10th Anniversary Trip!
My wife and I just got back from Vegas to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We also got married there so we definitely wanted to back. A little background on me. I only wanted to play tournaments as I detest limit poker and I don't want to risk my entire bankroll on one hand in a NL cash game. After extensively following allvegaspoker.com for the better part of the past year in anticipation of this trip, I decided to only play the $130 Noon and $70 11PM tournaments at Caesars and the $180 8PM tournament at the Venetian. After six tournaments, I discovered I wasn't as good as I thought I was since I went 0 for 6 in cashes. All was not lost however as I actually made two final tables but was the bubble boy both times! They paid 7 and I finished 8! I would have made another final table if my Aces didn't get cracked by Nines putting me out in 14th. Although I have nothing to show for it, it was a great learning experience as I met a lot of great players (much better than the ones I play with at home) and I discovered that I can hold my own against intermediate level players but still have a long way to go to beat the advanced ones.
As far as the rooms go, Caesars is a little sterile but it was my wife's favorite room. She absolutely hates cigarette smoke. The fact that Caesars poker room is so isolated means that nary of whiff of smoke will you smell. The 11PM tournament is run by a guy named Doug and he's very friendly and always around. As stated on this website, it's THE best bargain around. $70 gets you 30 minute blind levels and play that will last you about five hours. Where else in Vegas are you going to be entertained for that long for that kind of money?
I personally preferred the Venetian. Because their poker room is more open, you feel like you're part of the casino. Their tournament has a slightly better structure too. Although it's also 30 minute blinds they use their card shufflers as opposed to the hand shuffle at Caesars. I estimate that increases the number of hands dealt by at least 25%. Also, the blind levels increase more gradually. At Caesars the blinds go from 50/100 in level 2 to 100/200 with a 25 ante in level 3. Assuming a full nine handed table, the price per round jumps from 150 to 525.
We'll be back for a second round hopefully sometime before our 20th!
Sounds like you had a good time (the most important part of visiting Vegas). I am curious though... You said you hate NL because you didn't want to risk your whole bankroll, but you had enough of a bankroll to easily buy in to $600-$700 worth of tournaments. You could just as easily sit down at a 1-2, for $200, or even a 2-5 table for $400-$500 and not break the bank. And, since you sound like a player in between intermediate and advanced, you'd probably fair quite well at a 2-5 NL table. I'm not criticizing, I was just curious, because it seems like you have plenty of bankroll to handle NL games.
In addition to what jooky said I'd also expect that a "decent" player would be far more likely to make money playing a cash game than playing a handful of tournaments.
I can understand a novice player wanting to play tournaments rather than cash to limit your loses. I'd actually recommend that anyone who wants to play NL for the first time try a cheap NL tournament. For someone who is a decent player though and who has the means/willingness to buy into tourneys in the 100+ range I'd think cash games would have a higher expectation.
Not a criticism just something to think about for your next trip.
Thanks for your thoughts. We actually brought a bankroll of about $1000 so I suppose I could have certainly sat down at a 1-2 NL table without breaking the bankroll and might have done better monetarily. However, I far prefer playing tournaments. Although of course money is always the goal, having fun is the main thing and I just simply don't have anywhere near as much fun playing cash games. I personally find that players tend to be one two extremes, either rocks or wild maniacs intimidating me with huge bankrolls. The smallest Caesars NL game was 1-3 with a max buy-in of $500. Just too much for me at this point. It's something I gotta learn to handle eventually. Hopefully I'll be ready for it the next trip!