I stayed with a buddy at the Excalibur. We weren't especially interested in poker there, but they had the best poker rate right on the strip. If you play 5 hours a day (6 weekends), the room was half price. And you could split hours and total them up. For example, if we each played 7.5 hours in one day, that covered the room rate for 3 days. We didn't have to play any poker the next 2 days. Contact their poker room mgr for details first.

IMHO $1/2 NL poker is pretty much the same everywhere. Every casino has it, and the toughness of the table is a crapshoot. I'm definitely not a believer in the stories that say "the players are tough here, but over here they are really fish." It all depends on the day, or the hour. At the Excalibur for example, sometimes there would be tough players (tight or loose, but good.) Other days there would be bad players (too loose and passive, or too drunk and crazy and willing to burn through a couple buy-ins). The main thing to keep in mind is that you should keep changing tables, or casinos, if you're not finding games that you like. Most strip casinos will do - walk a little ways and you'll find another $1/2 game. Mandalay Bay has a very nice little card room. MGM is OK, it gets a lot of good comments but I've never done well there (haven't found the fish) and just don't like the room as much as some do.

The Luxor is one exception for NL - they have a strange $50 buy in. I didn't try it, although I contemplated it - it might be fun, even though some things would have to change. No more calling raises with pocket 5s for set value. Playing high cards mostly.

I made a little money at $1/2, but limit is really my game. And frankly I think you can consistently find soft limit games. I don't bother with $3/6 or below, although all of those games should be soft. My favorite is the Bellagio. Frankly I think if you want to play limit there isn't much sense in playing lower than the the $4/8 game here, which is the lowest they have. It's almost always soft. Why pay $1 tip in a $2/4 game when you can find a game just as soft and still pay $1 tip? I played $8/16 and $15/30. The $8/16 games were usually very good on busy nights. The lowest NL game they have here is $2/5, so I didn't play NL. A couple doors down at the Mirage they also have good limit games at $10/20. A few of those players were weak, and they were asking to go to the $20/40 table! Wish I had brought the 'roll to follow them. The Mirage also has plenty of $1/2 NL.

Since I know limit pretty well, it's easier for me to spot errors limit players make. It's funny to hear some of the people talk. They show their cards too much when they don't have to, and talk too much about their game. They talk about why they don't raise QQ preflop. Or why you should always cold call raises with Ace/rag suited (they're "drawing" to a flush, and hey - he might have KK and I might hit an ace!) Or why you should never draw to a gutshot (never mind that the pot is the size of the National debt.) There was one guy who said he played stud. "Now that is a game where you really have to think. Holdem is just luck. That's why so many people play Holdem now." He didn't seem to understand how it was even possible to be a bad Holdem player, let alone contemplate that he actually might be bad. I didn't say anything of course, although I did fleece him for about a hundred bucks.

Always good fun at the limit tables. I find that they're more social than most NL tables anyway.