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I am biased. I love the Green Valley Ranch. It is among my favorite local hang-outs. It has excellent restaurants, a cool sports book, and a modern movie theater. It is also very close to my house, which means I spend my fair share of time there. Until tonight, the only thing Green Valley Ranch didn’t have was a poker room.
Unfortunately, despite my enormous support for the Green Valley Ranch, I can’t write a positive review of its new poker room. Why? Because all of the support in the world can’t make up for the lousy experience I had there tonight – mainly because of the way the poker room was managed. I have a very sour taste in my mouth.
I’m just going to come right out and say it. Tonight, the management at the Green Valley Ranch poker room sucked. They didn’t know how to manage the list. They didn’t know how to handle the crowd. And, they exhibited a total lack of care and attention toward their customers. If you’re interested, you can read my trip report for the full story. The short version is that the poker room was grossly understaffed, and the management that was supposed to be working just stood around and picked their noses.
Yes, I understand that this was opening night. I understand the management was overwhelmed. I don’t care. I wasn’t treated well, and neither were other customers. I can excuse lack of organization, but I can’t get past the management’s cold attitude and neglectful posture.
I have been to lots of poker rooms during opening night madness. Many of these poker rooms have been far more crowded than the Green Valley Ranch. A lot of them have even been disorganized. But they made up for the lack of organization by employing staff with good people skills.
Green Valley Ranch obviously did not get the memo. They did not have the friendly and attentive staff that I remember from opening nights at other crowded poker rooms. Two recent examples that quickly come to mind are MGM and Wynn. Both of these poker rooms were slammed beyond belief on opening night, but the management knew how to treat their customers right, and because of their warmth I could see past the chaos. But tonight, I was totally blinded by the bad management. It was completely unacceptable.
The good news for the Green Valley Ranch is that the poker room itself is very nice. It has a full bar inside the poker room, generous spacing between the tables, and more tv’s than any other 11-table poker room in Vegas. The dealers were competent, and the cocktail waitresses were friendly. Other than the management, it’s a really classy poker room. Check out my full review of the poker room here.
The problems at the Green Valley Ranch could be attributed to lack of preparation and opening night vulnerabilities -- hopefully reserved to just this one night. I truly hope that the management really is a lot more competent, friendly, and attentive than they came across. I’m certainly going to give the Green Valley Ranch management another chance. Unfortunately however, first impressions are usually lasting impressions, and that sour taste may take awhile to wash out of my mouth.
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