If you have a background in Stud games, you should run (not walk) to the Stars HORSE tables. Probably because they are new, there are many people checking them out who are amazingly bad at many of the disciplines. The first night that the tables were there I played 1/2 (which was as high as they went) and the play was terrible. Last night I played 10/20 and the play didn’t get much better. As you might expect, play was especially bad at the Stud disciplines which is 60% of the games. I got chastized by a guy when I raised him with A236 with three diamonds in Stud8 when he had paired his King doorcard (with another big card up). I didn’t have the heart to explain to him just how wrong he was. Another guy called me down with King-Queen-xxx in Razz when I had 76J2 showing — I assume he was hoping I had three paired cards down?
If you are comfortable in Stud games, you should get out there and take some of this money before they get bored with HORSE or learn how to play. Even the Omaha play was fairly poor, so I think this is a very good game right now. Curiously, the play was not extra loose, which was the mistake I expected to see. I actually saw a lot of raises that took down the bring-in and antes. The problem was that people tended to call down with crap when it was obvious they were beat. I did take a brutal quarter in Stud-8 where I had the Ace-high flush and a wheel where I lost to a boat and split with another wheel. That made me very sad.
Also, I saw in the LV paper a report that none of the WSOP final table players tipped the dealers, so they are going to be unhappy again. There was a thread on 2+2 that suggested that they might increase the juice to 15% to cover the dealer pay. If that really happened, they might really kill the goose with the golden eggs. Surely that would be enough to drive players away. Right? I certainly hope so.  I’m going to assume it is just someone talking out of their ass, because that would be so monumentally stupid that no one could seriously consider it. Historically, events has set aside 3% for staff that was divided about 2.1% to dealers and 0.9% to the floor. This year, the total take for Harrah’s went up, but reportedly the amount set aside for dealers dropped to 1.5%. If this is the case, it seems clear that the people who should make it up to the dealers are the ones running the show, not the players.
