Here is Doug Dalton, on the left. Tournament director Jack McClelland is on the right:
http://media.cardplayer.com/assets/p...McClelland.JPG
While I did not have much personal interaction with Dalton, I can tell you that he ran the Bellagio poker room into the ground.
Rather than explain it myself, here is a great description of the problems there by Gobboboy on 2+2:
As someone who has played a lot at Bellagio, the above is an excellent summary.Quote:
They had a free monopoly on the las vegas poker market for a long time but they never adapted to what people wanted. The tournaments were what drew people in and defined their reputation and they consistently ignored peoples' requests as poker changed in 2006-2007 and it just went downhill fast. They only ran gigantic NL tournaments when the economy was crashing which just made things worse because when people see past turnouts it decides future turnouts. They got some embarrassing numbers for a few big tournaments.
The poker room itself was another story. They give no two shits about anyone but the people who play like 25/50+ nl but for them they will do pretty much anything for. It leads to the high stakes players saying the bellagio is awesome which gets the tourists in there but it never keeps them there. The room is cramped cramped cramped, the comps system sucks, the floors in general hate their jobs and make you feel like you're bothering them and they kept a physical clip board to keep track of the boards for the longest time so they could keep up with their bribery racket for the lists. I heard it was as bad or nearly as bad as Commerce at one point which is pretty f'ing bad.
Basically Doug and Jack are just way too stuck in their ways and they're really fucking smug about it too which makes you want to punch them. They have a ton of lieutenants under them who are young and really really want to change things but don't have the power to do it and can't even TALK about it publicly or else they can get in serious trouble.
In addition, they have a terrible situation there regarding both the cocktail waitresses and the food (especially the food). Often a long period of time passes before you see a cocktail waitress, and food orders frequently take 90-120 minutes to compete. The food typically comes from room service. I have a hard time believing that a person in a room calling for food would have the equivalent wait. I believe that the poker room gets a lesser priority, perhaps because it's assumed that poker players are already doing something (playing poker) and won't be as agitated waiting for the food. A good poker director would press to get these matters fixed, even if they originate from different departments. It was clear that Dalton didn't give a shit.
However, Dalton did seem to give a shit about enforcing silly rules, even if everyone at the table agreed to do otherwise. I can't tell you how many times I heard from the dealer, "I'd love to, but we have orders from above that we'll be fired if we do this..."
Ask any regular player at Bellagio, and they will tell you about favortism, bad attitudes, and a sense of entitlement from the staff there.
Finally some decent alternatives appeared (such as Aria and Venetian), and people left in droves.
Now they're finally getting the message at Bellagio, and gave the old fuck the boot -- albeit many years too late.
BTW, for those of you that have the very useful Bravo poker app on your phone, you probably noticed that MGM-owned properties (including) were NOT listed. This was never explained, but was definitely a decision by the MGM properties not to cooperate. As soon as Dalton was fired, all MGM properties appeared there. No way this was a coincidence. I have a feeling that Dalton was influential in keeping their rooms off the Bravo app, and it probably had something to do with money.
Good riddance.
Here is a picture of Sean McCormack, who might be taking over:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A9iYtTOCEAAoysa.jpg:large
Regarding the girls in that pic, the guys on 2+2 seem to like the one on the left better than the one next to her. I think second-to-left is the best by far, even though she's a bit too skinny.
