A List of the Best Overall Hold 'em Tournaments in Las Vegas

[bav]

The $62 sammiches at Sahara are completely edible. It's just your basic large sub sandwich cut into 2" hunks. If you're willing to eat a ham+cheese+tomato+mayo sandwich anywhere else, you can eat the Sahara offering at 8pm.

I rarely go downtown or to Orleans. Yes, I think the Orleans and Binions and maybe even the Nugget tournaments are playable. I just don't think they are best of breed.

Looking at Nugget specifically since it is referenced above, they're $105 total, give ya T5000 in chips, 20 minute rounds, $19(*) vig. Sahara is $62, gives ya T5000 in chips, 20 minute rounds, $14 vig. Basically if I'm gonna pay $105 at Nugget, I'd rather pay $130 and do Caesars. If I want to pay less, I'll do Sahara.

Binion's weekend 8pm is playable, but it's $200 with a $50(*) vig, vs say Venetian's normal 8pm which is $180 with a $25(*) vig. And V's is 6 days a week vs 3 days at Binion's. I'll normally aim for Venetian.

Orleans I mostly can't remember their tourney schedule. I'm usually not in the mood for one of their unlimited $20 rebuy donkfests where tables compete with each other to try to break the most-rebuys-at-a-table record. But the normal $75 or $60+$40 are ok.

Sahara $62, Caesars noon $130, Venetian 8pm $180, Wynn $330, and Venetian Saturday $550 are just my own personal preferences for those size buyins based on the structure of the event and including some consideration for vigorish. I declare my gambling winnings exactly legally (I think) so Caesars W2G's don't enter into my decision process. But sure, there are other perfectly playable tourneys that aren't total pushfests after 60 minutes.

(*) Note that I'm not positive of the vig's. AVP is my source but I had some trouble figuring out if the optional dealer add-on is included in AVP's figures so my number may be off by $5.