We arrived in Las Vegas around 10 a.m. on Wednesday and after getting checked in at our hotel (Paris), my friend and started walking toward the Mandalay Bay to register for the $60 no-limit tourney. We took a detour to the MGM to check out its new poker room and were overwhelmed. I've played in live games before but never in Vegas, and I was blown away by the large room, brand new chairs and tables and several flat screen TVS on the wall. Made a conscious decision to come back to play.
We arrived at Mandalay Bay's poker room just before registration started, hoping to sign up all six people in our group. The woman signing people in told us each person could sign up only themselves and one other person. Because the tournament is limited to 30 players and usually fills up within 10 minutes, we could only get four of us signed up. Registration closed long before the rest of our group arrived. If you are planning to play you should be there early and make sure you have at least half the people you want to register so you can all sign up.
The tourney began on time and dealers were great, as was the manager (I forgot his name). A few of the tables had automatic shufflers, but the ones that didn't were still very quick. You were given a decent amount of chips ($500 with the blinds starting at $10 and $20). I got knocked out early when a I lost with pocket 9s to a guy who was slow playing pocket queens, but a friend of mine came in 6th. Unfortunately for him the tourney only pays the top 5. The next night, however, my friend made it to the final two and agreed to split the pot with the other player, making him a cool $525. This room was a bit small but very well run, except for the second night when the clock to increase the blinds broke and they were forced to skip a blind when the tourney was down to four people and the manager was pressed to finish the tournament. Needless to say, the low-stacker at the table was not happy about this and threw a fit with the manager, which I guess is understandable. The sports book and bar next door is huge and a good diversion if you get knocked out and are waiting for others to finish up.
After the tournament on Thursday I made my way to the Bellagio to try their $200 no limit game. The poker room was being used for the Five Star Poker Classic that week, so the regular play was out on the casino floor (I am guessing where it has been the past few months while the regular room was being renovated). The wait for the room wasn't bad - probably 30 minutes during prime hours on a Thursday night, but it was a little confusing because they didn't have one desk to sign up for all the games. Instead, there were podiums placed throughout the room for the various games. The sign-in clerks were tough to nail down because they were so buys filling in seats. Because there were no signs, you had no idea if you were at the right podium for the game you wanted unless you asked. When I started playing the dealers were great, however, and waitresses were easy to find if you wanted a drink. Although I was getting junk most of the night, I got pocket Aces four times, but was usually unable to get a caller. The fourth time I had pocket rockets I did get a caller and it killed my night. I flopped a set of Aces and checked into a guy bet into me. Before I I could raise him another guy calls. I decided to be greedy and only call myself, figuring I could get another bet and then raise after the turn. They guy did bet, but only after the caller in front of me caught a gut-shot straight. I went all-in he called and that was that. I was down to about 60 bucks, which I held onto for another two hours. I lost it all when I couldn't catch a flop for my Big Slick against pocket 8s. I have to say that even thought I lost, this was a really cool experience. The room had a lot of good players, which is nice if you want to gauge the strength of your play against good competition. Also, a lot of the pros who got knocked out of the Five-Star Classic were playing in the room. Among them was Gus Hansen, who was playing heads up against some whale who wanted to challenge him to a high-stakes game. When I checked out the game, the whale was looking a little nervous and short on cash.
Feeling dejected I made my way to the Aladdin, having read several reviews that said the room was decent and a great place to make money because of all the inexperienced players. I came in around 5 a.m. and most of the people there were inexperienced but also drunk imbeciles who talked the dealers into letting the entire table make $20 string bets before the cards were even dealt on a $1 and $2 blind no-limit game. I refused to do this and was given some evil looks, but the dealers refused to do anything about it, even though it was a violation of the room rules, which allowed only one string bet of double the big blind. They continued doing this so I quickly got up and cashed out. I now understand why the Aladdin is dead during prime hours and management has been forced to sell the hotel and Casio to Planet Hollywood. Hopefully the new management will run things better.
Friday afternoon, I played in the $100 no-limit game at MGM, which is the first room I will return to when I go back to Vegas. The room is only about a week old and management is still working out a few glitches with the computer system. There were several times that management wasn't aware there were a few open seats at our table because the computer didn't notify the front desk of the vacancy, nor did it show up on the wait list screen. Another small problem was that for some reason the automatic shufflers were located at the center of the MGM's poker tables, which sometimes affected the dealing and flipped over cards when people mucked. While I liked the aesthetic value of the strip of marble around the felt, it caused problems when you were collecting pots because chips would fall through the cracks between the two surfaces. Also, because the felt was also elevated, if a dealer hit half your card on the felt when he was dealing, it could flip up slightly and reveal your cards to other people at the table. Generally, though, these problems were minor compared with the high quality of the room. The chairs were Italian design and included extra support for your lower back so you could play hours of poker without getting cramped. Dealers were great, especially "Nick" from Los Angles, who ran a great table, joked around with us and called waitresses over whenever we needed drinks. The competition was loose, with a few good player mixed in. Many of them were a great players dream - inexperienced players who tended to over bet pots with poor hands. Several of them would bet into pots with middle or low pair on the board - even when an ace was showing. I played for four hours on Friday and made a profit of $275 - enough to cover my loses at the Bellagio and then some. Played again on Saturday for 8 hours. I didn't catch as many cards but was able to grind out a profit of $100 bucks for the session.
In general, if you want to make money at a low-limit game then the MGM is a great call because of the large amount of tourists there. If you want the quintessential poker experience, check out the Bellagio (but bring your "A" game). Avoid the Aladdin at all costs.
If tournaments are you thing and you don't feel like paying re-buys, the Mandalay Bay freeze-out tournaments (6 p.m. Monday to Friday) is outstanding.

LukeSal