Seminole Hard Rock Casino and Hotel dealers started teaching people different casino games and playing games with fake chips on July 15th, 2009. Gamer Ray Carey from Sun City received a lesson in let it ride poker; a variation of poker that matches the gamer's 3 cards with a pair of community cards all participants can use to assemble 5-card poker hand.
Players do not compete against the casino dealer. Winning or losing is determined on the poker card hand from the 3 dealt cards and the pair of community cards but you have at least a pair of ten cards.
Carey also learned another good gaming lesson; had the gaming chips been real, he would have lost a lot of money. In November 2008, the casino facility became the 2nd Seminole casino in Florida to offer casino table games.
As a way of promoting its new casino table games, the casino started offering classes to bring beginners up to speed on games like poker, blackjack and others. The lessons will run from 11:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Spokesperson Gina Morales said that a different game will be taught to participants each hour.
Blackjack will be taught every other hour but the line-up of the casino games taught could change. The casino lessons are free and the first lessons offered attracted a considerable amount of players.
Quinn Marcone, the director of the casino table games for the Hard Rock casino said that teaching gamers is nothing new in other gaming areas like Atlantic City and Las Vegas strip. Blackjack is the most popular of the 8 casino table games played at the facility's 104 casino tables.
Aside from the rules of the games, the students learned some of the terms use in the game like the cut card that a player inserts into the card deck to cut it in blackjack or the chips are also called checks.
Jenna Serrano, who is teaching students let it ride, told students that no casino dealer can get anything directly from a gamer. Money has to be put down on the table for the casino dealer to change into chips. Serrano added that most of the rules are for game security.
Participants can hold their card but have to keep them over the surface of the table so that the cameras can always see it. Players who want to pull back a wager in let it ride or want to acquire another card in blackjack must make a motion, even if they also tell the dealer what they want to do. Serrano said that this is needed because even if the dealer hears the player, the cameras cannot.
Thursday, August 06 , 2009
Thomas Johnson