Room is fairly new and it shows. Played a 14 hour session and greatly appreciated the comfortable chairs. The room is right smack dab in the middle of everything thats happening at the Grand, so you get alot of spectators on the rail. All the loud noise from everything going on can be a distraction but I was able to block it out. The MGM easily has the best atmosphere of all the rooms I played in Vegas. Hopefully "Bruce" will show up and play with you while your there. He claims he's not a local but every local knew who he was. You'll know who he is if you see him, he's definitly the life of the table. I enjoyed playing here so much that after a long session that I broke even in I felt like it was time well spent.
I played three sessions of 1-2NL there, the first was my 14 hour session straight through the night where I ended up lossing my 200 dollar buy in by 10 AM. In that session I was all over the place from up a couple hundred to down to 40 dollars. If you understand the types of players your up against you should be alright. There were many times I felt I should have cashed out over the night but I was having such a great time(basically same seven players at our table all night)that I stuck around and I think fatigue played a big part in me busting out. My other two sessions were shorter and I basically broke even, I havn't played too many live cash games so it was a great experiance and I think I learned alot. Also if your a player that likes to play against big stacks you will probaly find one here. The max buy in is 200 hundred for 1-2 and 500 for 2-5 but each time I was there there were atleast a few players at each table that had been grinding out long sessions and had built there stacks up in the low thousands.
Despite this sites main review I rarely saw a dealer expose any cards. They all seemed very well informed and if provoked would joke back and forth with the players. In the wee hours of the night they were definitly more relaxed on the whole table etiqit stuff, more so probaly because our table had bonded pretty well and we were all having a good time. Just make sure you tip these guys. We had one kid at our table tip the dealer 2 dollars on a 600 dollar all in pot. The dealer was jaded after that and most of the other players over tipped him as a result. I cant really get mad at the kid though guy it was kind of a culture issue. He was from the UK and I guess over there your not allowed to tip dealers, if a dealer accepts a tip they get canned.
I gave a four here because for the most part it was excellent but there were momnentary lapses in serivce. The dealers were always quick to fetch the waitress if someone asked. They were all extremely nice and always had a smile on, no "10's" in there but they were easy on the eyes. When I wasn't having water I was having gin and tonics, they were pretty light on the gin but they are free and for the most part frequent. I was told that you could order doubles on mixed drinks but I never did, I'm not exactly looking to get sh#tfaced.
I dont exactly follow management that closely but I had no issues well I was there. At one point nobody was at the desk for about five minutes, my spot had come up for my table and I was just waiting to be seated. I understand that there was a tourney running and they were busy so I wasn't upset. Whenever the floorman had to be called to table the issue was always resolved very professionaly. In one case one player had mucked his cards preflop into another players cards causing the live players cards to go into the muck as well. The player pulled his cards out of the muck but nobody knew if they were definitly his. The floor ruled that since its a players responsibility to protect his or her cards that his hand was ruled dead. The player was upset but understood. All the locals seemed to get along with the management which I guess is a good thing.
It seemed evryone had a players card except me. They electonically keep track of all your hours so you always get comp for exactly how much you play. Apparently there is a 40 dollar room reduction for poker players that play more thewn 5 hours in a day.
