The green felt is gone at Excalibur!

Was listening to The PS pokercast last nite and they had a big shot from the casino on the show. He said they had replaced every table in their poker room with Pokertech machines. Their thinking is it will appeal to both online players as well as live players. I have played on 1 of these tables at GTC here in Detroit. It was cool if everyone at the table had played a couple of tournies to get use to it. But seemed like every tournie was 2 or 3 new people who had no clue. So play at times was slow. 1 table was ok but a entire poker room would look kinda weird at 1st. Your thoughts?

People who have tried them seem to like them alot, but even if I enjoyed playing on a pokertek table, which I have yet to try, there are no chips or cards. The one thing I like about live poker is the chips and cards soooo I very much doubt I would like these.

There are pros from playing them like faster play, no dealer toke, probably less rake.... but its sooo "online" sounding, defeats the purpose of going to play poker to get away from online.

i listened to that too, and went to the website to look at the tables. as is usually the case with a casino, this is being done for their benefit, and not the players. more hands per hour, more rake, more money for the casino. i may go up to detroit again and check em out though. its either there or northwest indiana/chicago, so its about the same difference.

There is a PokerTek table on the cruise I am going on to mexico on Sept 11-14th and I can't wait. Personally I think it takes away from the "poker experience" of a live dealer and having two cards and having chips to push in front of you. HOWEVER - purely from a money perspective this TOTALLY and 100% favor good players because you get in more hands per hour and you don't have a dealer to tip.

Hard Rock Tampa used these and they eliminated them all over a year ago. In their experience, most users preferred the dealer and the ability to watch players handle their cards & chips.

Perhaps that will change with time as more online players try Brick & Mortar facilities, but I still prefer the live action & the accompanying props.

I have to agree real tables are best. I was amused with little ways they try to make it seem like real cards. Such as the way the corners of your cards pop up when you cup your hands around your cards.

I've played on these tables. It was ok. It makes life a lot easier in the correct situations. I played on these tables on a cruise, so you can imagine that like half the table payed little to no attention to the action going on at the table so I'm happy they had them otherwise I can imagine the amount of out of position folds and other such inconveniences at the table.

The only big problem I had with them was that we found a couple people cheating at the table. People were able to look at others' cards fairly easily unless you made it a point to like totally cover up the "cards" on your screen when you looked at them. We even had another incident where a man's wife was looking at someone else's cards and telling the husband. Not that it really mattered because 95% of the players that I encountered there were pitiful.

I think these belong in these types of places, but they do not belong in big casinos.

In Hobbs, NM they have aren't allowed table games because there is a horse track there......So they have this hold'em type game where you simply have to beat the dealer. I don't understand it really, I've never played it.

I figure if I'm going to play poker on a computer, I'll do it at home on my couch.

I have to agree, If I want to play on a computer then I will play online. I want live people when I play in the casino, not a computer. Leave it where it belongs, online and on the slot machines.

Just found out that the Excalibur in Vegas has done the same thing, guess where I'm staying in 2 weeks,,grrrrrr guess I won't be playing at the Excalibur. Wonka, the game your talking obout is great, your virtually playing h/u against the dealer and you have a huge advantage, you can fold, he can't, you can bet flop turn and river, he can't. A friend of mine (who is a lousy player) discovered one of these tables on his last day in vegas, he played for 4 hrs and it payed for his trip.

kaiWalk said:

Hard Rock Tampa used these and they eliminated them all over a year ago. In their experience, most users preferred the dealer and the ability to watch players handle their cards & chips.

Perhaps that will change with time as more online players try Brick & Mortar facilities, but I still prefer the live action & the accompanying props.

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I also heard that the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City also installed some of these automated tables. I agree with kaiWalk and what some others have already said - I prefer live action with a live dealer.

It's too bad that the Excalibur made these changes - I've been told by my friend that the action there tends to loose. I guess that could still be the case, but I think I'll stay away from there.

I've played on these tables before, and while I agree it's a different take on Hold'em, and maybe fun occasionally, it's just as if a bunch of people brought laptops, sat at the same table, and played each other online. I honestly hope it doesn't catch on in Las Vegas, or Atlantic City, but it sounds like a welcome change on a cruise ship or something.