Originally Posted by
SiMi
Just got back from 3 days in Reno, if anyone is interested in a report.
I hadn't been there in a LONG time. Generally, table conditions were very bad IMHO but I am NOT a high roller so I didn't go into the high limit pits. A HUGE number of tables are 6:5. 6 deck shoe games routinely cut off 2 decks at most places. They try to make up for the down time with ASMs but few of the dealers seem competent to operate them and they end up farting around and often take as much time as if they just hand-shuffled.
Only a few SD or DD games that pay 3:2 and those generally had poor pen or high heat factor.
Best DD games I found were at CalNeva and Atlantis with 75% pen. Atlantis even had a $3 minimum table which I did not see anywhere else. After 8pm on Friday and Sat, all tables went up to $10 or more.
Best 6 deck shoe games were at El Dorado and Atlantis with 5/6 pen. OK to DD on any 2 cards at these places, DAS OK, but no RSA and only 1 card on Ace split. No surrender... in fact, none of the dealers even knew what the hand signal for surrender was! An older Chinese guy who didn't speak much/any English was drawing a horizontal line behind his hard 16 vs. Dealer 10 and dealer kept saying, "I don't know what you want." I said, "He wants to surrender!" She said, "What?" I repeated and said, "That is the signal for surrender. Do you allow surrender?" She said, "OH! No, we don't do that!" I looked at the old guy and shook my head NO. So, I tried the hand signal on the other dealers and they either didn't know what to do or, more often, they would just HIT me. What a joke...
I drove around and visited almost every place and overall I wish I had stayed at Atlantis but I was staying downtown for spousal harmony reasons. Peppermill was decent pen., too. Food and rooms were expensive on weekend.
El Dorado had this bizarre 'burn' card procedure where the dealer turns over the 1st burn card and, whatever its value, she then burns that many MORE CARDS! So, if you get a 10 value card, she burns 11 DAMN CARDS! And, that happens a lot...
Most of the dealers were good but a couple were horrible with slow speed, chatty or even hiding hit cards from other players. One drunk player asked a dealer about card counters. The PB was there. They both thoroughly poo-pooed that idea as 'not possible.' This, while they're cutting off 2 decks from a 6 deck shoe and using an ASM to make up for it. I really wanted to say, "If you're not worried, why are you cutting off 2 decks and losing all that money screwing around with ASMs and down time?"
I would go back since we can drive there in under 1 day and the entertainment is good and some of the food was excellent, but would avoid weekends as VERY VERY BUSY (even hard to get any seat at any tables at night - probably due to Christmas/New Year crowds) and would have a car and be ready to drive around looking for decent conditions. If any specific questions I can answer, will be happy to reply.
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