Excalibur Poker Room... Still a fish Pond?
Anybody out there played at Excalibur recently?
I'm headed to Vegas for 4th of July weekend. My thinking is that on a big summer holiday weekend like that, I can have fun with my girlfriend and take advantage of a huge amount of touristy fish in the poker rooms.
I did some research and found that the Fourth of July is one of the biggest "family" weekends in Vegas. So I figured I'd find a lot of home game dads wanting to get away from the family and get Vegasy in the poker rooms.
The last time I went "fishing" in Vegas (that is to say, went there to make some real poker money) was fall 2013. Back then Excalibur was about the richest pond for fish I could imagine. Anybody been in their poker room lately? And if so, how was the play?
The water's fine . . . come on in.
If you're a serious player then I think you would play in more profitable games in the bigger rooms because the players are still not good and are sitting on much bigger stacks, plus even the tourists seem willing to lose more money in those rooms. But this advice is only for a player who is serious and maybe better than someone who just plays ABC. If you are only sort of serious or play ABC then you might find a place like the Aria to be much more of a struggle (I know I did for a while before I improved and did a lot better there).
I've played in the Excalibur a little bit lately (small sample size though) and I thought the competition was weaker than other places. On the other hand, stacks were smaller and the worst players tended to have around $100 or less. The minimum $60 buy-in might encourage beginners to show up but on the downside they only start with $60. So my feelings about the room are mixed. Weaker competition but smaller pots/stack sizes. I do think you're less likely to find a good player there for the reasons I'm mentioning in this post.
Every table is different though. Maybe one table will be great and the table next to it will be much worse.
You're definitely not likely to feel outmatched at the Excalibur if you feel at least somewhat comfortable in other rooms.