travel expenses
-gas
-auto maintenance
-travel munchies
-time spent

poker room costs
-rake
-player promotion drops
-tips

and measure that against:

earning potential
-relative ability of other players
-stakes and games spread

comps
-free food
-free alchohol

and then throw in a few intangibles like
-hot chicks to look at
-dealer/floor competence (I see this as pure variance because dealer/floor mistakes can cut both ways)
-general player culture
-lounge areas
-etc

When a Dallas player measures all of these and compares Win to Shreve, the extra 4 hours of round-trip drive time tend to make up for a lot of extra rake. That can be nullified a bit by the poor comps and lack of alcohol though, so the decisions end up being close. If you assume that you'll need a hotel when you run to Shreve most of the time, then what happens is that most of the time you put up with Winstar rake instead.

The rake and bbj drop are important parts of the equation. They're not the only ones though, and I don't think they'll change until some form of competition moves them.

[J_early]

So the whole basis of this thread was that Winstar is no Wynn or vegas style cardroom when it comes to comps and rake. Well it doesnt take a rocket scientist to make that conclusion. This is a poker room run by an indian tribe in Oklahoma not a billionaire casino mogul. What do you expect? You sound like a life long gambler and are just now realizing that indian casinos are shady? I play at Winstar 2/5 and 5/10 regularly and have some issues with some of their procedures but my goodness cry me a river. The only valid points I see in this thread are that of the omaha jackpot drop that you dont qualify for and that some of the dealers there are clueless. Yes they have some shmoes dealing there but I have more issues than I can even begin to rant on at the "Most prestigous poker environment" in the world at the WSOP year in and year out. Bad dealers are everyhere. Maybe not at your underground game where you have two dealers but in large casino environments it happens. The short handed and HU bigger games are new to Winstar and if you expect them to completely overhaul their rake procedures for you crybabies try again. I cannot believe I am defending Winstar as I have always had issues with their procedures but they are slowly fixing them and I am just blown away at how you expect it to meet the nicest casino in the worlds cardroom. The 10/25 players I see bitching are the ones I have seen getting their asses handed to them. Maybe thats the reason for the rant........