I recently saw an ad in one of the poker publications saying that Gold Coast opened a new poker room, so naturally I had to check it out. I had played there only once before and pretty much hated it. Thought the new room couldn't be any worse. I was right. It's a definite step up.
It's now an actual room rather than just a roped-off area in the middle of the casino--real walls on three sides. As you might imagine, this vastly cuts down on the smoke and noise factors, which are what I primarily hated about the old room. It has now been upgraded to a Category 2 on my continuously revised list of how smoke-free poker rooms are.
I can't remember what the old tables looked like from one visit a year ago, so I'm not sure if the nice maroon felt seen above is new, but it's sure pretty. There are enough TVs. Six tables. Chairs are below average--like standard kitchen chairs on rollers, no adjustments available. The new room is close to the entrance from the parking garage, which is a big improvement on the long hike required to get to the old one.
The main problem with this room is going to remain the lack of a game I want to play. I was there yesterday evening, and when I arrived they had one $4-8 LHE game and two $2-4 LHE games. During the 90 minutes or so that I was there, a second $4-8 game got started. I had started an interest list for a NLHE game when I checked in, and when I left mine was still the only name on it. If you can't get even one additional person to express interest in NLHE during poker's weekly prime time (Saturday night), then it's just not gonna happen. I don't think it would even be worth the trouble to call and ask whether they have such a game going, given the low probability.
Which means that a suddenly nicely upgraded room is, for my purposes, basically wasted. I just can't think of any reason I would make it a regular stop on my tour--which is really a shame.