On April 18th, the poker room at Red Rock (owned by Station Casinos) opened its doors, and over the past few days All Vegas Poker logged more than 15 hours playing cards there. So what is the verdict? This may be the coolest poker room in Las Vegas for local poker players. It is very impressive! But there is still room for improvement, especially with respect to management.

Located near the main entrance to the casino, the poker room at Red Rock is massive by non-strip poker room standards. It has 20 tables with plenty of spacing. It is dressed up in modern décor and high quality furnishings.

The Red Rock poker room incorporates some unusual artistic flare also. There are five artistically styled glowing yellow light beams running up the interior walls of the poker room, plus two more light beams at the poker room’s entrance. You definitely haven’t seen anything like this before in a Las Vegas poker room.

Technology is abundant inside the Red Rock poker room. There are eight HD plasma screen televisions showing sports, plus two more televisions that display wait-list information. The poker tables have the same player tracking technology that the poker rooms at Treasure Island and MGM use. Good stuff.

Cocktail waitresses are smoke’n hot! They are dressed up in skin tight outfits with heaps of cleavage on display. Honestly, these ladies are almost distractingly hot, and many players at my poker table agreed. They even serve drinks relatively quickly. However they do not serve Red Bull in the poker room, which is disappointing.

Dealers are among the best I have ever experienced. They are fast, friendly, and mistake-free. About 30% of the dealers are transfers from other Station Casinos properties. However, I get the feeling that a lot of the dealers working this past weekend were only temporary. In other words, these dealers were just filling in for the busy opening weekend. It sounds like some newly hired dealers are completing the Station Casinos poker school soon and they may be placed in the Red Rock poker room.

Management is friendly, but there are a few huge problems here. The managers I encountered were a significant improvement over those at the Green Valley Ranch poker room, but that isn’t saying much.

The first, and largest, management problem concerns list-management. Although there is a gigantic manager’s desk at the entrance to the poker room, the managers working there always have their backs turned to incoming players. I saw many players step up to the manager’s desk without receiving service. More than a few of these players eventually walked away after not being acknowledged for several minutes. This is poor service, and poor planning. It’s an easy fix however. Just move the list-management computer to the other side of the desk. Problem solved. There should be at least one manager who is always turned so he is facing entering players, and welcoming them accordingly.

The second problem concerns comp cards, or “boarding passes” as they are called by Station Casinos. I should note that the dealers are extraordinarily conscientious about asking new poker players whether they have a “boarding pass” when the players sit down. I love this attention to detail, because many players often sit down and accidentally forget about the comps.

The problem however is that when a player does not yet have a boarding pass there is nobody in the poker room that can help. Instead, the player has to get up out of his seat, walk halfway across the Red Rock casino, and then stand in line to get a comp card. This is more than inconvenient. It is counterproductive. If Station Casinos wants the valuable customer data they can get from a player’s card, they should make it easier than easy to acquire the card.

Red Rock should let managers inside the poker room create boarding passes on-site. Or there should be a dedicated poker room employee who can take a customer’s drivers license to the boarding pass counter and obtain the boarding pass for the customer. Classy poker rooms like those at Wynn, MGM, and Treasure Island all do this, and I expect it now.

Aside from those two major blemishes, the Red Rock poker room is fantastic. And based on opening weekend crowds, the Red Rock poker room is a huge success. By mid-afternoon Saturday, wait-lists for most games were at least 10 to 15 players long. The poker room was packed solid with players (but not cramped). Check back soon for the full Editor’s Review of the Red Rock poker room.