Borgata Omaha/8

[chaos]

Anyone here playing Omaha 8 or better at the Bogata?

I was down in AC a month or two after the Borgata opened and the Omaha/8 games moved at a snail's pace. Many of the dealers were struggling.

Has it gotten any better? If not I'll play at the Taj when I go down to AC this weekend.

[chaos]

I have to say that the Borgata still hasn't seemed to work the kinks out.

First let me say that they seem to have problems maintaining the waiting lists. When I signed up for 5/10 Omaha/8 and 6/12 and 10/20 Hold'em, the woman at the board spends a few minutes checking if there is still a seat available in 6/12 as there is no list. There isn't so she told me I would be first up for the $6/12 hold'em. About 10 minutes later they call someone else for 6/12. I go up to the board to find out what is happening and they say there was someone ahead of me. And indeed on the list there is now someone ahead of me. The same woman is not around and they tell me they can only go by the order of the list. No big deal. Another 5 or 10 minutes go by and they call my friend who is behind me on the list for 6/12! The floor man says he just goes by the list on his palm pilot. It turns out that the list on his palm pilot does not match the list on the board. The wonders of technology!

I pass on the 10/20 when it's my turn because the Omaha game has just started. About three hours later I put my name back on the 10/20 list which is short. Soon I am at the top of the list. (I'm keeping my eye on it after the morning's confusion.) Again they are calling someone else. The floor man says he called my name a long time ago. I point out that my name was first up on the big board 5 minutes ago! Luckily another 10/20 seat opens up so he gives it to me.

If you think the baord is run badly that is nothing compared to the games. I suspect a number of dealers never went to dealer school. One dealer didn't appear to know that a flush beats a straight. Another dealer decided to chop a pot when there were 4 hearts on board and on player had the 9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and another had the 10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]!.

I did try playing Omaha for a few hours but it was brutal. Many dealers couldn't remenber that we needed four cards and would stop after two - about half of the time. They couldn't read the board. They would make mistakes splitting the pot - one couldn't understand that giving someone two out of three stacks of chips ws not 3/4 of the pot. We even had a dealer who told us he had never dealt Omaha before and had no idea what to do other than deal everyone four cards.

I did manage to book a nice win after 8 hours of play, so it is not sour grapes. I just don't think I'll be going back anytime soon. The Bogata spent some money building a nice comfortable room. Too bad they didn't spend any on training the floor people and the dealers.

[mosch]

I've only been to Borgata for three or four weekends, but I never had any of the board-related issues you noted. Did you go during Christmas, and perhaps most of the more experienced staff was on holiday?

[chaos]

It was the weekend between Xmas and New Year's.

It seemed crazy not to have the floor people's lists in their Palm Pilots not match the board.