Softest Tournament in Vegas

Mind you I only have a sample size of 1. I started off my day playing a ring game over at the Golden Nugget and one of the other players suggested for entertainment value I should go to " Poker Palace " on a friday at 6pm.

So i did. Not the best neighborhood but not terrible either. The outside of the casino looked like it was built in the 50's a white concrete castle with red tips. Inside was a very large non smoking area separately maintained far from the smoking area which i thought was interesting. This was definitely a locals small time casino. I immediately got a card and was awarded $50 in FSP. Nice start!! I cycle for 200 turn it into 400 and change playing video poker dimes diminish it back to my original bet in some attractive slot machine while I wait for the poker room to be manned.

Eventually someone shows up to the empty room and i ask about the tournament... $20.. 5k in chips rebuy for $10 until the break. You get 1k more for signing up early and for 5$ bucks another 2k..

The tables had that old speed felt, so a dream for dealers but you could write your name in the grime on the table. The staff and the other players were very personable. I imagine this would be a great place to cut your teeth on tournament play. The action was smooth.. though we did have to fix a few pauses with math for multiple all in's of different values. Understandable it's not like these guys have been dealing all day.

We never reached the second break. I chopped my $25 investment when we were at 3 and took $300 dollars.

I did like that after the re-buys stopped a sheet was passed out telling you what the payouts would be for the tourn as well as what the chop would be with x players.

All in all. Not a bad experience.

Here is a quote from the wiki for 'poker palace'

Jeff Haney of the Las Vegas Sun gave the Poker Palace a zero-star rating on his list of the best sportsbooks in Las Vegas, calling it, "An extremely low-limit locals joint. We do mean locals. If you're a tourist and you end up here, you're probably very, very lost."

 

Very interesting.......thank you for the story...I think I will put the Poker Palace on my list for my trip next week

 

Hmmmmm, this is interesting. Thanks for the report.

 

We played the tournament at Club Fortune this past trip. $46 entry chock-full of nitty locals and ended with over 40 entries. We spent a lot of time at bigger casino poker rooms that weekend that weren't nearly as much fun (or as soft).

 

I stopped by there a few weeks ago on the way back to DT from the NASCAR race. I had to laugh at the multitude of machines with "out of order" signs. Was there still a big ol' 8 foot pile of boxes in the corner of the poker room?

 

Love this report, thanks for sharing!

 

I saw no boxes but several machines were definitely out of order. Nice that they marked them for you my time there they were just off.

 

I've played in the Poker Palace poker tournament many times. I like the little place. They have nickel 9-6 jacks or better to kill your time until the tournament starts. If you want, you can play $1 blackjack. Their food is dirt cheap as well.

 

My one and only time there, just to use a matchplay, it looked like they were dealing blackjack using decks of cards they picked up at Walgreens.

 

I recall Ashley Adams writing about Poker Palace in Poker News last summer. So if you sign up for a card there they give you $50 in slot play? That's pretty incredible. (And I thought the promos at Ellis Island were good...)

 

I'm guessing it's some sort of random award like at Ellis Island.

 

It was a random reward. I spun a wheel for it.

 

My poker palace observation: I saw a woman get a cup of chili (or soup) from a vending machine. There was a microwave so you could heat it up.