My wife gave me and my 21 yr old vegas trip for birthday presents. Stayed at the Excalibur Hotel - very nice - clean room - great parking - rented a small compact car. My 15 time to Las Vegas and I have stayed in 15 different places. I would recommend for the money and locations the Excalibur or Luxor on that end of the strip (if you rent a car).
Harrah's in the middle of the strip (if you don't rent a car) and Golden Nugget if downtown(if you don't like to walk that much). But for the ease of parking and quick room access I really like the Luxor and Excalibur.
We landed (four hour flight)and got our car very quickly and went to the Rio. Played in 235 satelite finished 8th out of 10 - no cards - every hand raised and most of the time re-raised - very aggressive young table - played 3 hands - 33,AK, and 10 10 and out . love the wsop - electric atmosphere - saw most of the top pros.- great tourney rooms.
first day -$235
2nd day - played in $35 daily tourney at Excal played down to 3 players and split 200 each. played 1-2 nl 1hour before tourney won $30. good start for the day. I really liked the Excal poker room - good drink service - very friendly management - good dealers.
We next went to Monte Carlo for sit n go
only had one table going - love the room always very friendly - really like the location of poker room - park in the back walk straight in.
played 30 min in the 1-2 nl won $8 just too slow on this day -6 players. Spent rest of the day looking around bought show tickets.(I try to see one big show each trip - saw KA at MGM - don't waste your money - worst show I have ever seen in LV. very disappointing.)
2nd day +200
day 3 - played in MGM daily tourney
8 tables tournement with re-entery (not rebuy?)
had 110 players. I was one of the chip leaders until my QQ ran into KK. then my JJ vs AK went out when an A flopped. really like the poker room - drink service could be better.- but very nice poker room manager and staff. site seeing the rest of day (hoover dam) -$130
day 4 - played in excal morning tourney - four tables - got down to me and one other player - split 1st and 2nd place.+360
then decided to enter Caesars Palace Mega tourney
with mornings profits - 235 buy-in - great tournement started with 7500 in chips with 50 min blind increases. play started at 12 pm and we stopped at 2am. - 14 hours with 10-15 min breaks every 2 hours - 1 hour and 15 min dinner break - gave us a coupon for 10 dollars good at the food court. Only complaint down to 20 players at 3 tables - redrew for seat - went thur four straight blinds - you compete for 12 hours and then get to go thru 4 straight blinds? -how is this even remotely fair? still don't understand logic behind this - I guess it is just easier for the staff? anyway made final table of 10 out of 333 that started. have to be back at 2pm.
day 5 - played in cash game 1-2 nl won $120 at Excalibur then ate and went to Caesars at 2pm.
blinds and anti costing $40,000 each round and I had $80,000. went out 8th place with AK vs KK. ouch.- I played at Caesars instead of the Venetian because of what I read on this site.- I wasn't disappointed. great tournement - great poker room - great staff. thanks Caesars
We went to the Luxor for there daily. It used to be one of my favorites in lv. - But the structure has really changed. - will not play there again - 12 min blind increases just too quick - made it 1/2 way around before increase.
i would rather throw the money on the table an high card for a winner.suggestion to Luxor - increase the buy-in and increase the time between blinds.
+2100 for the day.
I played where I played because of what I had read on this site. thanks AVP
Only regret is I never made it to Imperial Palace