Caesars Palace aims to open THE poker room in Las Vegas for daily tournament action, and the preliminary schedule indicates it just might hit its target. Paul Lord, the poker tournament director at Caesars Palace, sits down with All Vegas Poker and shares all the details.

Its proper name is “Caesars Palace ‘Tournament’ Poker Room”, and there is serious emphasis in the tournament aspect of that name.

Executives at the upcoming Caesars Palace poker room are so serious about daily poker tournaments that they built an enormous 33 table tournament-only poker room to hold all the action. Note that this poker tournament room is separate from the already huge 30 table cash game poker room right next door. The grand opening of both is this Wednesday, December 21, at 10am.

Paul Lord, the poker tournament director at Caesars Palace, sat down with All Vegas Poker for more than 30 minutes and shared all the details about his poker tournaments. Paul is proud of the tournament schedule he created, and with good reason; it could be the best daily poker tournament schedule anywhere in Las Vegas. Not to mention that these tourneys may be held in the best tournament poker environment anywhere in town.

The tournament poker room at Caesars Palace is for poker tournaments only. There will not be any cash games in this room. This fact is evidenced by the lack of drop boxes built into the poker tables.

The tournament poker room also has lofty 20 foot ceilings. These ceilings are 6 feet taller than the ceilings of the cash game poker room. Why so tall? Simple - to create a production friendly staging environment for the sponsors and television cameras. This is a real poker tournament room.

The complete Caesars Palace poker tournament schedule is posted below, but first here are some interesting preliminary points.

• Management is experienced. Paul Lord and Michael Matts successfully pulled off the titanic 2005 World Series of Poker
(WSOP), so daily tourneys with a few hundred people should run smooth as butter.

• Management wants 100% rebuys. To make this happen they are offering $4000 of chips for rebuys. Your original buy-in only gets you $2000. This is a huge incentive, and I believe it will successfully encourage most players to rebuy.
  
• These are fantastic tournament structures. Good starting chips, great rebuys, long 40-minute levels.
  
• There are No Limit, Limit, and Omaha High poker tournaments scheduled.
  
• Rake is decent by Vegas standards.
  
• $120+ buy-in tourneys return between 81% - 92%.
  
• $60 and $80 buy-in tourneys return 75%, 81% respectively.
  
• Above rake percentages do not include rebuy pool. 100% of rebuys go back into payout, so this will raise the ultimate return by a variable percentage
( which depends on the actual number of rebuys during tournament).

Caesars Palace Poker Tournament Schedule (subject to change)

Monday

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$80 Buy-in + $50 rebuy

7pm: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

Tuesday

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$80 Buy-in + $50 rebuy

7pm: Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

Wednesday

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

7pm: Omaha High
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

Thursday

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

7pm: No Limit Hold’em
$225 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

Friday

9am: Limit Hold’em
$60 Buy-in + $50 rebuy

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

7pm: No Limit Hold’em
$530 Buy-in freezeout

11pm: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

Saturday

9am: Limit Hold’em
$60 Buy-in + $50 rebuy

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

7pm: No Limit Hold’em
$530 Buy-in freezeout

11pm: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

Sunday

9am: Limit Hold’em
$60 Buy-in + $50 rebuy

Noon: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

7 pm: No Limit Hold’em
$120 Buy-in + $100 rebuy

• 24 hour sit-and-go tournaments available in the tournament poker room.

The structure for each No Limit Texas Hold’em tournament is the same, with the exception of the freezeouts which do not offer rebuys.

Players start with $2,000 chips.
Re-buys get $4,000 chips.
Levels are 40 minutes each.
In early rounds, there is a 10 minute break after every two rounds.
In later rounds, there is a 10 minute break after every three rounds.
TDA and WSOP tournaments rules are used.
Rebuy can be done any time in the first two rounds, but only once.
Dead stacks are pulled after level two.
Winnings can be used to buy a seat into any WSOP event.
Alternates may be allowed during the first 15 minutes.

Here is the blind/betting structure:

Round 1
Small Blind: $25
Big Blind $50
Ante: $0

Round 2
Small Blind: $50
Big Blind $100
Ante: $0

10 minute break

Round 3
Small Blind: $100
Big Blind $200
Ante: $25

Round 4
Small Blind: $200
Big Blind $400
Ante: $50

10 minute break (race off $25 chips)

Round 5
Small Blind: $400
Big Blind $800
Ante: $100

Round 6
Small Blind: $600
Big Blind $1200
Ante: $100

10 minute break

Round 7
Small Blind: $800
Big Blind $1600
Ante: $200

Round 8
Small Blind: $1200
Big Blind $2400
Ante: $200

10 minute break (race off $100 chips)

Round 9
Small Blind: $2000
Big Blind $4000
Ante: $500

Round 10
Small Blind: $3000
Big Blind $6000
Ante: $500

Round 11
Small Blind: $4000
Big Blind $8000
Ante: $1000

10 minute break

Round 12
Small Blind: $6000
Big Blind $12000
Ante: $1000

Round 13
Small Blind: $10000
Big Blind $20000
Ante: $2000

Round 14
Small Blind: $15000
Big Blind $30000
Ante: $3000

See you Wednesday!

If you have any more information about the upcoming poker room at Caesars Palace, or news about any other poker room in Las Vegas, please send an e-mail to info@allvegaspoker.com. All sources are confidential.