Vegas Trip, Nov 13th-16th, tournaments

compuease

Heading to Vegas for my 2nd time this year and would like to play a few reasonable buyin (<$150.) tournaments this time while I am there. Looking for some with reasonable playing time and decent sized fields. I have looked at the various sites with schedules but would like some real life experiences some of you may have had.

witchdoctor

Hey Jeff,

Good luck on your trip.....let us know how you did and where you played. I am going to go in the spring with some buddies.

compuease

Will do, I was there in April but only played low limit cash games. I really would like to try the tournament experience this time. What I did find last time that the cash games, at low limits at least, are much softer than either Brantford or Niagara. Wonder if tournaments are the same? Jeff..

Wolffhound

Hey Compuease-
Where are you staying?  Big E and I are down in Vegas with another buddy of mine.  Staying at Imperial (49.00 a night) from the 13-16th. Not sure what limits/where you are going to be playing, but, wouldn't mind hooking up for a pint while we are there.

I was planning on playing some of the lower limit tourneys, but, NurseHolidays report may have soured me on that. Probably spend most of my time grinding away at 2/4 or something of the sort at Imperial Palace. Lousy room, bad players and good comps.

Dave aka Wolffhound

compuease

Hey Dave, actually we're staying at the Excalibur, I believe it's either $49. or $59., my son actually booked it... He's Pearson ATC so looks after all travel arrangements. Would love to hook up and compare notes... We're playing low limits as well, just not confident enough in my self to play higher..lol. FYI, not sure if we have played together here before or not, I've played at both Josh's and Brents events, have you? FYI, I'm 57 my son is 34, not sure what age group your in. We're actually also meeting another couple of guys from Seattle there as well. One of them is my son's brother in law.

Unknown

Hey Jeff,

I just got back from vegas and the low limit tourneys are a crap shoot. I played 4 $40 to $60 tourneys but you start with 1000 to 1300 in chips 15 min blinds practially dobuling the whole way with fields of 80 or so people.
Cash games at the Imperial and the Excalibur are a joke. Everyone sees the flop 83 os Q 2 os and they call you down to the river. I used a very tight system and cleaned up. I actually got a Royal Flush at the Imperial and did not even have to cap the betting as people were doing it with one pair and 6 kickers I got a whole $75 Meal voucher for my efforts.
Harrahs has a decent tourney at 11:00 each day $40 plus one rebuy I finished 22 protecting my blind from blinding out. about 10 mins later it was the final table. that should give you some idea how quick these blinds go.
Anyways enjoy. I would recommend the Excalibur room as they supply a decent snack buffet while you play.

compuease

You are exactly right about the Imperial and Excalibur cash games, just money makers, albeit at those blinds your not getting rich.... Will try a couple of tournaments and then perhaps one where the playing time is 3 hours or greater.... Did you make out well? Jeff..

Unknown

Money was made at the cash games. If I go again I wouldn't play tourneys due to the blind schedules. Unless the $200 plus buy in tourneys had structures that were better which I didn't see at the poker rooms I went to. I would say I was even overall on poker due to the tournaments.

Hork42

compu - i plan on playing 1 or 2 while i'm down there this weekend. I will post what I find.

hork.

compuease

Great!, really appreciate that..

Hork42

Binions had a great tournament. Best organized tournament I've seen. They run it daily with a $70 buyin and one $40 rebuy. The blinds schedule was something like this (might not be exact)

Every 20 minutes
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
100/200/25
200/400/25
300/600/50
400/800/50
600/1200/100
800/1600/100
1000/2000/100
1500/3000/200
2000/4000/200
etc..

Saturday's field was 115 players. Sunday was 89 players. Top 10 paid both days. The 10am tournament is much smaller, I think only 19 people did the sunday tournament... Tournaments lasted 4-5 hours.

The MGM had a daily tournament only on weekdays, 11am start. $60 buyin. I didn't get a chance to play this one, but it seemed rather decent. If you go to their poker room, they have a flyer with all the details, including blinds schedule available.

Wolffhound

Thanks Hork,
How did you fair on your trip?

ScoobyD

Hey Hork, what's the starting chip count for Binion's tourney. Blind progessions still sound quick, but if sufficient chips, I guess this isn't as much of a problem...

Hork42

start at 1500... the one rebuy is 1000 chips.