daryljobe777
10-10-2005, 02:53 AM
Saturday on my way home (Savage) from school (Winona State), I figured I would check out the brand new card room at Treasure Island Resort and Casino in Red Wing, MN. Due to the fact that I figured I would have to wait an awful long time to get a seat at Canterbury, I thought it would be a good opportunity to check out the TI room which had just opened the previous day.
The room itself looks nice, with wooden décor and floors, decent chairs, and tables with salmon colored felt. The 10 table room is shaped like a boot, with two of the tables off to the side, out of the view of the desk/board/place you get checks. Yes, I said that right: you sign up for a game and get checks at the same location, which causes things to get crowded.
When I got there at about 5:30pm they had two games of 2/4, one 3/6, and one game of 2-10 spread. Eventually three more 2/4, one 4/8, and one 5-60 spread opened up to make a full room. I immediately sit down at 2/4, and get on the 3/6 list and a 4/8 interest list. The waiting list is computerized and displayed on a plasma screen TV. In order to call an open seat, instead of yelling to try and get the board’s attention, the dealer simply needs to press a button on a 4-key pad (the others being service, chips, and floor).
The problem with this it seems is that the floor/board person/whatever must visually look at the screen (positioned behind them) to become aware of the open seat. This brings me to another problem as there were only two floor people working on a Saturday. One guy was in charge of sending people to games, handing out chips, and signing people up on the list. One other guy was helping. I was playing 2/4 for about 10 minutes, then notice my name flashing on the big expensive TV on the 3/6 list. I figure “no problem, someone will ask me if I want the seat within seconds.” Five minutes later I see my name and the name below flashing. Five minutes after that I see the top three names on the list flashing, and decide to go over and find out what is going on.
I ask the busy floorman straight-up: “When your name is flashing does that mean you’re being called for a seat?” He replied, seemingly stressed “I don’t know. I haven’t even had time to look at it yet!” I continue to play 2/4 for about 5 more minutes and I am finally formally asked if I want the 3/6, and I make my move. I find the people at this game frustrated as they have been shorthanded waiting for players. They assumed it was the fault of myself and the other people on the list, as we had perhaps been wandering the casino, oblivious to pages over the intercom, but it was simply was not the case. We were never made aware of the seat or where it was even.
Dealers in this room are inexperienced, but there weren’t many mistakes. One dealer said they just finished seven straight days of training, and that was it. One dealer explained how a week earlier she was working as a cage cashier. The dealers were seemingly trained to explain the pending action to EVERY single player. Hearing “four to call, four to call, four to call, raise, eight to call, eight to call, four to call..” each hand quickly became tiresome, but I was too kind to say anything.
The tables are GINORMOUS. It was not uncommon for dealers to be barely able to reach halfway across the table. Unless you are in the one, ten, five, six, or seven seats (yes, the games are 10 handed here), every time you made a bet, you needed to push your bet in, and then upon being scolded by the dealer that it wasn’t in far enough, push it in even further, even though it was originally four to six inches inside the bet line. While waiting for a flop, one dealer rudely starred at me because I had not pushed my bet in far enough for her to reach easily. And wow, I thought the dealer was the one “at work.”
One other unfortunate aspect of this room was that the food/drink tables are not set to arrive until Monday (tomorrow), so if you had a drink you had to either hold it or set it on the floor, and if you had food, you needed to keep it in your lap.
I only saw one episode of a player being flat out abusive. While I was playing 4/8, there were three players to the flop: player one doesn’t do anything, player two checks out of turn, player three checks behind, but player one is now betting. Player three goes off his rocker, beginning an obscenity laced rant culminating in throwing his cards at the dealer, grabbing his chips, and exciting the game. The young dealer was clearly shaken up by this, but did well considering everything.
Another VERY annoying thing about this room is that the dealers do not have their own trays, therefore after every 30 minute push, they must count the tray. While it was only the second day and they will likely get quicker, this process takes 2-3 minutes, and is quite tedious.
The rake is the seemingly standard 10% up to $4 with a $1 jackpot drop. The requirements for the bad beat are Aces full of EIGHTS or better being beaten by quads or better with both whole cards playing. The folks at TI started the jackpot up with a whopping $5,000. Each dealer has their own toke box, so it appears this breaks the MN tribal casino norm of sharing tips.
There were many people drinking beer after beer, and LAGness resulted. I’m sure once the regular gambloors hear of hold ‘em there, the games will get even better. The biggest game there was 5-60 spread, with a minimum buy in of $300.
I find it surprising that Treasure Island would open a card room since the Prairie Island tribe has been so anti-racino, even buying television ads saying “Minnesota has enough gambling.” One would think this would give Canterbury fuel for their argument for more competition, but let’s wait and see I guess.
If I think of anything else I forgot, I’ll post it.
The room itself looks nice, with wooden décor and floors, decent chairs, and tables with salmon colored felt. The 10 table room is shaped like a boot, with two of the tables off to the side, out of the view of the desk/board/place you get checks. Yes, I said that right: you sign up for a game and get checks at the same location, which causes things to get crowded.
When I got there at about 5:30pm they had two games of 2/4, one 3/6, and one game of 2-10 spread. Eventually three more 2/4, one 4/8, and one 5-60 spread opened up to make a full room. I immediately sit down at 2/4, and get on the 3/6 list and a 4/8 interest list. The waiting list is computerized and displayed on a plasma screen TV. In order to call an open seat, instead of yelling to try and get the board’s attention, the dealer simply needs to press a button on a 4-key pad (the others being service, chips, and floor).
The problem with this it seems is that the floor/board person/whatever must visually look at the screen (positioned behind them) to become aware of the open seat. This brings me to another problem as there were only two floor people working on a Saturday. One guy was in charge of sending people to games, handing out chips, and signing people up on the list. One other guy was helping. I was playing 2/4 for about 10 minutes, then notice my name flashing on the big expensive TV on the 3/6 list. I figure “no problem, someone will ask me if I want the seat within seconds.” Five minutes later I see my name and the name below flashing. Five minutes after that I see the top three names on the list flashing, and decide to go over and find out what is going on.
I ask the busy floorman straight-up: “When your name is flashing does that mean you’re being called for a seat?” He replied, seemingly stressed “I don’t know. I haven’t even had time to look at it yet!” I continue to play 2/4 for about 5 more minutes and I am finally formally asked if I want the 3/6, and I make my move. I find the people at this game frustrated as they have been shorthanded waiting for players. They assumed it was the fault of myself and the other people on the list, as we had perhaps been wandering the casino, oblivious to pages over the intercom, but it was simply was not the case. We were never made aware of the seat or where it was even.
Dealers in this room are inexperienced, but there weren’t many mistakes. One dealer said they just finished seven straight days of training, and that was it. One dealer explained how a week earlier she was working as a cage cashier. The dealers were seemingly trained to explain the pending action to EVERY single player. Hearing “four to call, four to call, four to call, raise, eight to call, eight to call, four to call..” each hand quickly became tiresome, but I was too kind to say anything.
The tables are GINORMOUS. It was not uncommon for dealers to be barely able to reach halfway across the table. Unless you are in the one, ten, five, six, or seven seats (yes, the games are 10 handed here), every time you made a bet, you needed to push your bet in, and then upon being scolded by the dealer that it wasn’t in far enough, push it in even further, even though it was originally four to six inches inside the bet line. While waiting for a flop, one dealer rudely starred at me because I had not pushed my bet in far enough for her to reach easily. And wow, I thought the dealer was the one “at work.”
One other unfortunate aspect of this room was that the food/drink tables are not set to arrive until Monday (tomorrow), so if you had a drink you had to either hold it or set it on the floor, and if you had food, you needed to keep it in your lap.
I only saw one episode of a player being flat out abusive. While I was playing 4/8, there were three players to the flop: player one doesn’t do anything, player two checks out of turn, player three checks behind, but player one is now betting. Player three goes off his rocker, beginning an obscenity laced rant culminating in throwing his cards at the dealer, grabbing his chips, and exciting the game. The young dealer was clearly shaken up by this, but did well considering everything.
Another VERY annoying thing about this room is that the dealers do not have their own trays, therefore after every 30 minute push, they must count the tray. While it was only the second day and they will likely get quicker, this process takes 2-3 minutes, and is quite tedious.
The rake is the seemingly standard 10% up to $4 with a $1 jackpot drop. The requirements for the bad beat are Aces full of EIGHTS or better being beaten by quads or better with both whole cards playing. The folks at TI started the jackpot up with a whopping $5,000. Each dealer has their own toke box, so it appears this breaks the MN tribal casino norm of sharing tips.
There were many people drinking beer after beer, and LAGness resulted. I’m sure once the regular gambloors hear of hold ‘em there, the games will get even better. The biggest game there was 5-60 spread, with a minimum buy in of $300.
I find it surprising that Treasure Island would open a card room since the Prairie Island tribe has been so anti-racino, even buying television ads saying “Minnesota has enough gambling.” One would think this would give Canterbury fuel for their argument for more competition, but let’s wait and see I guess.
If I think of anything else I forgot, I’ll post it.