The felt was nice and new though sitting next to the dealer their wasn't enough room to have my cards on the felt unless I turned them sideways and I was afraid of exposing them with them half on the marble trim. Chairs were just so-so. Arm rests around the table were comfy. The room is just far enough from the sports book and gaming area to not have noise from those areas, but close enough to just out for a hand and watch a game.
Most of the players in the tournament were clueless; it was sort of a "drunkfest" even at 11 AM. Cash game players were better but had a lot of gamble and not so much solid poker.
Playing Crazy Pineapple, you know dealers' brains are on autopilot and sometimes they'll just deal you two cards but mistakes were very, very frequent including misdeals when players left the table for a hand. On the very first hand with 10-20 blinds, the dealer only gave us two cards and then when one player limped and the small blind completed, he colored up the $10 chips and somehow there was 70 in the pot. He misdealt the second hand as well. It got better (it had to) but that set the tone for what to expect from the dealers.
I didn't have anything to drink but noticed the waitresses came by frequently and were pretty and friendly which is all you can ask.
Some people rate management 1 as sour grapes because they got a bad ruling. I honestly didn't get a specific ruling that hurt me, but the guy overseeing the tournament was either incompetent or disinterested in doing his job. To their credit, they have a flier with tournament details and sign up was quick and easy. They started the tournament only 3 minutes late even though no one was seated at 10:59. But two unbelievable things got me. He didn't or wouldn't balance the tables. A couple people busted out of our table and we were 7, 8, and 10. I asked the dealer if we needed another player and he said the "floor" was working on it. Three hands later we were still 7-8-10 so I asked the floor about it. He said he was doing it now and a minute later came by to tell me we were 7-8-9, as if that was "correct", and didn't move anyone. Sometimes it takes a hand to rebalance, but we were out of balance 20% of the time. When we got to the final table, we took a 5 minute break. When we got back, somehow we skipped from the 50/100 level right past 100/200/25 to 200/400/50. Everybody gripped because we'd gone from reasonable stacks to being a push fest, but the guy wouldn't budge.
Also for some reason in cash games, you can't buy the button here.
While part of the MGM Mirage family, they don't comp $1/hr. I think if you play 4 hours you can get a food comp, though the person I asked wasn't really sure.
