Favorite Poker Rooms

I absolutely love playing poker.  It’s my favorite past time.  The poker game that I always play is Texas Hold ‘Em, because it’s the game where you not only have to have skills in strategy and poker hands, but also in reading other players and how to use your chips to your advantage.  There is a lot of psychology that goes into playing Poker, which makes it a very mental game.  Which is one of the many reasons I love playing it.  It challenges me in so many ways, that I’m always learning something about myself and other people, and this translates over to life as well.  This is why I love playing poker so much!

For Favorite Friday I decided to list my favorite Poker rooms here in Las Vegas.  Steve and I try to go play at least one tournament every weekend, and usually end up playing several.  We do pretty well in our Poker winnings, so it makes it worth while for sure.    There are  a few rooms that we go to all the time, for various reasons, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on them here today.  If you like playing poker, and you’re in Vegas, check them out! These are not listed in any specific order, just the order I thought of them.

MGM Grand -Steve and I “discovered” this poker room relatively recently.  Basically we just hadn’t gone to it yet, but we knew about it.  We decided to go to this poker room because we heard about a cash game that’s called “20-50″.  Basically it’s a No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em game, but the minimum buy in is $20 and the Maximum is $50, with the blinds starting at $.50 & $1.  Steve and I like it because you can’t really loose more than $50 bucks in any hand, but you can still go “All In” or raise a lot to get people off their weaker hands.  It’s a good way to get our feet wet in the No Limit Cash games, and because it’s considered a “beginner” game, it’s a little easier to play.  We also liked their No Limit Tournament as well.  It’s a little more expensive than the normal game we play, $80, but the playing is so soft there, that it’s a little less daunting a task.  Steve took 3rd the other day and won almost $600.  Nice pay out for sure!  They also have other games going like the various limit games and no limit games.  It’s a rather large poker room in the middle of the casino.  It’s really nice.  However, I don’t like the actual tables or their chairs, so I end up getting a back ache.  However, despite how uncomfortable it is to sit there, I still like playing there.  LOL!

O’Shea’s – O’Shea’s Casino is right on the strip.  It’s a little hole in the wall casino that is usually filled with College kids playing Beer Pong.  They do have an actual poker “room” but generally their regular poker games are played near the front of the casino right off the sidewalk on the strip.  It’s a VERY noisey casino and crowded.  However, despite all that, Steve and I really like playing their tournaments and their low limit game of “2-5 spread”.  This is another casino with very soft game.  There have been a few times when some of the players have been so drunk that they could hardly sit at the table… I almost felt guilty taking their chips… almost.

Aliante Station – Aliante is a relatively new casino in the valley.  It was finished being built last year.  They’ve actually been having a hard time because they opened their doors right in the middle of all the economic problems in Vegas.  They do have a great poker room though.  One of my favorite tournaments to play is their Friday & Saturday night Bounty Tournaments.  A Bounty tournament is when a portion of your buy in goes to a bounty, when you knock someone out of the tournament (taking all their chips) you get that bounty.  At most poker rooms the bounties are only $5 or $10, but at Aliante it’s $25!  The buy in is only $65 so a rather large percentage comes back to the players.  And if you knock out 3 players, your free rolling (meaning you just got your buy in back!).  I’ve actually done this 3 times.  I’ve only cashed in this tournament once, but still made a profit off the game.  That’s why we love it.. however, it’s a mostly a locals place, so the playing is usually pretty good rather than being soft, it can be difficult to win.  Being a bounty tournament though makes some players take a lot more risks than normal… so it almost balances out.

Mirage – This is probably Steve’s all time favorite poker room.  This is the room that I cut my proverbial poker teeth on.  We stopped going to this room for a while because I got tired of never being able to win or cash in a game.  I’ve gotten better at playing and we went back recently and I cashed in two different games.  LOL!  Yes, all it takes for me to like a room is to win there!    The Mirage has a bounty tournament on Saturday nights.  It’s a little more expensive game, at $80 buy in, but you still get $25 for a bounty and you’ve got a bigger starting chip stack.  At Aliante you start with 4500 in chips, here at Mirage you get 7500.  Which means there’s more room for you to make moves and gather up chips.  This is a mix of players though.  There are some locals and very good players with a few drunk or inexperienced players.  So it can be tough to win, but if you are a good player you should be able to get to the money.  Steve prefers their “Sit n Go” tournaments.  These are small tournaments that start only after they have 10 players.  You get 1000 in chips (which means it’ll be a quick game) and only 2 players cash.  Steve cashes in almost every Sit n Go he plays there, I’ve cashed in one.

The Stratosphere – This is probably Steve and My favorite poker room for tournaments.  They have a tournament 4 times a day and sometimes we’ve played in 2 tournaments there in a row.  I’ve cashed in this tournament 3 times and Steve has cashed in it… well more times than I can remember.  There are some good, regular, players that play these tournaments, but for some reason this is hotel is big with people from other countries.  Generally, there is a much larger percentage of foreigners at the table than Americans.  What’s always funny is how many people that are staying there don’t realize that the drinks are free but you should tip the waitresses.  What this means for the actual play of the tournament is two things… one, these visitors may decide they don’t want to “chop” when it comes down to head’s up or when everyone has made it to the money, simply because they want to “win a vegas tournament”.  The other is that they are so excited to be playing poker in Vegas that they play a lot more “risky”.  Usually it’s a nice mix of soft and challenging players, not necessarily an easy tournament to win, but not so difficult that you’ll be frustrated.  Steve and I play this tournament a lot!

So there’s my list of my favorite poker rooms to play at.  There are others that we like to play at as well… Treasure Island, Ceasars Palace, Santa Fe Station, Eastside Cannery, Mandalay Bay and South Point are a few of the ones we go to regularly.  They didn’t make my “Favorite Friday” list because they are either very difficult to win, too uncomfortable to sit at,  seldom have an inexpensive tournament to buy in to, or seldom have low limit games to play.  We visit them on occasion, but they aren’t our first choices.

Some of the Casino’s we absolutely will NOT play at are Balley’s, Luxor, Bellagio, and Joker’s Wild.  Mostly because they are either VERY expensive to play any tournaments or the blind structure is very steep and not worth the money, or in the case of Joker’s Wild only very difficult players play there and we aren’t up to that speed… yet.  . We haven’t played at ALL the casino’s yet, but we will get to them all eventually.

We like trying new places to see what they are like and have found some new favorites that way.  I know we really want to try out M and Aria soon.  I don’t know where they will be on the list, but hopefully we’ll find some other good places to play.  If you happen to stop at one of these casinos and have something to add about them, please leave a comment and let me know!  If you are in Vegas and playing at one of my favorites, you might see me there on the weekends.  If so, say hi!  And then goodbye to your chips!  LOL!!

Hope to see you at the tables!

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