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Where's the best place for a noob to play a cheap poker tourney in Vegas? I'm going in a couple of months and I'd like to play for the experience.

Michael wrote:Where's the best place for a noob to play a cheap poker tourney in Vegas? I'm going in a couple of months and I'd like to play for the experience.

Last time I went, quite a few of the casinos were offering tourneys with cheap buy in's ($50 or less). I played at Paris for at least 3-4 hours at one of these tourneys and many of the players were novices when it came to playing live (although they had some online experience). Dealers were very friendly in explaining how to play. This was during the day when the casino wasn't very busy.

most casual players get into way too many pots, often with inferior cards.

usually you can simply wait until you have quality cards to get in with them, and fold out the rest of the time. unlike "ante in" games, in hold-em there is very little cost of folding and very little reward of staying in. if the table happens to be smart enough to realize that you only stay in with very good cards you will need to occasionally stay in with crappy cards to keep them guessing.

the essence and conundrum of poker is that, in the long run, you must bet in accordance with the strength of your hand, but in the short run you must be unpredictable, or opponents will be able to easily assess your hand by your betting behavior.

"bet crazy" too often and you will do a good job of keeping them guessing but your occasional pot will not balance out the cost of keeping them guessing by betting with inferior hands. bet crazy too infrequently and when you finally get your dream hand everyone else will fold like the laundry.

if someone else is "betting crazy" more than they should, that is good in the long run, but can be very frustrating in the short run.

my biggest weakness in hold-em is boredom. at least in Vegas they let you listen to your iPod, at the casinos around here you aren't allowed to.

StatmanCrothers wrote:most casual players get into way too many pots, often with inferior cards.

usually you can simply wait until you have quality cards to get in with them, and fold out the rest of the time. unlike "ante in" games, in hold-em there is very little cost of folding and very little reward of staying in. if the table happens to be smart enough to realize that you only stay in with very good cards you will need to occasionally stay in with crappy cards to keep them guessing.

the essence and conundrum of poker is that, in the long run, you must bet in accordance with the strength of your hand, but in the short run you must be unpredictable, or opponents will be able to easily assess your hand by your betting behavior.

"bet crazy" too often and you will do a good job of keeping them guessing but your occasional pot will not balance out the cost of keeping them guessing by betting with inferior hands. bet crazy too infrequently and when you finally get your dream hand everyone else will fold like the laundry.

if someone else is "betting crazy" more than they should, that is good in the long run, but can be very frustrating in the short run.

my biggest weakness in hold-em is boredom. at least in Vegas they let you listen to your iPod, at the casinos around here you aren't allowed to.

My biggest strength is my ability to wait other people out who get bored or overplay hands to get some momentum. I'm a conservative player by nature, but I'm really good with a big stack, and pretty good with a small stack.

It's when I can't get anything going where I get frustrated and show my weaknesses...

Bad players love weak aces. Unfortunately, this seems to do me more harm than good when I actually play poker.

I think the problem is that the idiots outnumber you, so in a game where you're rarely more than a 65% favorite pre-flop, you end up either playing down to their level or short-stacked and forced to face all-ins.

cpebbles wrote:Bad players love weak aces. Unfortunately, this seems to do me more harm than good when I actually play poker.

I think the problem is that the idiots outnumber you, so in a game where you're rarely more than a 65% favorite pre-flop, you end up either playing down to their level or short-stacked and forced to face all-ins.

no-limit is tough on a table of crazy players, mostly its best to just wait it out until the herd is culled, and hope you aren't in a tournament where the blinds go up crazy fast.

there's some charity tournaments that make the rounds out here in the NW and W Chicago burbs, Rockford Charitable, and they pack you into a table and raise the blinds way too fast.

if playing no-limit i do best in a single table tournament, otherwise i run out of patience. i can't play for hours on end and keep myself in check.

thrill wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:

longhornbaseball wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:Youg uys should play me. At poker.

Where do you play?

Blggio. Caesars Palace. the Rio. MGM Grand. But I will met you in cyberspace if necessary.

What is the lowest nl tables at Belaggio?

2-5 NL is the minimum game there. But it's pretty good because the skill level a lot of the time is lower than a typical 1-2 game at another casino. Lots of rich tourist types. If you want to you can just play really tight and make a profit a lot of the time.

Michael wrote:Where's the best place for a noob to play a cheap poker tourney in Vegas? I'm going in a couple of months and I'd like to play for the experience.

All of the strip properties have some ok tournaments throughout the day. Most of which would be $40 or so and about 30 people in them. The Sahara and Planet Hollywood evening tournaments are the most popular with about 100 players for the same buy in. Pay attention though because some places keep a big chunk of the prize pool for the house. Either way if you are paying $50 or less be prepared to not have very many chips and not much play. You have to get pretty lucky. If you want to pay up to $100 or so and have more chips the Venetian has a good tournament.

cardsfansince82 wrote:

thrill wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:

longhornbaseball wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:Youg uys should play me. At poker.

Where do you play?

Blggio. Caesars Palace. the Rio. MGM Grand. But I will met you in cyberspace if necessary.

What is the lowest nl tables at Belaggio?

2-5 NL is the minimum game there. But it's pretty good because the skill level a lot of the time is lower than a typical 1-2 game at another casino. Lots of rich tourist types. If you want to you can just play really tight and make a profit a lot of the time.

What's the minimum buy in?

thrill wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:

thrill wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:

longhornbaseball wrote:

cardsfansince82 wrote:Youg uys should play me. At poker.

Where do you play?

Blggio. Caesars Palace. the Rio. MGM Grand. But I will met you in cyberspace if necessary.

What is the lowest nl tables at Belaggio?

2-5 NL is the minimum game there. But it's pretty good because the skill level a lot of the time is lower than a typical 1-2 game at another casino. Lots of rich tourist types. If you want to you can just play really tight and make a profit a lot of the time.

What's the minimum buy in?

$200. I usually sit down with $300.