Tropicana poker room closing Sep 11 -- 16K in jackpot money must be given away.

This comes from rudeboyoi, so give him all due credit for sharing in a potentially easy advantage play. He says the Tropicana poker room is closing today and they must give out $16,000 in a progressive jackpot by the close of business. He hears they will give out $1000 to two players at random every hour until they close. As I understand it, the room has six tables.

I plan to call him shortly to see about the availability of seats and more details.

Update: I called rudeboyoi and he says for any newcomers it will be unlikely to get a seat, as there is already a waiting list.

According to the BravoPokerLive app:

Game / Tables / Waitlist
1-3 NLHE / 2 / 28
2-4 LHE / 2 / 26
3-6 LHE / 1 / 4
4-8 LHE / 1 / 8

Reports from 2+2 are that the players are playing super nitty and are entrenched for the duration. It's probably not worth anyone's time to show up at this point.

I'm surprised to even see an active NL Table, not because I wouldn't play anyway, but I would just park my ass at limit and wait for the drawings. I'd try to win, too, of course. The problem with NL is also that I would still be trying to win, but could lose my BR on one hand.

If the tables are full I wouldn't bother even if I could get a seat. The expected value is only $266 for sitting there 8 hours. Not enough for me.

got there around 9:15. just left around 12:15. i never got a seat. i was #12 on the list. they got to #5. will provide more details later. heading back out.

There are so many more fun ways to give out 16K in a poker room than what they are doing.

I got there at nine and all tables were full just waiting on dealers to show up. By ten there were about 60 on the list. I did not get a seat.

Quote: Mission146

I'm surprised to even see an active NL Table, not because I wouldn't play anyway, but I would just park my ass at limit and wait for the drawings. I'd try to win, too, of course. The problem with NL is also that I would still be trying to win, but could lose my BR on one hand.

they're playing nitty, which means super tight, preserving their bankroll and just camping out for the $1000.
you can run over them easily by pure aggression

Quote: FinsRule

There are so many more fun ways to give out 16K in a poker room than what they are doing.

If Trop's poker room management were creative at promos that wouldn't be closing. That place had all sorts of issues. This is the second time the room has closed in 4-5 years.

Quote: 100xOdds

they're playing nitty, which means super tight, preserving their bankroll and just camping out for the $1000.
you can run over them easily by pure aggression

That does sound pretty awesome. Win your $1000 the hard way (or is it the easy way), by scooping up $1000 in blinds.

And what happens to the food comps people have earned in the Poker Room ? At the Lodge and other casino's in Colorado they are in a different system. A few years ago the Lodge got a new poker room manager. He laid off a few dealers and revamped comps, wiping out existing comps. Great new for Ameristar poker room.

Quote: buzzpaff

And what happens to the food comps people have earned in the Poker Room ? At the Lodge and other casino's in Colorado they are in a different system. A few years ago the Lodge got a new poker room manager. He laid off a few dealers and revamped comps, wiping out existing comps. Great new for Ameristar poker room.

Trop poker comps were written by the poker manager and were not in your overall comps found on the player's card. I suspect that they will be lost but I guess anything is possible.

In Colorado several players lost hundreds of dollars in comps. They would save them up for special outings.
But I guess Dan will say comps are covered in some unseen rules.

Quote: 100xOdds

they're playing nitty, which means super tight, preserving their bankroll and just camping out for the $1000.
you can run over them easily by pure aggression

You're absolutely right that the opportunity is there for some serious NL nickel-and-diming of Blinds, but the problem is that I would have to depart from my playing style to too great of an extent to ever approach the, "Loose-Aggressive," realm. The problem with departing from your normal playing style is that you are prone to making mistakes, particularly with respect to reading your opponents. Eventually, someone would get sick of me scooping up all of the Blinds and Pre-Flop Soft Calls (before it came to me) and they're going to start challenging. An even worse case scenario than that is that someone gets dealt a Monster Pre-Flop and can't help but push All-In against my 50x BB Raise. I've got J-6, off, now what the hell do I do, "OK, you got me, gotta fold."

I think that type of style is almost akin to playing Roulette and picking somewhere between 30-35 individual numbers, yeah, you're going to win most of the time, but when you don't, it's going to be ugly. Can you imagine making that aggressive Push with garbage, first hand, and someone pushes all-in? It'd be like putting a Red on 1-33 and having the zero come up, only worse. The Roulette wheel doesn't care that it got me before. If I fold my garbage, they'll know what I am up to, if I play my garbage, they'll know that it was garbage, plus the guy might have me covered...

I don't imagine I'll run into any of you guys at the table, so in a NL cash game, I basically just call pre-flop if I have a probable winner, or good pot-odds. The flop comes and (if it's on me and nobody has bet) I Check, they Raise, I push All-In. If it's not on me, they bet, I'm All-In. I'll usually do this if I have one of the Top 2 best possible hands given what is on the Board. It's nice because the pre-flop Raise can be some inconsequential amount, like $10, and there will be five callers, and I'll say, "Shit, 6s-7s, we'll try it, nobody will see the low hand coming from me anyway." You end up with a flop of 6-7-3, somebody bets, I push All-In. You usually get two callers, some guy with an inside pair that beats anything that someone could have paired up on the Board, and some other guy who thinks your kicker is going to be a deciding factor in most hands (chuckle) who calls it with K-7. Now I'm over 50% (around 55%, to be specific) to win 2:1, discluding the other pre-flop calls on the $10 that folded.

The problem is that if you don't travel and move your action around, the regulars will catch on to that in a real hurry and will occasionally even warn people they like. You also have occasions where you lose three of those in a row and it is leave, or just KNOW you are going to go on-tilt, I chose to leave. I still play that way in NL tournaments, though, for whatever reason, people are less scared of your push in tournaments. Maybe they consider the buy-in lost money, already, I don't know.

I like Limit for money-making, and I perform well. It's basically just sitting around and waiting for J-9, suited, (or better) on an Unraised Pot, or A-J, suited (or better) on a Raised pot. I'll also Call any inside pair on a Raised pot, especially if I think the Raises are going to be killed, or if I am the one stopping it dead. The latter is often not the right play, but you can only fold so many would-be Full-Boats before it starts to piss you off.

That's what I like about Limit, just play your hand, limit your exposure, play probability poker, just get every newspaper the grocery store has that day, read them all cover-to-cover, and try not to get bored. That's what I don't like about Limit, the insane boredom.

It would be easy to take your chair (assuming you were able to get one) only when the drawing was announced. You could then put in your missed blind, and be good for the drawing. Then, you could take a break to "wash your hands", or get some food. This, combined with extreme slow play by you and your like minded table mates, would limit your losses to the drop and folded blinds. It would be a grind though.

Quote: Pokeraddict

If Trop's poker room management were creative at promos that wouldn't be closing. That place had all sorts of issues. This is the second time the room has closed in 4-5 years.

Completely agreed. What kind of poker room drains the Bad Beat on its very last day in existence? If they knew they were closing a few weeks ago, they should have done 16 days worth of promotions, slowly but surely giving the money out until the final day, maybe saving 2000 for the last day (just in case the Bad Beat hit). High hand promos, wheel drawings, etc. Plus they would have had 16 days of rake, as opposed to one.

Poor management must be a big reason why its closing...

A simple raffle? If it were me, I'd make it any pocket pair with over $25 in the pot wins a bonus.

Aces, $200.
Tens thru Kings, $100.
6 thru 9, $50.
2 thru 5 $25.



They have no creativity. Maybe that's why they're closing.

But what do I know?

Yeah, seriously. Why not at least something to drive the rake up instead of down. Maybe a bonus for low winning hands on the limit games. That should help hit the rake's maximum more often, I'd think.

I am being told that all poker room comps at Trop expired at 4pm today. As for promos, that was part of what destroyed them. Not only did they rake 10% up to $4 but they also took up to $3 in promo rake to help pay for their regs that they paid as much as $10 am hour to prop. But yeah, how the hell have they been sitting on $16,000 in promo money??? That's more than half of all of the progressive money Sahara gave away from the entire casino.

My over under for the poker room re-opening is 3 years.

Quote: buzzpaff

My over under for the poker room re-opening is 3 years.

It was closed between Nov 2008 and April 2011 (the articles saying it was only open 7 months are wrong). It closed shortly before Tropicana was gutted and reopened shortly before the grand reopening so you may be onto something. The trouble is that MGM's poker room is a 3 minute walk away. It is hard to compete with that.

Any LV-based low-limit grinders that have half a brain for poker are absolutely insane if they were not present for this. And I don't just mean for the jackpot giveaways.

Quote: Pokeraddict

The trouble is that MGM's poker room is a 3 minute walk away. It is hard to compete with that.

A three minute walk to drunken tourists oozing cash versus razor sharp locals going for blinds?