Tourney play at Aria
Took a trip to Vegas for 3-4 days for a little tournament poker action. Stuck to the Aria, as I know and enjoy their format. For those who don't know, 8000 in chips, 30 minute blinds, and great staff. The only negative is the lack of players when they try to bump up the stakes. Their usual buyin is $125, but in the summer they bump it up, this time to $230. Now granted, the Sunday/Monday tournaments were during a holiday weekend, but to see the number of entries go from 106 down to 30 is disheartening. A few of those 30 entries were rebuys and late entries, so we never had more than 2 tables. It also keeps the number of paid places a little too low for my liking, as only the top 3 paid on that last day.
Anyway, didn't have much success. I survived for 3 and 4 hours the first two days, despite having a stack below the starting amount for most of the tourney, and day 3 went similarly, though I finally got to the final table, only to go card dead for a second time in the tourney and bust out with AJ vs AK, in 7th place. Was still pleased with my choice of locale, but just disappointed with my own results.
Note: just the 1pm tourney buyin got bumped up to $230, not the 7pm.
Good skill to you in your tournaments.
They changed it again?
When I was there a month ago, they didn't bump up the price, but just had a rebuy.
I just can't stand them keep on changing the tourney format, that's why the turnout is bad. I would stick with V for tourney.
I was thinking about playing the afternoon tourney at Aria when I'm there next week but not for $230. I'll probably stick with the Caesar's Mega Stack $120.
I hate when they screw with something that works so well. I usually play this once a week when I can, but not for $230.
The bump in stakes is just during the WSOP, last year they bumped it to $175 and it didn't affect the numbers at all. It turned that 1:00 tournament into a very profitable little venture. Maybe crossing the $200 mark causes some problems, but it's basically the same buy in as the daily tournaments at the Rio during WSOP. Also, they've almost doubled the starting stack to 15,000 chips.
I still plan on shying away from the Aria, the numbers they posted for the day and night tournament are not very enticing with around 50 for the 1pm and 75 for the 7pm. for half the cost of the 1pm i can play at caesers at noon or 4pm. seems better to me.
@missingflops
Aria's starting stack is $15K for their 1pm? Or are you saying that the Rio has doubled Aria's starting stack Glenn?
no the Aria 1PM tourney has a starting stack of 15k over 8k for the 7PM.
Correct, 15,000 starting chips for the Aria 1:00 while the buying is higher.