New Foxwoods Poker Room Review

As you know FW expanded their poker room last month. If you don't know/remember what the old one was like, this may not mean as much.

LAYOUT

The new area is basically directly under where the old area was.

I originally thought they were just adding another area downstairs, and would run both upstaris and downstairs areas independently. Like maybe Stud and tournaments upstairs, HE down. That is not the case. They have moved all poker operations downstairs. The only thing downstairs other than poker is a cafeteria.

It is laid out pretty much as an open rectangle, with a smaller offshoot room on one side. The offshoot room contains all the Stud games, and overflow low-limit HE structure games. All NL, higher limit structure games, and Omaha are played in the main area. One end of the main room has about 20 tables roped off as a tournament area.

Hard to tell how many tables were added. The old room had 76, and I heard the addition was going to be around 30-40. I'm guessing that is true. Would definately say number of tables is over 100 now.

Ceilings are high, and lighting is good. Space between tables is slightly better than before, and it wasn't terrible then. I didn't have many problems walking between tables.

MANAGEMENT / WAITS

There is one main control station for sign-ups (as opposed to the split boards before). A smaller desk is at the back of the stud area, but they do not call any games from there, it is sign-in only. Display boards are smaller but more numerous than before. The system of calling players and table management is pretty standard in most large rooms, and works, so no changes there.

Big surprise. There were almost NO waiting lists to speak of. Very nice game management of opening new games when demand warranted, and shutting down games when they thinned out. This is a marked difference from the last weekend I was there where there were 75 people on the 1-2 NL waiting list. It was very busy, but they just had more capacity and a better management of the whole thing.

ACCESS

You can enter the room 3 ways. 1) Escalator from rainmaker slot area 2) Stairs next to the Mezz lounge (middle area next to Hard Rock Cafe) and 3) stairs from rainmaker pit area (where the old room used to be). I recommend entering from #3 as it lands you directly in front of the sign in desk.

TABLES

Tables were probably re-used, but they were all re-felted. All tables have a "deep" gold felt. Color was good, easy to see cards and chips. Cupholders at each spot, and card shufflers built in. Chairs were new, with larger backs and more cushion. Very comfortable, although the expanded backs make it near impossible to "backwards" your chair. I liked doing this late into a session if my back was getting sore. Guess I'll have to learn better posture.

If you have played in the So-Cal rooms but never the Fox, you may know the dealers in So-Cal carry their trays around with them from table to table. Foxwoods has built in trays and drop boxes.

$$ TRANSACTIONS

They have a MUCH improved cashier cage area. They have about 6 or 7 windows in a spacious area now, instead of the 2+2 angled configuration on top of the play area like before.

The table trays are bigger and better stocked. No problem purchasing chips from the dealers. Never saw a chip runner once. You can of course, buy chips in advance from the cashier if you want.

GAMES/RULES/JACKPOTS

No changes that I saw. 1-2 NL still had 100$ max buy-in. NL games are timed collections (they SAY once every half hour, but they were cutting off 4-6 minutes each half hour.) I bet they get 26 hours worth of collections in a 24 hour day. Structure games are still raked as before.

There are no jackpot drops. No bad beat or high hand. I heard that they still have the Foxwoods Jacket bonus if you hit a royal.

WPT

One thing they hyped about this expansion was the new room would be "All about the WPT". This was what I was most curious about, as I didn't know what all that entailed. I could see someone going completely nuts with the idea, and making it really absurd. I was pleasantly surprised.

There were really only two things that stood out from a WPT standpoint. 1) Wall decorations / signage. The room is called "WPT/World Poker Room". Some of the prominent walls have WPT decorations and such, but not enough to be annoying. 2) Branded table felt. This I expected, but it was more tastefully done than I expected. At either end of all tables, in the "live" area inside the line, are WPT logo's about 4"x6". They are not big enough to be distracting, easily ignored.

Cards and chips are the same as before, no WPT logos. They still use the yellow 2$ chips in the lower limit structure games.

TOURNAMENTS

This is new. The roped off area I mentioned before is a tournament area. I'd say about 20 tables are constantly roped off. I like the way they did this as it prevents them from having to shut down live play to work in tournaments. To keep the area profitable though, they run sit and go's from 10AM to midnight daily. They have 80$ and 120$ ones, and can be 1 or 2 table tournaments. They were running at a nice pace, I played one and waited only about 10 minutes to start (I was the third player to sign up).

The bad news is, the take on these SNG's is ridiculous. The 80$ version works out to be a 65$+15$, and the 120$ version works out to be 100$+20$.

Starting stack for both is 1500$. Blind levels are 15 Min. Blinds progress as follows: (25-25) (25-50) (50-100) (150-300 +25 Ante) (200-400 +50 ante) (300-600 +100 Ante)

I thought the structure could have been a little more player friendly, but I haven't done the math. It looks fairly standard. I guess I only say that because at 7 handed the average was like 8 BB.

MISC

Player points (Wampum Club) no changes. Floor person that seats you takes your card and signs you in. You MUST sign out when leaving or forfeit your points. I saw automated kiosks around the area, but they were not live. That will be a welcome addition if they will allow you to sign up and sign out.

Cafeteria was spacious, menu included variety of hot/cold. Nice carving board with ham/prime rib/chicken/turkey. Ate prime rib sandwich, would order it again. Prices a bit above normal but it is the East Coast so I guess I'm just a cheap bastard. Plenty of seating.

Interesting note, there are no "drink carts" at tableside anymore. They are trying to manage it where you have a drink in your holder, and maybe a spare water under your chair. Didn't really notice a problem with this approach, but then I don't carry a lot of stuff around with me while playing.

Drink service was overall good. No changes there. Alchohol to sometime around 1 AM, don't drink a lot while playing so don't know exactly. Did see people ordering full range of cocktails and beer plus normal NA drinks.

Entire room is non-smoking (no more "cancer alley" on the cafeteria ramp ... thank you jesus). Smokers must go upstairs somewhere.

Dealer quality is going downhill on average, but that's not really a result of the new room. I had a higher inexperienced dealer to experienced dealer ratio than ever. A couple made me want to take the cards myself. (you know how it is ... slow, sloppy, cant hack pots, not on top of action, can't make decisions, anything out of the ordinary is mind boggling). Perfect candidates for the WSOP this year if you know what I mean.

3 sets of restrooms, very convenient.

That's about it. Overall I would have to say it is the best "HUGE" poker room I have seen. Compared to places like Commerce, Bike, Hollywood, and Bay 101, it is the best. "BIG" rooms like Wynn, Bellagio, Caesars, MGM may be a little fancier, but not nearly as big.