Harrah's Horseshoe Hammond

Easy to get to, Horseshoe Hammond is just across the state line from Chicago, only about fifteen minutes southeast of downtown Chicago. Take the Chicago Skyway (I-90 East) which becomes the Indiana Toll Road and after paying the bridge toll (an unfortunately high $5.60), take the Indianapolis Blvd exit east. It's only another mile or so down the road, entrance on the right. The bridge back to Chicago is another $5.60 toll.

Games


Limit hold 'em (All limit hold 'em games are played full kill):
 * 3/6 (2/3 blinds)
 * 6/12 (rarely spread)
 * 10/20
 * 20/40 (rarely spread)

NLHE:
 * 1/2 blinds, 50-200 buy-in
 * 2/5 blinds, 200-500 buy-in
 * 5/10 blinds, 500-2000 buy-in

Omaha Hi only:
 * 1/2 blinds, with $5 bring in pot-limit (PLO), 100-500 buy-in
 * 10/20 blinds, pot-limit (PLO), 1000 minimum

Omaha/8 (All limit Omaha/8 is played full kill):
 * 5/10 Limit

Rake: Rake is fairly high: 10% to a max of $5, plus $1 jackpot drop if the pot hits $20. Same rake for all games.

Posting: New players must post to enter the game.

Shuffling: Standard Shufflemaster shuffling machines on all standard tables.

Wait Time: Wait times vary greatly. Low limit and low-stakes no-limit are always running and their lists tend to be shortish, since the room makes some effort to open new tables when the lists get long, and they often have tables to spare). Higher limit games don't run often except on evenings and weekends.



Tournaments
Daily tounaments, with buy-ins ranging from $60 to $220. Horseshoe also runs two large tournament events every year, the WSOP Circuit (generally in October), and the Chicago Poker Classic (CPC) (generally in March). For these events, 80-100 additional tournament tables are added to "The Venue" (Horseshoe's event center), while cash games stay on the lower level.

Jackpots and Promotions
Bad Beat Jackpots

In the days leading up to the two large tournament events, there will often be drawings for tournament seats.
 * Hold'em: Two Bad Beat Jackpots. The first is the Legendary Bad Beat, which requires Quad Jacks to be beaten, and is $100,000.  The smaller jackpot is $20,000, qualifying hand is Quad Deuces beaten.  Quads need a pocket pair in the player's hand to qualify.
 * Omaha: Jackpot starts at $5,000 and goes up $2,000 every Monday at 6 A.M.  Qualifying hand is Quad Tens beaten.
 * Legendary High Hands
 * Progressive High Hand jackpots that award for the following
 * Royal Flush (1 Prize for each suit)
 * Straight Flush (1 Prize for each suit)
 * Four-of-a-kind (1 Prize for each rank)
 * The jackpot starts at $100 for hitting one of the high hands. The first 13 high hands pay $100, the next 4 pay $200, and the last 4 pay $300. The board resets every Tuesday at 10 AM.

Atmosphere
The largest poker room in Chicagoland. The Horseshoe has recently completed a huge $485 million expansion and renovation and it looks like it: the entire casino is gorgeous, and quite large. The entire place has been done up with a theme of "honoring the Horseshoe's storied past", and has a focus in particular on recognizing Benny and Jack Binion, who grew the Horseshoe name into the legend it has become. The recognition is done subtly (e.g. the name of the onsite restaurant is "Jack Binion's Steakhouse"), but it's always present and provides a thread on which to build the theme of the casino. It's not so omnipresent to confuse newcomers, but enough to bring a smile to anyone familiar with recent gambling history. It's classy, from start to finish - and the poker room is no exception.

The WSOP-branded poker room is in the back of the casino, past all the slots and table games, on the left. The poker room is fronted by the brush at a lovely wooden "front desk" who maintains the waitlists on a modern computer, with screens displayed in a few places on that central podium. The main floor of the poker room holds 25 sumptuous tables. In the back, up a few steps, is a mezzanine for high-limit players (5/10 No-Limit and up, along with all PLO) with another 7 tables. And off to the side of that high-roller area is a private poker room, fully enclosed with gorgeous walls and a frosted glass door, with two tables and a private lounge. The private room is for celebrities such as Michael Jordan, who when he plays poker doesn't like to do it with crowds watching (and yes, MJ does indeed play at the Horseshoe).

The decor of the room is quite lovely, attempting to evoke an "expensive old west" vibe. Lovely hardwood paneling, extremely tall ceilings, rococo ceiling tiles, and many actual chandeliers hung about the room for ambience. Since chandeliers provide inadequate light for the games, though, they also have bright inset pinpoint lights in the ceiling which actually light the tables very well, making it easy to see your cards. The chandeliers are more for atmosphere and general lighting than specific table lighting.

Despite being relatively new, the carpet in the poker room is already starting to look worn, but they tried again to evoke the old west. The walls are hung with about a dozen huge black-and-white photos of early poker celebrities, including Stu Ungar, Doyle Brunson (from the 70's), Bobby Baldwin, and Jack Binion himself.

The poker room has a separate cage in the room, where you can buy or cash in poker chips.

Parking: Huge parking garage right next to the casino can hold thousands of cars. Park for free.

Neighborhood: Far away from the city proper, the casino is on the shore of Lake Michigan in a nicely secluded area, next to a largish marina, a public beach, and a bird sanctuary.

Tables and Chairs: Large 10-player tables are surrounded by only 9 large leather chairs, making the tables seem fairly large and spacious. Slightly worn felt with huge WSOP and Horseshoe logos covering their main area (can make it hard to see your chips sometimes). All table have commit lines. Tables have built-in cupholders (sunken holder in the large vinyl armrests), though there are ten cup holders on the table and only 9 chairs. The chairs are huge, comfy, leather chairs with very nice padding. Quite comfortable to sit in, even for long periods.

Smoking: The poker room at the Horseshoe is non-smoking, but the rest of the casino allows it. The room itself is secluded enough from the rest of the casino that not too much smoke enters the room (though it still is somewhat noticeable).

Service and Comps
No food, but drinks are served via frequent visits by pretty waitresses done in up in "sexy old west saloon nighties", frilly corsets and other numbers that are intended to evoke the old west saloons. The 7 tables upstairs (and 2 in the private room) allow food at the table, delivered by the chip runners.

The comps for all games are 17 Tier Credits an hour, and $1.00 an hour in comps (which can be redeemed at any Total Rewards property)

Links and Notes

 * Nearest competitor is about 15 miles to the east: Majestic Star Gary.
 * MarkT visited in Sept 2008.