The room is easy to find, at least from the front entrance -- straight through the "jungle" inside the front door and then straight ahead to the poker room. Free valet parking avoids having to feel your way from the garage to the room.
The layout of the room is fine. Manager's desk right out front. Cashier's cage in the rear. Not a lot of TV monitors, but fewer distractions that way.
Plenty of napkins and drink holders, so very little moisture damage to the tables. Just about all tables are equipped with ShuffleMaster machines.
What I liked: the lighting is bright enough that the cards on the board are really easy to read no matter where you're sitting at the table.
What I also liked: this is a non-smoking room with decent ventilation. I sat at a table right next to the entrance, but I didn't smell any second-hand smoke at all from the adjacent gaming areas.
Tourists galore at the 3-6 tables, along with a few regulars. The tourists didn't mind dropping a couple of hundred just for the sake of saying they had played here. I am an average-caliber player, and I won four pots in 45 minutes. Quite a few players from L.A. here.
Not extremely talkative, strictly business, very professional. Dealers with less than five years of poker experience are uncommon here.
I didn't drink much, but the service was friendly and, again, professional and efficient.
I didn't wait long for a table -- the desk staff sat me down right away and brought me my chips. Again, courtesy and professionalism prevailed. The Mirage advertises this to the hilt, and they met all my expectations. I would certainly play here again.
The editor's review tells it better than I can. There weren't any comps I could have taken advantage of, anyway.
