Sorry for the long post, but it's RIGHT ON!!

Played 7/9 - 7/13
BELLAGIO – Friday played 8/16 and 16/30 Limit. They couldn’t seem to hold a full 8/16 game, so I went to the 15/30 game. Solid players but you could hold your own playing tight/aggressive. Lost 3 times with trip J’s (to 4 of kind twice, and a str.) Only lost $110 for the session. I saw A LOT of big $$ in the 2/5 NL games.

HARRAH’S – nice room, good jackpots!!
MIRAGE – played 1/2 NL and it was loose and fun!! The QB of the losing Arena team was at another table (hammered) and was bullying everyone. Our table starting doing shots together and we were able to recoup some of our $$ from the kid with the $1400 stack. Some IDIOT Dealer (young blond guy, can’t remember his name because I was hammered) just started his shift at 5am and told us to “Shut up and play”. What a moron, he broke up the game and we were tipping the dealers well. The shift mgr. was jerk too.

ORLEANS – saw a Poker Room employee (fat guy in a tie, on his cell) swearing at the Tourny Director (Tom) out in the open. Very professional... Oh well, it’s the Orleans. The average person there is missing 3 teeth!! I played the 7pm Sat. tourney, came in 5th ($600) out of 65 or so. Well run tourney, had a good time!! Would highly recommend it.

VENETIAN – The room is VERY impressive and the management was friendly. Looks like Management is doing a good job to attract more players (via comps) and they now have a poker room rate ($169 Su-Th, I don’t know the weekend rate) for min. of 6 hours of play. They are also adjusting their tourney structures properly as well (I’ll get back to that a little later). On a side note, the waitress service was good but I think at least one (maybe 2) of them is a man! Nice chest and Adams Apple, with a size 11 shoe. Brought us drinks quick and was a good employee!!

I played several sessions of 1/2 NL cash games and did fairly well (up a few hundred). There are a couple of local rocks at every table, a majority of tourists usually playing tight. Most players were good and know the game. The game is beatable and I wouldn’t say anyone was a superstar. The dealers in the CASH games were all very good and friendly but the Dealers in the Tourny – SUCK (see below)!!!!!. LIMIT GAMES - There were mostly 3/6 Limit did not see many 6/12 limit games until later in the evening (had 2 tables going).

VENETIAN TOURNY’S – They now offer twice per day (12pm/8pm) $125 buy in with (1) $55 rebuy (the first 90 minutes), gets you 4K in chips, 30 minute Blinds (nice structure). Played 2 nights in a row there were approx. 35 players in each. I noticed many mistakes by the dealers the first night (mis-read boards, some mis-deals, almost giving the pot to the wrong player, etc.). All of the mistakes were caught by the players and corrected, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt (came in 11th) and came back on Monday. Monday just confirmed how BRUTAL the tourney dealers were!!!! The worst dealer by far was KIM. She took the cards from the shuffler and started burning a card and laying out the flop (misdeal)…...BEFORE WE WERE DEALT ANY CARDS!! After we (jokingly) gave her a hard time about it, she did it again 3 hands later (misdeal). Then to top it off, she was about to do it again and we all starting yelling at her and she caught herself. She should be fired or at least given a drug test. There were a bunch of drunk buddies (all worked in Casinos, etc) having a good time and they were nice guys (at one point one guy flashed his cards to the whole table when the dealer wasn't looking). The worst part was when the blinds were at 200-400 (25 ante) with 11 minutes left and I am the button. The "Flasher" puts out a bet out of turn and crossed the yellow line. This caused a delay of 6 minutes and they didn’t stop the clock!! No hands for 6 minutes is a JOKE!! The dealer (Mein) and the Tourny Director (Anthony), need to take control. I asked the dealer SEVERAL times to get this resolved and stop the clock. Bottom Line - Stay away from their Tourny’s until they get hire better dealers!! Everything else at the Venetian is great. I hope their management reads this.

Good Luck everyone, I hope this helps!!!!