[MicroBob]

I too actually liked the band near the room at the Horseshoe.


I don't play much live...but when I go to Tunica I would either play at Horseshoe or Gold Strike mostly.

Even though I play MUCH more at Horseshoe...the 3 or 4 times that I have been at a table with a player falling asleep between hands was at the Gold Strike.
Pretty quiet except for a few slots. Pretty boring.
Sometimes you can hear the canned-music which at the Gold Strike is always Whitney Houston/Celine Dion crap.
Boring Boring Boring.

The band really did liven things up at the Horseshoe's old room and simply kept the marathon-session players from falling asleep.

But the room was getting too crowded and they needed to do something.
The new room is quiet nice...although it is DEFINITELY quieter.


Before I learned how to play poker (and I was familiar with casinos because I counted-cards at BJ) I was intimidated to play poker.
This was 3 years ago.
I would NEVER have known that you are actually allowed to stand there at the rail and watch.


I agree that the set-up at the Paris makes it look more like "hey...any shmoe who's just strolling by is allowed to sitdown and join us. This includes YOU."


Something like the Grand or Sam's Town in Tunica that both have those glass walls that go all the way to the ceiling (I think...haven't been at either in awhile) very much have a "Keep Out unless you belong here" type of feeling for many newbies like I used to be.
not unlike how the higher-stakes BJ and slots rooms look to me and many other customers.


Randy makes some pretty good points in this thread.


One thing that the Grand DOES do correctly is make 'open-seating' announcements through the casino.
"We have open-seating for 3/6 hold-em. C'mon up to the Poker room on the 2nd floor and join us."
Stuff like that.

For whatever reason they don't do this at the Horseshoe.
Can't remember if they do this at Gold Strike or not.


It was one of those announcements at the Grand in Biloxi in 1996 that got me to give poker a try.
I didn't know what 'hold-em' even meant...but they announced 1-5 7-card-stud and I took the bait and gave it a try.
I had no idea what I was doing and didn't play again for several years (partly because I wasn't living near casinos for a long time after that) but they DID get me to try it out.
And their 'room' at the time was just a bunch of tables in the corner...not intimidating at all. Just walk right up.