Monday, July 06, 2009

An open letter to Caesars Palace poker room management

This afternoon I felt like entering a small-field, low buy-in poker tournament. Scanning an online database of what's available, I noticed your daily 3:00 p.m. tourney: $65, 50-player maximum, with 30-minute blind levels. That sounded perfect.

I was aware, though, that the Mega Stacks series was still running, and wondered whether the daily tournament schedule might be suspended for that. Easy enough to find out, I told myself--check the web site. So I did.

As you can see below, the relevant web page distinctly shows today's date, with the unmistakable impression that the tournaments listed are, in fact, being held today. With that confirmed, I drove to Caesars, parked, made my way to the poker room, and attempted to register.





Imagine my surprise, then, when I was told that not only was this event not running today, but it hadn't been running for the entire duration of the Mega Stack series, i.e., since May 28, five and a half weeks ago. While you're at it, you might also imagine how annoyed I was.

Let me explain something to you, as it is apparently a concept too technically advanced for you to have figured out on your own. One of the advantages of having a web site is that you can change and update information whenever you need to. At the beginning of the Mega Stack series, one of your employees could have added to the tournament schedule web page a note such as this: "The usual daily tournament schedule is suspended during the Mega Stack series. It will return on July 9." That should have taken somebody less than two minutes.

But not only did you not take that simple step, you have the page deliberately set up to show the current date, so that it looks for all the world as if the information is updated daily. Had the page not shown today's date, I would have wondered if the information shown was really valid while the special series was going on, and, as a result, I would have called to verify before wasting my time with the drive.

I saw no need to do so when today's date is shown on the page. After all, what kind of friggin' moron sets up a web page to look like it's showing information very specific for today, when it actually is doing no such thing?

Furthermore, what kind of lazy, inattentive, uncaring, sloppy, negligent, service-impaired poker room management lets this go on for 39 days without fixing it? Please do not try telling me that I am the first one who was led astray by the erroneous information your web site is putting out. I refuse to believe that. I suspect that a substantial number of other people have had exactly the same experience that I did. As some confirmation of that hunch, when I protested to the woman in the cage that your poker room's web site specifically said that the 3:00 p.m. tournament was running today, she said, "I know. But it's not."

This means that you either have your room set up so that employees do not pass on to you information about problems that customers encounter so that the problems can be fixed, or they have passed this notice along to you, and you have willfully chosen to disregard it--or, worse, decided deliberately to leave it in place, the better to lure in more customers with a bait-and-switch. (I understand that the Mega Stack series is doing very poorly compared to the competing offerings at the Venetian, Binion's, Golden Nugget, etc. Good. You deserve to fail.)

This is not the first time that you have behaved dishonorably. Two years ago, you radically changed the promised structure of a freeroll tournament without advance notice, changing it from relatively skill-based event to an all-in card-catching shovefest. I have not entered a tournament in your establishment since then, until attempting to do so today. Imagine how thrilled I am at the prospect of ever trying it again.

Is it really asking too much of you to have your web site display accurate information that actually matches the date that the page claims it is giving information about? Or do you just not give a rat's ass?

Incidentally, while poking around the web site to be sure I hadn't missed something before writing this rant, I noticed that you have conflicting information. The page shown above clearly specifies that the blind levels are 30 minutes. But clicking elsewhere, one gets to this page, which announces "All New Blind Structures," and says that levels are only 20 minutes long. There is no way for a user to know which information is newer and, therefore, presumably correct. Once again, though, I suppose that you just don't care enough to bother fixing it.

It is an astounding level of some combination of incompetence and indifference that you have on display here.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Grump is back!!!

Pete said...

Nice to have you back Grump.

Troy Ohlsson said...

Take that biotches! freaking HATE when shiot like this happens. Us "little people" woh enjoy this level of tourneys and for them to blatantly ignore the need to keep their information at least 48 hours new is utterly reDICKuloUS!

www.six8suited.com

diverjoules said...

Same thing happened to me when I came to Vegas in June. Went there for their web posted tourney and found out they were all on hold during the mega stack series. I even told her then that the website stated differently. I have a sad feeling you were correct, about the bait and switch. There is no other reasonable explanation. I did however prefer their MEga Stack noon structured tournament to that of the Venetian. And I like their room better than being out in the open at the Ven. But that is just me.

Wolynski said...

Yes, the bait and switch (combined with we-don't-give-a-shit) seems a likely explanation.
Most casinos don't want their poker rooms succeeding or, heaven forbid, expanding.I spoke to a long-time poker room employee about this once - some of the more cretinous managers were appointed to make sure the place doesn't improve.

phrankguy1 said...

Wow, EXTRA Grumpy today, eh?

cruisaC said...

I too have had a similar experience at a local casino here. Very frustrating. Is it that many poker rooms are still staffed and frequented by people who don't think of the internet as THE most up to date source of information available? Get with it B & M poker community!

Anonymous said...

Hey All - I work for Harrah's Entertainment and specifically on the website that controls all pages including the Caesars Poker pages.

Grump, you are absolutely correct. This is a process that has to be fixed. I completely understand your frustration. I'll be working w/ appropriate parties to ensure we start getting the most up-to-date information from the poker room so we can update the poker pages in a timely manner.

I will check back in and let you know when the processes are in place and functioning so that we as poker players have the information we need to make the correct decision. =]

Sam said...

Funny that the response you got here was anonymous.... Still nobody to blame, or hold accountable when nothing changes.

Anonymous said...

Caesars Palace Update:

We have now implemented processes to ensure Caesars Poker pages are up to date. We have worked closely w/ the poker room managers so that they can submit their content changes on a regular basis to keep all the poker room activities up to date.

Additionally we are working on new functionality to display ongoing tournaments within the main page. For now there is a link on the right navigation to a PDF that has most current daily tournament information.

http://www.caesarspalace.com/casinos/caesars-palace/casino-gambling/poker-detail.html

Thanks for your patience.