Mark's Poker Blog

Cash games at Ceasers Palace

During my trip to the WSOP, I stayed at Ceasers Palace. I played cash games several of the days, when I wasn't too busy there for the conference I was attending. Ceasers has a big room, with quite a few games. The biggest games are 5/10 and 2/5 no limit. I liked the games, because there is no maximum buy in. You can walk up to any table and put down as much as you want.

I played some 5/10, but mostly played 2/5. The 2/5 tables had plenty of money, generally around 15K or so. The quality of play was pretty high, a lot of locals playing real solid and staying out of each others way. I always try to spot the locals, because a lot of them play similarly and there are usually better targets.

There were some folks there for the WSOP. Some were good and some were awful. However, there really weren't enough drunk tourists and yahoos around. A few, but not enough to make the games really good. My play was pretty much the same each day, build up a nice profit, but have too much to drink and end up giving a lot of it away. Same old story.

If you go to Las Vegas, I would recommend the room at Ceasers palace. However, I suspect you can find softer games. I liked the no max buy in, but I am sure there are similar games with looser worse players.

World Series PS

As a PS, Richard Lee also played on day 4. Obviously he did a lot better than I did.

World Series Experience

As many of you know, I played in the WSOP main event this year. I won the buy in at a local tournament. It was one of those deals where everyone in the tournament had a piece of me, so I was only playing for 50% max. I actually won another seat, but I was already registered with the first one.

I was going to be in Las Vegas anyway, to present at a hackers conference. I stayed at Caesers Palace. More on the games there later.

I got to play on Day 4. There were over 8000 players and a bunch of alternates. It took hours to get all the alternates in and get to where we actually got under 2000 players.

There was only one recognizable player at my table. He was a young guy, Brandon something, who had won a bracelet in one of the preliminary events. He was actually the first guy out. There were a couple of bad players, who eventually gave away all their chips.

I peaked at about 14K in chips. I won a decent pot with AQ over AK when the board included an A and 2 queens. Other than that, nothing much happened. I had a real aggressive player to my left and I had a tough time making moves on him. I slowly gave away chips. I never got any good cards. Made a few moves to try to stay even, but it was a losing battle.

Eventually our table was broken down and I got moved to another table where the chip stacks were a lot bigger. There was one buy I recognized, but I don't recall his name.

I played through the dinner break and had about 7K in chips after we started up again. I survived until the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 ante, meaning 1K in chips per circuit. I just didn't get any cards and the guys to my left had pretty big stacks. I made a few position moves, but nothing big enough to gain any ground.

I finall had KQ on the cutoff, with no one in. I raised and the button, with a lot of chips just called. Nothing on the flop, but I bet and he called. I was pretty much committed, so I moved in on the turn and he called with AK, which was good. No help on the river and I was out. It was late, around 1:00. I may have been able to survive to the next day, but I probably would have had so few chips that it wouldn't matter.

It was quite an experience. I would like to do it again, although I doubt I will just buy in. I will play some satellites and hopefully get another free ride.