Foxwoods Improvements/Expansion

[Big O]

I was down at Foxwoods Last night (9/18) and was talking with a floor person. They said the following:

- A new electronic checkin service is going to be installed sometime this fall. I think it will be similar to the Borgata in AC
- The poker room is going to expand all the way to the foyer area and might even go beyond all the way to the end of the room. That would be a tremendous amount of tables and the wait on the weekend will be cut down. This is great news!!!!

Big O

[BottlesOf]

Enh, I've heard this line before. I'll believe it when I see it.

However, beyond the foyer would be nuts. I don't think that's possible. If they filled it up to that foyer and completely knocked out the smoke free, they'd have like 125 tables, right? That seems like a lot. Going the whole way to the other end would almost double that.

[budman]

That's great news! They sure could use more space. I was there Friday night and at around eight every table was full and there were at least 250 names on the lists at the two boards.

I emailed the Mohegan Sun to ask what their plans were with regards to Poker. They responded that they have no plans to add poker at this time.

[pokaplaya]

I play there regularly (3 days a week) and you would think by now that I would remember to sign out, but I never do. It would be great if you could cash out at one window and move over to the next to sign out.

[midas]

Big O:

I too was at FW yesterday but heard something a little different from a dealer. The poker room was just about to start the expansion work when Mohegan put poker up to a vote before the tribal council. This put a temporary hold on the expansion. The dealer said that Mohegan has been angling for a WPT tournament in order to reopen but the WPT said no room, no tournament (chicken and egg thing?). Who knows, same talk, no action.

BTW, the summer Sunday crowds are gone at FW. Limited lists for all lower limit games. Played a boring 5-10 game for about 3 hours where the largest pot I won was $40, down $50. Switched to a lively 4-8 table for a few hours, up $100, then back to the exact same 5-10 table (different players now) and wacked the table for $600 gain /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[toots]

Boy, those $5-10 tables sure can swing. Went down over the weekend. When I sat at the $5-10 table, it was pretty wild. Unfortunately, I was one of the idiots making it such a good game. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

By the time I managed to pull my head out and get back up to even, the table had turned into a rock garden, with all the new players playing extremely tight and complaining about how tight everyone else was playing.

I s'pose that was a good time to start bluffing/stealing, but it just quit being fun, so I took my meager winnings and left.

[TheTurk]

I've heard about the electronic check in system being installed as well. But as for the expansion of the tables the floorman said they might knock down the sign in booth that's in the middle of the room in order to add a few more tables since they wouldn't need this booth anymore. He didn't say anything about anymore tables than that, but I would love to see plenty more tables.

[MaxPower]

Believe about 10% of what you hear in a poker room. I first heard that the electronic check-in thing was going to be put in many months ago.

What Foxwoods really should do is put in additional boards like they have at Commerce.

[ericd]

What Foxwoods needs to do is send someone from their management to Borgata to observe how to run a room. Having only played at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, I thought chaos and poor service was the norm. Borgata demonstrated otherwise.

[toots]

Boy, that would be nice.

One of the draws of going to a casino is that most of them have figured out that most people will be willing to give them all their money if they're provided with excellent service.

Foxwoods seems to have decided to forgo that bit about service.

Ok, I realize that they aren't making as much off of me as they do off machine players, but it'd be nice if they made an effort to treat me like a valued customer, anyway.

And, while the no smoking section is appreciated, it'd also be nice if there were a "no obnoxious drunks" section (even though they can be a good source of money).

[bulletspoker]

I even don't mind the whiteboards, the most annoying thing about poker rooms at Foxwoods AND Borgata is they rarely have enough people manning the cashout/cashin chips tellers during busy times.

I can't count the number of man-hours I spent waiting online with dozens of people cuz there was only ONE freaking teller open.

[toots]

The whole chip cage thing just bugs me.

First, no chip runners. So, you either buy at the table - where they probably can't give you what you'd like (I usually like to have a rack of whatever color I'm playing), or they give you colored up chips that have to be broken.

Or, go to the cage when you get your name on the list, and stand around like an idiot with a rack of chips, waiting an hour for your name to get called.

Or, try to time it so that you buy your chips before your name gets called, only to find long lines at the cage, and have your name called (going, going, gone) while in mid-transaction.

Or, grab the seat, then walk over to the cage and risk losing the seat, 'cause they don't understand what you're doing.

All the while it's totally hit-and-miss that you'll get the floor's attention to scan your card. And half the time I go to "check out," they don't have any record that I checked in.

The worst was when I was playing into the wee hours at a yellow chip game. They were going to close the poker room for the new construction (finally finished) at something like 2:00 AM, but they said that the local cage would close at midnight, and none of the other cages in the casino would cash out the yellow chips. So, do I stay and play the last two hours, or cash out while I can?

[ericd]

I wasn't thinking about the chip debacle when I posted since I was only thinking of a couple of things that Borgata does way better than Foxwoods. These jump out right away.

1. I like coffee. At Borgata I couldn't drink it fast enough to keep up with the service. At Foxwoods, I'm lucky to get a cup every 2 hours or so. And Borgata takes away the trash too.

2. Borgata had someone with a headset walking from table to table. When a seat opened up this person relayed the information to the people managing the lists. I don't have to remind anyone who has been to Foxwoods how long an empty seat can remain vacant even when the wait list is miles long.

[JoeU]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't have to remind anyone who has been to Foxwoods how long an empty seat can remain vacant even when the wait list is miles long.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of my pet peeves too. I usually try to help out the floor/dealers and yell to the board "seat open 4-8 holdem". This usually gets someones attention and the seat gets filled.

Its a crime to let a seat sit empty with a 200+ name list! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Joe

[TimM]

I've experienced everything on this list, and I have only been to Foxwoods three times. I am halfway between Foxwoods and AC, so maybe my next trip will be in a more southerly direction.

Here's another one. I got on the 10/20 list with about 13 names ahead of me, and two more stepped in after. I figured it would be a while, since on the previous day I was 4th and it took an hour to get seated. I went up to the cafe and ordered some food.

While I was waiting, they called the whole list for a new table. I came down, told the floor person I was eating lunch and didn't want to be taken off the list. I went back to get my food and eat. I peeked over the wall and saw the list was still up, and it was taking some time to get the new table going.

I wolfed down my sandwich and headed down, and of course by the time I got to the board, my name was gone and there were five new names up. This all happened in less than a few minutes, and I argued with the board lady a little, saying I should at least be put back on top, but it was futile.

After that, I gave up on trying to time the board.

[budman]

When I need to get a floor person's attention, I stand up and pretend I am on my cell phone. Immediately floor people from a ten table radius take notice and yell at me for using the phone.

[toots]

You know, I think I'm gonna try that next time. It's a sure thing it'd work.

[Bubbagump]

I've heard from reliable people in the poker room that there were plans to expand the poker room out to where the no smoking casino is. But that when this happened the tables in the foyer were being removed as this is considered a fire hazard. The tables are blocking routes to the fire exits downstairs. This would in effect return the poker room to what it was back in the mid 90's.

I heard this a few weeks ago so, it's possible something has happened since then and the plans have changed.

Bubbagump

[MaxPower]

That's why they need more boards Joe. At the Commerce in LA they have many many boards. They have one board just for 9/18. They have a seperate one for 2/4 and 3/6, etc. They probably have a least 4 or 5 boards in the low limit section alone. I don't think the hi-tech solution will be as effective as simply putting in another board.

The vast majority of games at FW are called off the main board and they only have one microphone. If 6 or 7 seats are open it takes forever to fill them. They problem gets even worse when the lists are long because they have to call out so many names.