Twelve Names Deep for $10/$20 Mixed — Zero Tables Open in Dayton

Twelve names are on the board at Mad River Poker Club in Dayton, Ohio, for a $10/$20 Omaha-8/Stud-8 rotation — and not a single table has opened.

That's a 6-to-1 waitlist-to-table ratio on a game most rooms in America don't even spread. The median waitlist for this game type across all tracked rooms sits at two players. Mad River has six times that — with zero seats available.

That's a 6-to-1 waitlist-to-table ratio on a game most rooms in America don't even spread.

The Phantom List

A "phantom list" is what happens when demand stacks up on Bravo before a single table gets called. It usually signals one of two things: either the room is waiting for a critical mass of players before opening, or there's a scheduling lag between interest and floor action.

In this case, 12 players have registered interest for a $10/$20 O8/Stud-8 ROE game — a split-pot mixed rotation that requires dealers comfortable pitching both Omaha Hi-Lo and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo. That's a staffing ask most card rooms outside of Las Vegas or Los Angeles simply can't meet on demand.

Dayton, Ohio, is not a city that shows up on many poker heat maps. Mad River Poker Club operates as a licensed card room in Montgomery County, and its typical action skews toward low- and mid-stakes Hold'em. A dozen names queued for a $10/$20 mixed game is an outlier — not just for the room, but for the entire Midwest.

Why It Matters

Phantom lists reveal hidden demand. When a waitlist runs this deep for a game this niche, it suggests a pocket of experienced mixed-game players who don't have a regular seat. They're putting their names up hoping enough bodies show to force the room's hand.

The $10/$20 O8/Stud-8 ROE stakes aren't trivial. At standard pot sizes for that blind level in a split-pot rotation, players are buying in for $1,000 or more. Twelve of them are ready to sit — or at least willing to say so on Bravo.

The National Picture

As of May 20, no other tracked room in the United States shows a deeper waitlist for any mixed-game variant at these stakes with zero tables running. The signal is small — one room, one game, one snapshot — but it's the kind of geographic anomaly that says more about unmet demand than any industry survey.

Whether Mad River opens that table is a different question. But the appetite is on the board.