Chairs, Dealers, Lawsuit, and the Full Tilt Book

I like the atmosphere at the Bike. I think it's very player-friendly, especially in the Plaza section, where the food is free. However, I have to say that the chairs are mostly terrible. There are a few that are very comfortable, but about 80% of them are broken. Whenever a new player shows up at the casino, he complains about the chairs. Today someone said he felt like he was on a boat and was getting seasick. Instead of getting new chairs, the Bike has reupholstered some of the old ones, seemingly unaware that most of them were already broken and needed to be replaced. I'm afraid this means they have no intention of replacing them anytime soon.

The Commerce is getting over some more serious issues. I heard that ten out of eleven of their Dealer Coordinators were fired last month, and over one hundred dealers were suspended. Supposedly, most of the dealers were bribing the DC's in order to be put at the best tables (presumably, the tables with the best tippers).

The lawsuit against the Los Angeles casinos for their Jackpots has been thrown out by the judge. My understanding is that the jackpots are required to be "No Purchase Necessary" like any other sweepstakes. The casino does take out $1 per pot to fund the jackpot, but they offer people the opportunity to play for free. I've never seen it, but a friend told me he tried this out one day at the Bike. He and a couple other players sat at a table and were given tournament chips. Nine hands were dealt out, including to seats without any players. The flop, turn, and river were dealt, and if the jackpot was hit, the casino would pay out 10% of the jackpot at the normal ratios. So 5% would go to the losing hand, 2.5% to the winning hand, and the rest would share the other 2.5%. This was repeated ten times, and then the table broke. Seems pretty ridiculous to me, but that suffices to cover the casino legally.

I bought The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition. I was told that Chris Ferguson had some interesting things to say in the book (specifically, that it is worth avoiding difficult decisions, which I contradicted in my NLHE: TAP analyses). I thought it would be good to try to read Ferguson's arguments before I go to the event I mentioned in my previous post. Besides, the book got good reviews.