Las Vegas Poker
Poker in Las Vegas! What a wonderful time to be entering the fabulous world of poker, particularly in Las Vegas! Texas Hold'em, as presented by the casinos, is an area that is as ever-changing and adventurous as the city itself.
For as long as poker's
popularity lasts we will do our best to keep our information current and complete, but we will need you, our readers, to help keep us
following that path. The Las Vegas Texas Hold'em poker scene is rapidly expanding with new
poker rooms opening in various casinos and other casinos making room for more tables by moving to a
larger space or expanding their existing space. No Limit Texas Hold'em tournaments are featured at
more and more places on and off the Las Vegas Strip, downtown, and outlying areas such as Henderson,
North Las Vegas, South of Las Vegas, and everywhere else in the valley.
We are attempting to visit and re-visit every casino that offers poker and keep you informed of the
changes, the tournament schedules, what's coming in the near future, as well as anything else related
to Las Vegas poker, especially Hold'em. We are categorizing all this poker information in every way
imaginable to give you the opportunity to find what you need in just the right way to suit your needs,
whether you are a beginner or a seasoned proffesional poker player, a Las Vegas tourist, or Las Vegas
resident. Are you a no-limit hold'em tournament junkie? You can play in tournaments almost 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week now, starting at 10:00 AM with smaller freezeouts and the latest ones starting as
late as 2 or 3 AM. Who will be the first to offer tournaments at 6:00 AM or 8:00 AM to complete the
clock cycle for you marathoners out there? We live in Vegas only part time, so we need your help if
you find something has changed from the way we are reporting it. Please submit a comment
so we can make required changes in a timely manner. Also we want to hear about your adventures in the
poker rooms, so please submit a trip report or poker experience so we can publish it
on vegastexasholdem.net.
Wynn Resort does it right with 27 table poker room, grand opening a huge success
Don't ever underestimate Steve Wynn. The latest and greatest of the new Las Vegas mega-resorts is finally here, opening at 12:01 AM Thursday, April 28th, 2005 with a crush of 10,000 visitors. The poker room is simply awesome, beautiful, and delightful. Read more...
Riviera latest to offer Texas Holdem
Add one more poker room to the Las Vegas strip's north end. The Riviera is only the 2nd casino on the north part of the strip to offer $2-$4 Texas Hold'em, opening a 5 table poker room Monday May 2nd at 11:00 AM. Wynn Resort, Circus Circus, and the Stardust all have at least $3-$6 minimum Hold'em making Sahara and Riviera the only ones offering $2-$4. The Riviera also has $4-$8 limit hold-em and 7 card stud. The poker room can be found in the Southwest corner of the casino, near a food court and next to the sports book. The tables are the smaller size popular as 7 card stud tables, but they've got the big 10 seaters on order for hold'em. The non-smoking poker room has no plans for tournaments as of this writing, nor is there a comp system or beginners lessons offered yet, but these things could change as they get going.
MGM Grand opens new poker room, 2 tournaments a day coming soon
The highly anticipated MGM poker room opened Monday, March 28th, 2005, up front in the area of the big dome, sandwiched between the new sports book and a snappy new bar with scantily clad dancing cocktail waitresses. Despite the questionable choice of carpet, the unique, roomy design allows for the feel of a private game. There are curved walls on the north side and rails far from the action separating the poker room from the masses that gather to hang out by the bar. 2 sections with 11 or so tables each gives the poker room the appearance of having one area for high stakes poker and some good Texas Hold'em lower stakes games in the other. Apparently they have mostly no-limit holdem in the back section (which is toward the front of the casino) and limit games closer to the main entrance of the room. On Apr 21 we found out that in approximately 2 weeks (around May 5), the MGM Grand Poker Room will be holding a morning and an evening tournament. They have yet to finalize their plans.
World Series of Poker moves to the Rio
The World Series of Poker will be held mostly at the Rio in 2005, with the final 2 days back at Binion's where formerly the entire event was held. They simply ran out of room at Binion's (formerly Binion's Horseshoe Casino) downtown, and since Harrah's Entertainment now controls the World Series of Poker and owns the Rio Hotel & Suites, it was an easy decision to make the move to their new 90,000 square foot convention center located in the rear of the Rio casino in a separate building. There are a myriad of poker events going on both before and at the same time as the WSOP $10,000 Championship event, a whole bunch of them being No Limit Texas Hold'em with buy-ins ranging from $500 to $5,000. Be sure to see the schedule.
Tropicana, Riviera, Wynn Resort, Green Valley Ranch, Stratosphere, Caesars Palace all jump on the bandwagon
Tropicana, Wynn Resort, and Riviera have all opened new poker rooms in the past month. Caesars Palace is going for August, 2005, Stratosphere is set to open a poker room in mid May, 2005, and Green Valley Ranch is looking at Summer, 2005. They're opening poker rooms faster than you can say "I'm all in"! MGM Grand did it Mar 28, 2005 (see above), Santa Fe Station opened their poker room just after the new year 2005 after just missing their planned New Years Eve opening. And in late 2004 (Oct) it was Aladdin, before that Rio. Read all about them right here at vegastexasholdem.net.
Texas Station starts 11:00 AM tournament and promises big "surprise" for May, 2005
Starting around the 1st of March, Texas Station, (in the Northwest quadrant of the Las Vegas Valley, on Lake Mead at Rancho) began holding 11:00 AM No Limit Hold'em tournaments Mon through Thurs with a $40 Buy-in and no re-buys to go along with their 7 PM tournaments (Mon, Wed, and Thurs No Limit, Tues Omaha Hi / Lo Bounty tourney). A $1,600 High Hand tournament was also held May 4 at 3:00 AM with qualifying based on getting high hands during the "moonlight shift", midnight - 8 am during the month of April. We have no idea what the big "surprise" is for May, 2005, but from the looks on the faces of the friendly folks at the Texas Station Poker Room, it must be something really special. We'll keep you posted as soon as we know what it is.