Las Vegas Poker Rooms Review
Following is review of some Las Vegas poker rooms that we have physically visited to either play poker or to view the casino and gaming rooms.
Bellagio has the best poker room in Las Vegas. It’s a very large room with three different sections:
- The main floor for small and medium blinds (from $4/8 Limit and $2/5 NL to $50/100 Limit and $25/$50 NL).
- The elevated section for higher blinds ($100/200 Limit and more)
- The celebrity room, where all the poker celebrities including Doyle Brunson, Sammy Farha and others play $3000/6000 blinds and higher.
- The downsides to Bellagio are first the fact that they dont offer any games less than $4/$8 and second it takes a long time to get sitted.
The chairs at the Bellagio poker room are the most comfortable chairs in Las Vegas poker rooms. I also like the fact that they all have wheels.
They have daily poker tournaments for $500 buy-in during week days and $1000 buy-in over weekends.
www.harrahs.com/caesars-palace
- Caesar’s is the best place for low-limit players, especially if you’re looking to play No-Limit.
- They also offer higher-stakes NL games–e.g., $2/$5, $5/$10, and $10/$20.
- They have at least two multi-table tournaments every day, one around noon and another in the evening.
On my last trip, they had at least six $1/$2 NL tables running at a time. The room is large, so they’ll open up more of these tables if there is enough demand for them. I have heard that the $1/$2 and $2/$5 games are soft. I can’t comment on the others. I think the buy-in for the tournaments are $120, with a $100 re-buy or add-on (I don’t remember which). Top prize is probably a few thousands dollars. You won’t find as many limit games at Caesar’s. I only saw two $3/$6 games going. If you’re lucky, you may find a $4/$8 Omaha Hi-Lo game. They even offer $3/$6 mixed games every now and then. According to the dealers, these games are all soft. It’s probably worth visiting the Caesar’s poker room even if you play higher-stakes games. It’s a beautiful room, with table-side food service and several attractive waitresses and massage girls. You may also find a $6/$12 game on a good night. (By Matt)
- My least favorite place in Vegas.
- Their room is small and unattractive.
- They offer soft $2/$4 and $4/$8 games, but that’s about it.
Their $4/$8 game is weirdly structured. The blinds are $1 and $2 each, but if I remember correctly, you still have to come in for $4. If you want to raise, you have to make it $6; a three-bet is $10, a four-bet is $14, and so on. This betting structure really screws up the pots, making them hard to count and smaller than they should be. You wouldn’t be missing anything if you skipped the Flamingo entirely. (By Matt)
Luxor was ok. I didn’t play there myself. Seemed like they had some cheaper tournaments to play at (around $30 or $50 buy in). However allot of players were college kids. (I prefer to play against the tourists rather than new college kid poker players who play mainly to win rather than to have fun).
MGM Grand’s poker room was fine. I played $6/$12 and won couple hundred fairly easy. However they don’t always offer that high limits. Their typical high limit is $4/$8 limit or – of course- $1/$3 No limit.
- I don’t recommend their middle-limit games ($10/$20, $20/$40, and sometimes $40/$80).
- It’s a good place to play $3/$6 if you can’t find a game at Caesar’s.
- They also offer $5/$10 Omaha Hi-Lo and $1-$5 Stud, but I don’t know how tough these games are.
- Their limit games are often played with a kill(In these games, the stakes double if someone wins two pots in a row). Whoever wins the two pots has to post a double-sized blind (the “kill”).
Action at the Mirage seems to have dried up a bit. I like their $6/$12 game, although some people think it’s a bit tough. It was super-soft when I last played there (April 2006). The Mirage has one of the older poker rooms in Vegas, so it’s not as nice as Caesar’s or Bellagio. It’s still worth visiting, though. (By Matt)
New York New York does not have a poker room (as of August 2006). I can’t imagine why but that’s what they’ve decided.
Paris’s poker room sucks. It’s in the middle of the casino floor with ropes around it. It’s like they ran out of space. They had mostly tournaments (mainly sit go). I read somewhere else online that they ONLY have tournaments now. You won’t miss much not playing there. The casino itself is very nice.
Wynn attracts allot more local than Bellagio during the week days. That is because they have their valley parking right beside the poker room which makes it much easier for locals to go to rather than driving in the strip traffic. While you are there you can check out the Ferrari showroom at Wynn too.
