Thinking of moving up to $5/$10 NL hold em

I usually play $2/$5 at Aria or Bellagio when I visit from LA. (My regular casino is Commerce, where I play $3/$5.)

Interested in views on best spot to try out higher blind levels with a decent chance of doing ok. Presence of donks is obviously important, but also regularity of games and any other thoughts folks may have. FWIW I find Bellagio’s 2/5 bearable but Aria’s tougher tho I do ok there too. One of those spots for 5/10? Elsewhere? TIA

 

So, grain of salt as this comes from a $1/2-$1/3 player, but I follow a lot of the happenings in Vegas. For regular games, there are pretty much 3 options in Vegas: Bellagio, Aria, Wynn (well, Encore). From what I've gathered, that's also probably the easiest to hardest ranking, although with the smaller number of games available, table selection becomes incredibly important. Get the Bravo app and see where there are games, and be prepared to move to a new spot if the game is terrible.

Out of curiosity, I just took a look, and while noon on a Sunday is not exactly poker prime time, there's currently one 5/10 running at Bellagio, no games but a 7 person wait list at Encore, and no game and a 3 person wait list at Aria.

 

Yeah, I agree with the above. If regularity of games is a primary concern, the 3 casinos listed above are the ones to regularly spread the game. I also think the toughness of the line ups increases exponentially at these stakes, as you get more players who are full time for a living players, and more thinking, analyzing, etc of hands played. Don't know if there are too many donks at these stakes, at these casinos. You may also find that these players will take a shot at you, constantly putting you to the test as they realize you are out of your comfort zone, or the newbie at this level. Also, you need to be comfortably bankrolled to play these stakes and not have it impact your bankroll for back home. Good luck, report back how it went

 

While I haven't played 5/10 much, in Vegas I've had luck finding the 2/5 players in the 5/10 game at Aria... beers at the table, etc. Take with a grain of salt because this is obviously dependent on who actually shows up.

 

there's not that much 5/10 left and it's pretty reg heavy. Vegas is not the best place to play high end 5/10 unless there's a special event in town that has brought people in.

 

Thanks everyone this is really good info. I will definitely report back and tell you about how I either killed the game or ended up getting busted in 2 hours.

 

Curious as to the desire to move up? Is it the cliche "move up where they respect raises" type of thinking? Looking to make more per hour, or is this a boredom thing where you want to mix it in with supposedly better players?

 

Best chance of doing ok at higher blinds is when something like the Rodeo is in town, or when the WSOP is on.

What I get from Andrew Neeme's vlogs is that the 5/10 player pool in Vegas isn't all that big.

 

Brad Owen also has a good vlog on youtube about this poker trials, ups / downs. He mixes in Vegas, L.A., and other locales where he plays and they allow him to film the action

 

Yeah, Brad is really good, too. They've both carved quite a niche out over the last few years with the MUGs. Travelling around the world and getting paid to host them. Both seem like really great guys, and good to see them doing so well out of the game.

 

Mostly a boredom thing. I’ve never understood the people who can afford to play $25 a hand BJ but just play $5 a hand BJ. It’s the same for me at BJ, poker, whatevs. If I sit down at a 2/5 table and play 10 hours and I make $1000 that’s great but why not try to win $5000 over the same amount of time at a higher limit? I’m blessed enough that winning or losing $5k is not life altering so it’s just a matter of upping the ante so to speak. I just love the action. Some may refer to it by another term.

 

Got it, that makes sense, although of course you can't assume the $1,000 to $5,000 ratio works out. I'd try to play solid at first, and not go crazy with trying to adjust too much to the different players. I imagine 5/10 has a small pool of available players in town, you'll come across some with significant bankrolls, and I bet the preflop action will be heavier than the 2/5 games.

 

I've found 5-10 action in LA better than Vegas. Last time I played 5-10 at Bellagio there was a very high familiarity rate and little action unless I was in the hand. It was obvious I was the target so I left.

 

This is exactly what I am afraid of! Like you, I will slink away to $2/$5 if this were to happen.

 

Sorry you said your regular game in LA is the Commerce $3/$5 the $300 max game? That game plays completely different then a normal at least 100 BB game in Vegas.
I think the major consideration is what the min/max buy in is. For example, Bellagio 2/5 (500 Max) vs Aria (1000 Max) vs Wynn (1500 Max) play completely different. Likewise with 5/10 in Vegas its 1500, 2000 and uncapped respectively. So how I would consider which 5/10 game I play is what the buy in or how deep people play.

In LA, 5/10 at Hustler (it rarely if ever runs) Hollywood Park, Hawaiian Gardens, Bike, all have different Max buy ins. Even at commerce you cant straddle as you know so the game could play smaller without the options of straddles.

My personal choice of how I play is, I like the smallest blinds with the deepest max buy in. Not to be biased by my favorite card room is Wynn being a 2/5 1500 cap game.

 

I didn't slink away to 2/5. I slinked away to McMullan's.

 

I am sure everyone has been itching to hear what happened (or maybe not) so I thought I would report back on what happened. TLDR is I pussed out of the $5/$10 game and stuck to lower limits though I did get in about 10 hours over a couple days. I played at the Encore poker room (my first time there). Some notes:

• Encore poker room is nice in that it is very spacious. My prior experiences at Aria and Bellagio led me to believe that if a poker room has a lot of tables then they must be on top of each other. Not the case at Encore. Drink service was good and servers were pretty hot like they are in the rest of the casino.
• Nonetheless, I do like a little activity (e.g., at Bellagio you can see that one bar and catch glimpses of foot traffic near the sports book and at Aria people always seem to be walking by going who knows where). Encore's room seemed much more removed from the rest of the casino floor. Maybe this was because they had a bunch of tables set up right outside the room for some tournament - I don't know. I had a hope to catch tons of eye candy between people leaving the club late Friday night and coming/going to EBC Saturday day time but it was not to be, sadly. But overall nice room.
• Dealers were friendly. Some incompetent ones though. One gave me a pot that should have been split when villain and I each showed Ace garbage on the river. I caught it but the other guy didn't say anything.
• First night my buddy and I played $2/$5 beginning around midnight Friday because no seats at $5/$10. We got on the list but they didn't call our names till about 2am and i was doing pretty well by then so no need to move. My buddy did and he lasted about 30 minutes before he lost like $3K. Yay me! This $2/$5 table had solid players and only 2 who were clearly worse than me. (Saying something.) One guy looked like Paulie Walnuts and he would call everyone down with absolute garbage so he probably lost $5K in a few hours. Another guy was really fun and chatty - willing to bet $100 blind if everyone put in $10 blind - that sort of thing. Everyone liked him and he spiced things up while Paulie was both a bad player and had a pretty bad attitude. Players were mostly sour though at this table so I didn't really enjoy myself other than making probably $500 by the time I left around 5am. Not a huge win but I'll take it. I agree with the guy above who stressed importance of stack size. $3/$5 at Commerce $300 max is very different than the Encore $2/$5 with most folks buying in for a grand (I bought in for a grand).
• Saturday day I was not planning to schlep all the way down again (was staying at Cosmo) but I went to the Banksy exhibit at Fashion Show mall and then rolled over to the poker room around 11am. It was pretty dead - no open seats so the first available was a new $1/$3 table they opened so I just sat there. The action was okay - very ABC players I thought except for a couple weird guys. One was berating a nice lady who called a raise to $20 preflop with 6-4 suited and I (and I think everyone else) was like "this is a $1-$3 cash game and even if it wasn't what's wrong with you?" This other guy was really nice but he played weird. He kept string betting and acting out of turn whenever he had the nuts so I felt a little bad for him. He also called a couple bets in late position with close to the nuts and the rest of us were scratching our heads about why he didn't raise. That is actually something I noticed with a few other players at this game as well - even clear regulars. I would raise with big hands on the river and get just called by near nut hands (e.g., I raise the river with low straight and get just called with a bigger straight where there's a pair on the board but no reason I should have a boat). So pretty tight players. My sense is you have to be really patient on this table but you can do pretty well if you are competent. But most everyone was really friendly and we were all having a great time chatting so I didn't even bother trying to move. Left after about 5 hours up about $300 so another small win I will take.

 

Wait, was this Saturday the 29th? Did the 1/3 table involve the name Guinevere?

 

LOL indeed.

 

Wow, small world. I was Guinevere. Well, the male one in seat 2, although was only there for about a hour before the tourney started And agreed, the guy who kept going off on that lady was a total DB.

For the rest of the board reading this... just don't ask