ES
Mandalay has a very nice room for its size. The only thing I don't really like are the chairs, as they don't have as much cushion and are non-adjustable. The felts and rails were in nice shape and the atmosphere isn't that loud even with the pit nearby.
I played two short sessions of 1/2 and never really encountered any really tough players. There were a few weak ones, a couple rocks, and a couple LAGs. It was a pretty profitable mix.
I felt that most of the dealers were friendly, although there was one scenario where I felt the dealer really lost control of his table but I'll go more into that in the management section.
The cocktail service was unimpressive and it often took 30min+ for the cocktail waitress to bring more drinks.
We had a huge situation where two players nearly got into a fight and one of the players was involved in a huge pot at the time. A LAG player who was involved in a hand was very talkative and this bothered one player to the point where he starts mouthing off to the guy in the middle of a hand. This is where I felt the dealer lost control as he did nothing to stop the player who wasn't in the hand. The floor was called over and told the LAG that he needed to calm down and that if he stepped away from the table his hand would be dead (pot was $500 with a player facing all-in from the LAG). Other player left the table once the floor comes over as he was completely in the wrong. LAG stepped away from the table because he didn't want the other player to get a read on him and his hand was declared dead. He was allowed to keep his all-in but was told to leave the room and eventually security was called. The floor handled this situation as best as could given that emotions were running high.
I didn't inquire about hourly comps but they do offer high hand jackpots for quads or better. They also have a high hand of the day (10-high straight flush on monday when I was there) where the player would get an extra $200 on top of the high hand bonus
