[thefastship]

Ok. A friend and I drove up to Cherokee Harrahs to check out the poker room.

Here is a brief review.

We drove in last Saturday. (Feb 12th)
The casino was packed. Parking was not that bad.
All the food options had an hour wait.Even the buffet.That is to be expected on a Saturday night.

The poker room was packed. Every game but the 3/6 limit had an hour wait from 7 pm on.

Im not going to get into the poker tek tables. They are what they are. The biggest difference is that it allows people to short stack the table,play aggressive and without getting up buy back in,one second later off the players account. Very lame. I know people do this at normal tables but having to call for chips keeps this in check to some degree. lol Some people do not mind short stacker methods.Take that info as you will.

One other thing i want to mention, Unless you get your live tells from talking to the other players you have no other "live tells" really. People are head down on the monitor,not reaching for chips,looking at the flop, cards in hand leaning towards the muck etc etc. Its a mix between online and live. the difference is that you leave with your cash which is what my friend and I did.

Here are the cons: Very local heavy with soft play running rampant.A lot of short stacker's. The poker room management let non players hang out and wander from table to table.Sometimes even sitting down.At one point I had to ask a young kid to move from behind me three times.(the kid was a friend of the guy playing across from me).The regulars were using their phones at the table all night.
At a normal card room you can protect your cards. Using this "peek method" on the digital cards,you can easily see someones cards if you are walking by or standing behind the player seated. It felt like I was playing slots with people walking behind me all night. Not cool and not professional.

The action was very good however.Standard 4x BB to see the flop on average. 3 people on the flop usually. Average pot around $65 bucks at the 1/2 nl table. They did not have an Omaha table running while i was there even though they had enough interest to start one.

In closing, If the poker room management would kick out the non players and put them on the rail it would make for a better room. I am playing on a freaking monitor and i have to worry about not only the game but also local busted out regs walkin by trying to fish bowl my cards. I never felt relaxed the whole time I was playing.
If I was playing at the Beau this would never happen. Having your girlfriend or boyfriend stop in and chit chat is fine,but the atmosphere was more like a bunch of early 20 year old kids yelling back and forth,busting out and hanging out like they are at a skating rink. I felt like I was in a romper room.

I am using the winnings to go over to Tunica so it served its purpose. Before i go back I will call and follow up with my complaint to the management on treating the poker room differently than a row of slot machines. It can be a great place,it just needs some rules enforced.

[Scratch]

thanks for the info.

I've considered playing there when we take trips to the Smokies, but never made it into the casino. Think I'll just stick to the local ones here. Please update if you hear back from the management.

[thefastship]

I am going to call this afternoon.I will keep the forum posted.