Grand Victoria in Rising Sun, IN trip report

[coolhandkuhn]

Made my second trip down to the boat from Columbus, OH (bought a new GTO and wanted to drive it around, and poker seemed like the perfect excuse to do so) on Saturday --- the trip each way is about 2 - 2.5 hours, depending on your risk aversion to speeding.

I arrived at the boat around 3 PM, and immediately headed to the poker room (located on the bottom floor of the boat, tucked in the back) and signed up for both of the games they offered --- $10/$20 & $5/$10 Hold 'Em. The room has six tables, and all were in use, and the list was 15+ deep for both games (there were 5 5/10 games and only 1 10/20 game, much to my chagrin). After waiting 90+ minutes, I was finally seated in a 5/10 game, with (although extremely nice & quite attractive) the worst dealer I've ever encountered. The girl (22ish) couldn't read the board to determine the high hand half of the time, much less keep track of the action. I estimate her half hour downs we got out around 12 hands on average. The floor was worse than the dealers, running around like chickens w/their heads cut off...I was told there was an open seat "somewhere" and to go "find it myself" (not that it was a problem, this room only having six tables) in a tone that suggested they could care less. Ineptness I can deal with, rudeness in a service industry is quite another thing, though. Ted (older gentleman) was the man in question here, and it seems that the juggling of list was more than he could handle.

The games themself were GREAT! (assuming you don't mind slow play from half of the table, who seemed to be new [as in first time ever playing in a structured game]). Flops were constantly being seen 8-9 handed for one bet. Pre-flop raises were rare, pre-flop three betting was non-existent (save for me). Every hand saw a showdown of 2-4 people, sometimes more, and 8-3o, J-5o, and the like were common holdings at the river. Even with the dream line-up, I still managed to lose $20 in 6 or so hours of play (hey, I'm very skilled, what can I say?) --- though most of that was the result of flopping a boat and having the misfortune of running into flopped quads (ouch).

Eventually I did get moved to the 10/20, which saw five people quit w/in a 15 minute span, leaving us shorthanded for an hour as the floor tried to fill the game (why does it take an hour? b/c the room is so small that it can't hold anyone who's waiting for the game. So they page throughout the boat, giving each name 10-15 minutes. Obviously with a list 90+ minutes long, people are going to put their name down and leave, causing the filling of the games to take forever, as they go from name to name).

The 10/20 was little better in skill level (at least at midnight on a Saturday, I can't speak for non-weekend games) --- saw many of my 5/10 compatriots there, still playing there J-5o proudly. I did much better in this game (mostly due to getting a high amount of premium pocket pairs, and having them hold up around 50% of the time [which is great considering all the swimmers in the hands]) -- +$300 in 3 hours. I finally had my fill of agonozingly slow play at around 3 AM, and called it a night, up a little under $300 for the trip.

Overall, I was frustrated with the dealers ineptness and the floors rudeness. Even given the attrocious opponents, I doubt that I'll be back...to drive 2 hours to sit in those games seems like self-inflicted punishment to me. I'll drive the extra hour to Caeser's in New Albany, IN (outside of Louisville, KY) when I want to make a run to a casino.

Other tidbits about the room:

Smoking is permitted, and 60% of those playing seemed to be smoking. If you're not a fan of smoke, this place isn't for you.

Three raise max on all streets EXCEPT when a street starts w/ only two people, and at that point, betting/raising is unlimited.

A live straddle causes the limit to jump for that round (WTF?). For example, in a 10/20 game...if UTG straddles to $20, a raise has to be to $40, a re-raise to $60, and a cap to $80. The next street then goes back to bet, raise, re-raise, and cap of $10,$20,$30,$40, respectively....I thought that was very odd.

No high hand jackpots.

Didn't check out the comp system, though it appeared that you got a players club card that they kept track of your time on, and from that, some sort of comp system was in place.

40 minutes was the max you were given to be away from the table, and after that, you would be picked up, though I didn't see that rule put into effect.

Nothing else memorable comes to mind...my overall opinion of the room is poor, especially since they've been open for close to six months now, and they are as green (or worse) now as they were when they opened.

Belle Terra (another boat, about 20 minutes away) is scheduled to open a room May 1st that will have 12 tables, but all of this is unconfirmed talk between (seemingly) regulars and dealers.

Hope this helps.

[deathtoau]

I am being transferred to Cincinnati soon so I was in town last weekend on a house-hunting trip with some meetings thrown in to waste my time. I figured, what the hell, I have a rental car and a gas card, I will check out the local poker action. I arrived at the boat around 7:30 Friday night and made my way down to the poker room to put my name on the list. After a little more than an hour of waiting I got seated at a 5/10 game. As I was buying my chips at the podium, the floor counted out my buyin then said there is a $5 seating charge. I was like WTF, they charge you to sit down at the table and still take a $5 rake. Can someone explain that to me?

First off, let me say that I will never complain about the Taj again. It is a palace in comparison to the Grand Victoria Casino. The poker room, if you can call it that, is tucked away in the bottom aft of the boat. The 6 table are separated from the main gaming floor by a row of annoying slot machines. My spot a the table had so many cigarette burns in the felt that I might as well have been playing on the wood beneath it. The staff (dealer and floor) have no clue what they are doing and made more mistakes per down then I would normally see in a 12 hour session in AC. The whole place was dirty and the chips were so covered in muck you couldn’t see the designs on them.

Anyway, I sit down at the table and go completely card dead for the first 90 minutes. I never saw a turn card during that time and only saw 5-6 flops, most of those from the big blind. As I am slowly bleeding away chips I see the worst hands ever being shown down and scooping the pots. The woman next to me played 72o UTG+2 for 2 bets pf, called a bet on the flop of 3 face cards and proceeded to win the hand when she made 2 pair on runner runner. It was not uncommon to see people cold call 2 or more bets all the way to the river with nothing more than a flopped bottom pair. After my time in cold card purgatory, I started to hit a run of good cards and made a total comeback. My best pot came when I had AK [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and flopped the nut flush from the CO. The SB bet into me and I raised him on every street. The showdown came 6 handed and I made up for all those orbits of futility. It was not uncommon to see people play any ace, king, queen or jack from any position for multiple bets to the showdown with as little as high card. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

The only thing worse than the players was the dealers. During one dealer's hour down, it seemed to me that he was going extremely slow so I decided to keep track. In 45 minutes he dealt exactly 16 hands. Between the slow players and the slow shuffle, I thought I was going to scream. I never played at a different table but while I was waiting and watching another table with an automatic shuffler, I saw the dealer still would wash the cards and give them two or three ruffle shuffles before putting them in the machine. None of the dealers I saw could read the board with any authority or figure out if kickers played. One hand had 3 people at show down with Aces, 1 had a king kicker and the other 2 had threes or fours or some other crap. The dealer started to chop up the pot before I convinced her that the king played and that still took 3 times explaining it to her. They couldn't make change or count stacks of checks without counting them one at a time. A guy called a bet on the turn with a black and the dealer (same guy who dealt only 16 hands) counted out the change a chip at a time until he got to 18. The process of filling seats was also horrible. At one point there were 5 empty seats in different games, yet they still insisted in only calling one name at a time over the PA system then giving each person 10 minutes before giving the final call and waiting another 10 minutes.

I had a meeting first thing Saturday morning so I bagged it at 1:30 and went back to my hotel up a little more than 15 BB reeking of smoke.

The players were really bad, but like the OP, next time I think I am going to just hit up Caesars down the road an extra hour. Here’s hoping that they actually know how to run a poker room there.

[deathtoau]

[ QUOTE ]
Belle Terra (another boat, about 20 minutes away) is scheduled to open a room May 1st that will have 12 tables, but all of this is unconfirmed talk between (seemingly) regulars and dealers.


[/ QUOTE ]

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[terrapin314]

While I cannot confirm the Bellterra opening - I have heard it from numerous players.

[WC64]

[ QUOTE ]
While I cannot confirm the Bellterra opening - I have heard it from numerous players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here, but from someone who talked to management there.

[MichaelOar]

I moved to Cincy last summer for law school. I've played in cardrooms from LA to AC, and I've never been to a shittier room than the Grand Vic. Horrible Floormen, terrible dealers, bad food, smoke---blech!

On the other hand, the games are SOOOOO juicy---I get excited just thinking about them.

The Belterra Poker Room rumors have been floating for six months. I checked their website the other day, and there was no mention of a room opening in the future.

There are several safe, professionally dealt home games in the area--mostly restrcted buy-in NL, which is not my game of choice--in the area. As for the Casino in Louisville--I've always been too lazy to go down there! I hear that the staff is much better, but that the wait for tables can be insane--especially on the weekends, of course.

I'm going to be living in the God-forsaken Grand Vic room this summer, so I'm sure I'll see you there. I'm the young, Phil Hellmuth look-a-like!

Michael

[deathtoau]

I sent a request to them for information on there poker room plans so we shall see if they respond. I did find something interesting in their jobs posting. The description for hiring dealers includes

[ QUOTE ]
Job Description

The incumbent in this position is responsible for providing superior service to both the internal and external customer. The incumbent is also responsible for providing prompt, accurate, and courteous dealing service to players in accordance with standard procedures and for maintaining the integrity of the game, as well as for explaining aspects of Blackjack, Craps, Poker, Let-It-Ride, Roulette, Baccarat, and Pai-Gow Poker to players unfamiliar with the games.

[/ QUOTE ] https://pnkjobs.hrapply.com/cgi-bin/....cgi?jobid=112

Maybe we will get lucky. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[MtSmalls]

Looks like I am going to be back out in the Cincy area around the first of May. Can anyone update this thread as to the opening of Belterra, and or whether its better/closer to Cincy than Rising Sun?

[WC64]

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like I am going to be back out in the Cincy area around the first of May. Can anyone update this thread as to the opening of Belterra, and or whether its better/closer to Cincy than Rising Sun?

[/ QUOTE ]

If they are going to have one its not open yet. I may bet at Rising Sun around that time though.