1. THE RIO:
Thursday, Noon NLH $50 buy-in, 1- $20 add on

Standard tourney structure, blinds up every 15 minutes, 1500 in tournament chips. 136 entrants.

REVIEW: nice, big, spread out room. Staff is friendly and helpful. The $20 add-on was for $700 in additional chips (that day anyway, they've been monkeying with this structure lately, sometimes they do a $50 add-on for another 1500 in chips). All in all, I fared poorly finishing in 32 place. The cutoff for money was the final 10 players.

2. IMPERIAL PALACE:
Saturday, 1:00 PM, NLH Freezeout, $55 buy in, one optional add-on for $40. Same structure as The Rio, but less starting chips: $1000. 65 entrants.

REVIEW: small, cramped room, we had maximum possible entrants, small waiting list of alternates. Super helpful and friendly staff, and easy to get a drink at the table. Structure was a little quick heading to the final table, blinds doubled each round after 50-100. I enjoyed this tourney (I did finish 6th) because of the tourist feel. No pros in this one. I think there is definitely money to be made (though not hundreds of thousands) in small buy-in tourneys populated mostly by the hotel guests. Lots of live ones here.

3. THE PLAZA:
Saturday 7:00 PM, NLH, $50 buy in, 1 rebuy for $40. 1300 in starting chips, standard structure.
50 entrants.

REVIEW: Enjoyed being downtown. Small poker room next to slots and annoying table games. Not much live action on the side as seems to be the case in a lot of these rooms with small tourneys. Staff was a little distant, seemed as if the tourney was a hassle to them. Again, mostly tourist and a few retired locals who all know each other. Not the cleanest place, but again, it was fun to be downtown.