Vegas

[0h0netime]

Am heading to Vegas in early Jan, was wondering where the best places and games to play are? Mid stakes MTT and low stakes cash Holdem and PLO.

Staying at the Aria which has a poker room, anyone played there?

Cheers

[luckyshades]

Aria is really nice ... poker room is good. Spreads 1/3 or 2/5 NL (they will run considerably higher if asked). They also purport to have a PLO game but I didn't see it get up. Aria also had by far the highest % of crazy Asian gamblers in a casino in Vegas. On more than one occasion I saw these guys straddle their entire stack $200+ stack, or call bets on all streets without looking at their cards.

Good cocktail service and 2 tournaments a day (both around the $100 range).

They also had a promotion that if you played in the early morning they gave you 3x comp points (MGM).

Busiest rooms for low stakes cash (1/2) would probably be the MGM which is walkable from Aria. All the daily tournaments in Vegas are pretty terrible - but the Venetian is probably the best choice. Caesars run a number of daily tournaments aswell which aren't awful.

www.allvegsapoker.com is a good reference although some of the info might be a bit dated.

[0h0netime]

Thanks Lucky, how soft are the games over there?

[luckyshades]

Well everytime I sat down at a table, everyone talked about how soft it was.

Then they usually pointed at some guy standing right behind me ... but whenever I turned around no one was there. Weird.

They are softer than the cash games in Sydney or Melbourne for sure .. but it's not free money like some people would have you believe. And I think if you could measure the swings it would be considerably higher in Vegas because of people more than happy to stick in $500 with open ended straight draws etc.

Or people open shoving 200bb preflop with 99 from UTG +1.

[thret]

Aria is really nice ... poker room is good. Spreads 1/3 or 2/5 NL (they will run considerably higher if asked). They also purport to have a PLO game but I didn't see it get up. Aria also had by far the highest % of crazy Asian gamblers in a casino in Vegas. On more than one occasion I saw these guys straddle their entire stack $200+ stack, or call bets on all streets without looking at their cards.

I've only played cash at the RIO, but it was pretty hot. Uncapped buyins, 2000bb multi-way plo pots where guys have gutshot draws, it was funaments for the people who manged to win pots. They will run things twice or more if it is HU which gives you some freedom to play a little higher.

Mississippi straddle sucks if the guy who does it every hand is on your right. Kill sucks if you're playing limit games. Tipping sucks - nobody will remind you, even if you ask them too, but you'll still quietly be considered an arsehole if you forget.

<3 $200 straddle, I next time I will look for the Aria experience. Although to be fair that isn't unheard-of at Crown either, several times I've seen full 23 tables do that for the no-look-check-down-see-who-won game. I also seem to remember Powell dead straddling $50@23, several times, and every time waking up with AA coz he's the chosen one.

More drunk rambling/deleted.

Have fun missing PCA/AM and cruising Vegas while the pros are out of town.

[FSL009]

good luck.

all vegas website is pretty good for cash game info as that is pretty standard non-changing stuff. tourney times get moved around alot so my suggestion is pick the two or three casinos you want to play tourneys at and then go down and get the schedule for those casinos and find out exact times.

most casinos have a schedule at the counter you can take.

Cheers

cant say about the games cause its like two years since i went so they may be very different now.

just have fun.

[Monkey]

I recomend the Venetain daily noon tournament

Compared to Australia the tournaments are 1000x better

Deeper stacks, longer levels, bigger fields, less rake, great dealers

I think it was $150buyin

[luckyshades]

I recomend the Venetain daily noon tournament

Compared to Australia the tournaments are 1000x better

Deeper stacks, longer levels, bigger fields, less rake, great dealers
I think it was $150buyin

I'll let the longer levels and bigger fields slide, although in my experience those things aren't guaranteed - and depending on the time of year you visit some casinos struggle to get 1 table for daily tournaments, or have to cancel them alltogether.

But less rake and great dealers ??

Rly ??

Less rake ??

Most tournaments return less than 80% of the total prizepool to players, and then on top of that almost all Vegas casios now charge you a $5-$10 dealer add on, which goes straight to the Dealers. Not a cent of that winds up in the prizepool.

THEN - on top of the rake and the dealer add-on, if you win and don't tip at least 10% of your win the floor and dealers will verbally abuse you.

And of course if the win is a big one (over $5k) then on top of all that you STILL have to pay 30% withholding tax.

As for the dealers being better than Star or Crown - or for that matter the APL State Champs - you must be joking. I had a dealer falling asleep at the table ... little old lady actually started to drift off during a hand. Another young male dealer was watching a baseball game and would stop dealing the game if something interesting happened.

And heaven forbid if there is a side pot - forget about it - you can get up and walk around, go grab a drink, check the scores on the TVs, because you definitely wont miss a single hand. Thank christ for calculators or we'd be stuck waiting for them to use the fucking abacus.

[0h0netime]

Less rake ??

Most tournaments return less than 80% of the total prizepool to players, and then on top of that almost all Vegas casios now charge you a $5-$10 dealer add on, which goes straight to the Dealers. Not a cent of that winds up in the prizepool.

THEN - on top of the rake and the dealer add-on, if you win and don't tip at least 10% of your win the floor and dealers will verbally abuse you.

And of course if the win is a big one (over $5k) then on top of all that you STILL have to pay 30% withholding tax.











Seems hardly worth it.

[steve_farha]

I think that's why some of the aussies (I recall reading or seeing a clip of dong saying it) didn't play the 25K six max at the WSOP