Guest Blogging the Mohegan Sun - (Pervy Paulie)

On Sunday I went to Mohegan Sun with my friends Shira and George. Since this was a holiday weekend I wanted to do something different than play poker in AC. Playing poker in CT seemed perfect! Mohegan Sun has a branch of a Boston seafood restaurant (Summer Shack) that I like, so I made reservations for dinner, and we hit the road.

We left Brooklyn at 10am and we got to Mohegan in two hours and 45 minutes. It is an easy ride straight down 95. It was about 5 miles more than AC but we hit traffic in one spot at the end. Parking was free. (good thing since it took $60.01 to fill my gas tank!)

Currently, Mohegan has a 100% electronic poker "room" (there are no dealers, chips or cards). They have 5 PokerPro tables set up in a horse shoe pattern on the casino floor. Each PokerPro table has ten seats and each seat has a touch screen in front of it. In the center of the table is a large screen that shows the community cards and the size of each player's stack. One Floor person runs all 5 tables. The offerings when I was there were 3/6 limit (1), ½ No Limit (3) and $80 and $100 sit and go's. They also do MTT's and can do Omaha, but the floor guy said there is never enough interest to start an Omaha table : (

In order to play you must first get a regular Mohegan Sun Player's card. You then take it to the PokerPro desk so they can link it to a PokerPro account and assign your PIN #. Then you take the card to the cage to make a deposit. I deposited $200 on to the card and was seated at a 3/6 limit Hold'em table. You dip and remove your card like at an ATM and then enter your PIN. It then asks how much of your account do you want to bring to the table. I brought in $100. My name PAUL and $100 then showed on everyone's screen and the $100 showed in front of me on the big screen. The game was very intuitive. Your hole cards are shown face down on the screen in front of you. You cover them with your hands and the peel up. The blinds are taken automatically and your screen lights up when it is your turn. There are four option buttons that light up (check, bet, raise and fold). If you fold you need to hit the button twice to confirm. Most people used their cards as a stylus.

I played for 2 and a half hours before dinner and was up $100 even. I didn't miss not having a dealer (or cards or chips). You get to see a lot more hands and you don't need to tip.
I then went to dinner. The New England clam bake was 5 stars. It is a small lobster, clams, mussels, chorizo, egg, corn and potato all in Old bay seasoning. Not the neatest dinner I had, but very good. The table clothes are brown paper and they give you a plastic bib.

I then went back to the tables. All were full so I swiped my card and entered the lists for everything. I got called for limit first and played a couple of hands before I got called for no limit. I got up with an additional $51 on my card. No limit was a little different than limit. When it was my time to bet, 3 chips appeared ($1, $5, $25) in addition to check, fold and all in. To bet you hit the chips until you had the amount you wanted then you hit the confirm button which showed the amount. You had to confirm every choice in no limit. I had an hour to play before we had to go and I made an additional $30 in no limit.

I cashed in at the cage for $381. The give you a receipt (in and out) so keeping track of your P & L is easy. (tips for drinks are cash since there are no chips)
I own 100 shares in PokerTek so my retirement rests on them doing well : ), but that aside, and the fact that I won, I really liked the game. There were no misdeals, accidental mucks, players going out of turn or asking how much can I bet?, in addition to the time wasted changing cards and dealers and adding chips and making change. It was like playing on-line with the advantage of seeing the players, and the players have easy access to Jack and Coke. Also it limits the risks of collusion on line.

PokerPro is coming to the Trump Plaza in AC soon and is already in poker rooms around the world. (see press release from Friday and websites below). It is temporary at Mohegan, they are opening a live poker room in August with over 40 tables.

I am thinking of starting a quest to see all the PokerPro rooms around the world : )

-Paul