The poker room at Bellagio was always crowded, but the turnover was pretty fast. I got there on Wed. and only had to wait about 1/2 hour at noon for a NL table. Most of the players were tight(including me). So I just waited for my chance. Unfortunately luck was not on my side. I lost a few $300 pots with trips that got out kicked. I also lost about a $400 pot when my KK got cracked against QQ when he hit trip Q's. In retrospect, I should have spent my money on one of the satellites they have to get into the $100 ML tourney on Fri. Buy in for the satellite was $240, It was one table with 2 spots for the tourney, which had about 120 players and first prize was $51k. It was cool to see some of the pros up in the high limit area. Wed. night I saw Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson playing together. Doyle walked right by me, too bad I didn't have my camera!
On a better note I did play at the 2PM tourney downtown at Binion's. $60 buy-in,$10 AO, one $40 RB in the first hour. There were 76 players with first prize about $2k. I made it to the final table with the second lowest stack. With the help of other players knocking out players for me and a couple of timely premium hands, I made it to the final 4 and we chopped for $1,100 each ! I was very pumped up, as this was my first tourney (live or internet), too bad the money gets taxed.
The atmosphere at Binion's is great! With the pictures of the past champions of the WSOP on the wall. The poker area is large(I guess not large enough, with the WSOP moving next year), it is no-frills, but the drink service was great, as were the dealers(some I recognized from the WSOP) and the tournament staff.