ed, when it comes to tournaments i will tell you what people don't want, they don't want to start with like 2,000 in chips and the BB be 400 or 600 after one hour, people wanna play for 80-100 mins before they feel it needs to be an all in fest, you have to give them a reason to come there, you have to make it stand out, be special, be the place people wanna play !

Make that 8 time zones...

Your absolutely right that players want good structure, but in the casinos defense most low buy in tournaments cant have great structures because the juice the they make off the tourney doesnt justify the tourney lasting very long. Small buy in tournaments have high % juice, but the actual dollar amount they make isnt that substantial after operating costs and such.

What is the big advantage of going to a 300 max in the 1-2 NL? Just to have a big enough stack to scare people?
I like low stakes poker, especially with my limited skill, when I played in Atlantic City last year I got on this very aggressive cash table where pot seemed to be raised to $30 pre flop every time. I feel better about coming to the table with the $200 max then $300, I have no problem losing $200 in a session. Just feel that if the max is $300 and I bring $200 I am going to get bullied again.

Looks like Excal is marketing to my type of player and I will be sure to visit over Labor day weekend.

Ed is absolutely correct that it's unfair to drop for a jackpot at $10, but not let someone qualify until there's $20 in the pot. So either drop at $10 and qualify at $10, or drop at $20 and qualify at $20. $10 is the standard.

I prefer $300 NL1/2 caps to $200, and that has become the Vegas standard. 1/2 plays bigger in proportion to the blind than 2/5, so while a 100BB buy-in feels ok in 2/5, it typically feels short at 1/2. When I play at MGM with the $200 cap, I buy in for extra and keep a pile of reds in my pocket so I can top my stack when it drops $40. I don't feel a need to do that where the cap is $300.

And speaking of Vegas standards... no flop no drop is standard. Any reason Excalibur feels they have to be greedier than MGM, Mirage, and Bellagio? Mind you, they're still less greedy than Harrah's properties so that's good (I assume the rake is capped at $4).

Unless you have a good reason to break from the strip standards, don't. Variations may attract a few people looking for that variant, but it will tend to drive away more people who have come to like the norms.

If Excal wants back their old regulars, just restart the 5pm poker room buffet. That'll do the trick.

You can't scare people with money they don't have on the table. If they have $100, it doesn't matter whether you have $100 or $1000, they are playing for $100.

But 150BB's gives you the room you need to bet all the streets in 1/2 where pre-flop raises are often 6 to 10BB and often get called in multiple spots. Consider a typical hand with $200 caps. It will go something like:

$15 raise preflop, 3 callers, $60 in the pot, $185 in the stacks.
$40 bet on the flop, 1 caller, $140 in the pot, $145 in the stacks.
$80 bet on the turn, 1 caller, $300 in the pot, $65 in the stacks.

Now unless one of the players is on a pure draw, they're pretty much pot committed--betting anything close to the pot on the turn is a commitment, so you might as well just shove, 'cause the $65 you have left for the river isn't going to be very scary. Add $100 to each starting stack and there's actually a little room left to work on the river, so the turn doesn't have to be an autoshove.

Terrible buy in structures for multiple games of the same limit. You can't run buy ins that overlap each other, that's why a lot of the 2/5 games are gone or on life support. 1/2 (1/3's with 300 and 500 maxes, but 2/5's with 100 and 200 mins)

My suggestion would be to run a 1/1 Nl, maybe 1/2 with 40-100 buy in, and a 1/3 NL with 100-300 buy in to not overlap the games with the buy ins. Or you could always do it the Cali way and go 1/1 with 40 min/max, 1/2 with 80/min max, 1/3 100 min/max, 2/3 200 min/max, 2/5 200 min/max, 5/10 400 min/max.

On second thought, we don't have 20 million people in this part of the state and no room has 300 poker tables, lol. Nevermind that last idea!

God I hate California buy ins and rake structures.

I agree with Photoc in not having the two structures overlap. My suggestion would be a beginner friendly no limit game, something like 1/1 with a 20 min-100max

I played tonight for a few hours and it was nice to see the room back to its normal self. Got to catch up with a few of the dealers I knew (Tim, Ron, Lee and the brush Peachie) and the play was pretty bad just like it used to be, although I was unable to take advantage of this. I also ran into LVM as he was just finishing up his session when I arrived. I'll be posting a room review in the next day or so and I'll definitely be back in the near future.

Thanks Apolloa, that makes sense. Learning all the time. Of course a $5 bet scares people of home game I play