I played Saraha's tournament 3x while I was in Vegas. I played a few other tournaments first and had planned on making the rounds but this tournament simply has the most player friendly structure of any tournament I have played in a casino with a low buy in. While I didn't cash, I think I played well.

First on the structure. The buy in works out to be 70 dollars I think (after the add on/rebuy). I think it is like 45 dollars with out the rebuy. You start with 2k in chips (3500 with the rebuy) and blinds start at 25/25 and go up every 25 minutes. The usual for vegas now a days is 1500-2000 in chips and blinds start at 25/50 and go up every 15-20 minutes so this was a real treat.

The 7pm tournament gets about 120-150 people. The morning tournament gets 80-100. Not sure about the 11pm tournament though. I made top 15 during the evening tournament and was there about 5 hours.

My bad beat story: Tournament pays top 11. We were down to 16 or so. I had about 16in chips. Blinds were at 1500-3000. I was in the big blind. A short stack goes all in for around 9k. I looked down and saw akd. It was folded to me and I called. Short stack flipped over a-7o. Flop came a bunch of rags with 2 diamonds. Turn is a blank. River is a 7 of hearts. 2 outs to beat me and he did it. Oh well. Thats poker.

About 5 hands later blinds are up to 2000/4000. I have 6k in chips. folded to me. I have pocket 10's. I go all in. big blind calls and flips over 7-2o. I don't blame his call. He had about 40k in chips and was getting 6 to 1 odds on his call. Flop was 6-j-4. turn was a 5. river an 8. he made a straight and I was out.

When I go back to vegas this and the wynn's tournaments are probably all i will play.