A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

This happened during my annual Las Vegas trip at WSOP time. Mid Afternoon weekday in early July.

Walked up to the front brush desk and asked to be put on all low and mid level Limit Holdem or Mixed games. Brush said they didn't have ANY!. They only put 10 tables in play for cash games and they were all NL. A tournament was about to start using another 10+ tables and the other 1/3 of the room was not being used. He said there might be some limit games after the tournament was over.

Well --- Over the years I've heard a lot of things from casino poker room staff, but I'd never heard THAT before. I asked if it would be the same tomorrow and he said yes it would be.

Thus ended my visit to the Venetian.

Mirage had multiple games of Limit Holdem going at the same time-- 3-6, 10-20, 20-40, and a 6-12 list.
Wynn had multiple games of limit Holdem going at the same time-- 4-8, 8-16, 15-30, and a very nice 8-16 Mixed Game.

Somebody tell me again how the Venetian is so well run and is so innovative and is trying to get our business.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

The Deepstack series tournaments sucked up all their available tables until late afternoon. If you'd gone there around 4 or 5 pm you likely would have found some limit you wanted. I played some 4/8 there. It's just a matter of working around their schedule.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

Abe they had the CEO poker tour plus the 1k deepstacks going at the same time. Every day during june the entire room was booked out for the deepstack series and the same with the first 2 weeks of July for Ceo/Deepstack 1k's.

The normal fair was no cash games between 10am and 4pm'ish depending on when the tourney started breaking down because they were getting 500+ a tourney with only 49 tables.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
The Deepstack series tournaments sucked up all their available tables until late afternoon. If you'd gone there around 4 or 5 pm you likely would have found some limit you wanted. I played some 4/8 there. It's just a matter of working around their schedule.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually he said he was there early July which means he would be running into the CEO poker tour starting at 5PM (and they had the $1K Deepstacks running since noon.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

Abe - you read the B&M forum, I'm shocked this surprised you. for what its worth the V couldn't get any limit games at all until late in the day a few months ago (and sometimes not at all), the WSOP and the deep stack tournys changed that for the time being.

GOSSIP: The swing manager at another major corporate room in town told me that the venetian is losing money this month. The tournaments are taking too long and upper level management wasn't happy that revenue is down when there are so many players physically in the room. I cannot confirm this rumor yet, but I am trying to see if its based on fact.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I don’t see how a deep stacked low buyin tournament makes sense from anyone’s perspective. The rake per table hour has to be crazy low on a $300 tournament that lasts two days. And from a player perspective there’s no way to have a high hourly earn rate with such a small prize pool for the hours played. Am I missing something here?

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

You bring people into the room, many who have never been there.

They like what they see. They come back later. They come back on subsequent visits.

I got the sense that they were far more sucessful than the Venetian expected. Some of those tournaments they probably could have sat 600 if they had the space. My guess is they expected to have room for cash games in addition to the tournaments. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more tables next year.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

TT,

The daily drop is better than this same time one year ago. The DeepStack events were a huge success for the Venetian. I still cannot fathom why you have a hard time saying anything nice about this place. You get your information from a manager from another room? Didnt you ban some people for spreading information about the Palms. Do you know what's funny... I talked to a dealer from the Palms and he said that all the information was accurate.. yet you berated the poster and banned him for several days.

I just do not get you or your ego.

Tommy

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
TT,

The daily drop is better than this same time one year ago. The DeepStack events were a huge success for the Venetian. I still cannot fathom why you have a hard time saying anything nice about this place. You get your information from a manager from another room? Didnt you ban some people for spreading information about the Palms. Do you know what's funny... I talked to a dealer from the Palms and he said that all the information was accurate.. yet you berated the poster and banned him for several days.

I just do not get you or your ego.

Tommy

[/ QUOTE ]

Tommy:

1) What part of the word gossip don't you understand? Its <u>unsubstantiated</u> rumor from a manager of a poker room, I said I was looking to see if it could be verified. Thank you for debunking the rumor, there was no need for having a bad attitude about it however.

2) The user was banned because he wouldn't disclose his alleged source, claim it was a rumor he was trying to prove, or withdraw the statement after I spoke with the day shift manager who denied the claim. In fact the manager said that they had no control over an employee's actions how they check, bet, call or check-raise on or off the clock since they are not playing with monies supplied to them by the house. At the time it sounded like the definitive answer, the manager denies the claim and asks me to remove the post - which I would not do but I assured him I would deal with the user who made the claim. After the user was banned with a note that he can come back after contacting us RR let me know that he could confirm the user's claims, that the manager was protecting the room and lied to me about the policy. A "friend of 2+2" confirmed it all in private, we immediately reinstated the user with a message apologizing and clearing everything up (I don't think he has posted since that time, I could be wrong - I don't know if he ever got our message, the guy had something like a total of 5 posts or less). Last I heard employees are no longer allowed to play on-or-off the clock at Palms, most likely the result of that thread and my talk with the manager - a horrible turn of events, and the reason why the topic was dropped like a rock. Enough time has passed that I hope its ok revisiting it without affecting anyone over there, we couldn't disclose all of that at the time to protect our "friends".

On a slightly related note this is the Nevada state law regarding shills. The staff at Palms were not shills since they were playing with their own money (this was clearly discussed by myself and the manager, he at first thought I was discussing shills until it was clarified in the conversation), I could not find a statute that discusses on-or-off duty employees playing with their own funds but it seems that someone in management has confused the meaning of this statute.
23.065 Restrictions on use of shills and proposition players.
1. Shills may not check and raise or play in any manner between themselves or in collusion
with others to the disadvantage of other players within the game.
2. Each establishment employing shills or proposition players shall identify such shills or
proposition players upon request and shall display a sign clearly legible from each table which
states:
“Nevada gaming regulations allow the use of shills and proposition players. Shills and
proposition players shall be identified by management upon request.”
3. Each licensee shall maintain, in a manner as in the case of all other employees,
employment records on each individual engaged as a shill or proposition player; additionally, a
list of all shills and proposition players shall be maintained at the card room bank and shall be
readily available for inspection.
4. Persons who participate in the management or supervision of games subject to this
regulation shall be permitted to act as a shill or proposition player in the establishment where
employed if supervision is otherwise provided.
5. All advances to and winnings of a shill shall be utilized only for wagering in card games or
turned into the card room bank at the conclusion of play.
6. No more than two proposition players may play in a card game. No more than a
combination of four shills and proposition players may play in a card game.
7. Shills may only wager chips or coins.
(Adopted: 2/79.)

I also found this very poorly worded statute within the same document (http://gaming.nv.gov/stats_regs/reg23.pdf). As written a lawyer could argue that this means any card game dealer cannot play in their employer's casino in the game they are employed to deal - for example blackjack dealers cannot play blackjack and poker dealers cannot play poker, but its obviopus that was not the intent or the interpitation of the law:
23.070 Restrictions on other players.
1. Stakes players shall not be utilized by any licensee.
2. No dealer may wager in any game in which he is dealing.
(Adopted: 1/74. Amended: 2/79.)

3) In the past you were spamming Venetian stuff and denying that you worked for the company. I think we can all extrapolate from your last post that the truth is out. I have known your an employee there since you first started posting about the Venetian thanks to a little bird who whispered in my ear, its a disservice to the 2+2 community to pretend your impartial when discussing Venetian management issues. I am glad you finally admitted it, even if you didn't outright state so.

4) If you haven't figured it out yet I want the V to do well, I like the room - its the management that is bad. The fact that the poker room does so poorly in what should be one of the busiest locations on the strip is really sad to see - but its not too late, hopefully with the upcoming Palazzo launch we will start to see changes. This is not just my opinion but i don't want to put words in someone else's mouth - I am sure you can figure this out. By the way, I actually play at the V often enough. I played mixed games at the V twice this month alone - if you think I cannot say anything nice about the V then your mistaken, but I will always point out huge errors in management philosophy there or any major room when its called for, there is no sugar coating.

5) So everyone knows why you "dont get me or my ego", its because you have been temp banned by both myself and RR, separately, more than once. Lets not pretend its something that its not, you have been on thin ice for a long time. Quit using the forum as your personal axe to grind, instead look at yourself and your own actions and you will come to terms with why we have had to be so harsh with you in the past. I hope your future here is much brighter than it has been to date.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

The venetian is well run and innovative - well sometimes yes, and sometimes no. They've had some problems, and one of them is certainly a lack of effort to spread limit games. However, the demand for no limit is partially to blame for that. The one limit game they tried to spread really hard, the 30-60, IMO wasn't worth the effort to bother with. The rake (time) was so far reduced it wasn't worth it for the cardroom to bother with such historically troublesome and demanding players, plus they gave them EXTRA in comps. To be fair tho the deep stack tournies were great, and much of the time everything goes very well when I play there.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don’t see how a deep stacked low buyin tournament makes sense from anyone’s perspective. The rake per table hour has to be crazy low on a $300 tournament that lasts two days. And from a player perspective there’s no way to have a high hourly earn rate with such a small prize pool for the hours played. Am I missing something here?

[/ QUOTE ]

They are fun. From the player point of view the deep stack definitely helps increase the skill edge. The smallest tourneys were, essentially, $289.50 + 40.50. The middle ones were $482.50 + 57.2. The big ones were $965 + 95. And that overstates the amounts of rake slightly as 10-15% of the +X there was going into the prize pool for overall DSE champion.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I'm curious to see how regular the 5-10 games at the V are now that the series and tournies have wrapped up. I played at the Wynn since I could get a seat quicker in the 5-10 game but I generally prefer the V's room. I miss the days when they comped at 4.50 an HOUR for playing 2-5. *tear*

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

Does anyone know if the Palazzo is going to have a dedicated poker room? Considering the V's poker room is pretty close to the walkway, I'd be surprised if they had anything more than a small room.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone know if the Palazzo is going to have a dedicated poker room? Considering the V's poker room is pretty close to the walkway, I'd be surprised if they had anything more than a small room.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is Palazzo is the Venetian extension, its not a new casino.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone know if the Palazzo is going to have a dedicated poker room? Considering the V's poker room is pretty close to the walkway, I'd be surprised if they had anything more than a small room.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is Palazzo is the Venetian extension, its not a new casino.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's weird. I seem to get a different answer from everyone I talk to there. I asked my host and she said in terms of comps it will act as a separate casino. (In other words, I'm not getting a free room there by playing at the V) This was a few months ago, so its possible things are still up in the air.

Apparently they have some sick setup for their villas with direct access to the new Baccarat room. Not that I plan on ever taking advantage of that.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I've got six days of play so far this year at the Venetian and I have zero complaints. When I want limit games I go elsewhere. The lack of limit got me to play NL where I am sometimes more comfortable anyway. It was profitable and the room is really well run. The poker rate at the hotel was also applied without hassle, although checking out is still an adventure. Bellagio is my spot for limit games because I like $15-30 hold'em, mixed games and stud. V is a different experience and it should stay that way.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

limit holdem sux anyway

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don’t see how a deep stacked low buyin tournament makes sense from anyone’s perspective. The rake per table hour has to be crazy low on a $300 tournament that lasts two days. And from a player perspective there’s no way to have a high hourly earn rate with such a small prize pool for the hours played. Am I missing something here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Full tables earn more than empty tables. Even if the $/hour for the tournament time is less than that of a ring game, when the choice is between emty tables earning $0/hour and full tabkes earning a reduced amount per hour there is little question which is better.

If you spent time at the Venetian last month you would have seen that the room was very busy and it is quite certain that it is related to both the WSOP being going on AND the DeepStack tournaments bringing in many players.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
Abe - you read the B&amp;M forum, I'm shocked this surprised you.

[/ QUOTE ]

I only hang out on this forum because of the good management.

Seriously, thanks to all for the comments and explanations.

I had enjoyed playing the "V" room last year; they had 3-6, 6-12, 9-18 and a nice 6-12 Mixed Game. Was expecting this year would be 4-8, 8-16, 15-30?, and maybe a mixed game.

Was surprised at their approach this year --we have 10 tables of cash games and they're all NL -- No games and no list for Limit players. Come back later, maybe there will be some tonight. Next year, I might try a walk in again to see if their approach is different.

But it may be a good thing if they just do NL games. That way there would be even more Limit games and levels going at Wynn and Mirage.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

This is strictly anecdotal, but I went over to the Venetian on one of my days off from the WSOP ME to play in their deep stacked tournament. I busted relatively early and stayed and played for the better part of the day. The tournament did exactly what they wanted it to do - attracted a player to their cash games. Between the Bellagio tournament and the Venetian tournament I chose the latter and they ended up getting my cash game play as well.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
But it may be a good thing if they just do NL games. That way there would be even more Limit games and levels going at Wynn and Mirage.

[/ QUOTE ]

When you were in Vegas last year it was WSOP time, and therefore they were able to get some of those games going. There was even a weak 40/80 hobbling along for a while last year, and the game was really good with sick amounts of comps! After the WSOP all the limit games dried up. Management tried a bunch of tricks which are good for players in theory but bad for poker in the long run such as $1 rake for 8/16 and up limit games (8/16 has since been replaced by 9/18, much smarter since an 8/16 game in Vegas played with $4 chips wont have any action - it was a remnant from management's experiance at Foxwoods). The problem with a $1 rake is when the game gets shorthanded to 6 players as it eventually will always do what are you going to offer to the players now? No rake?

In short the best thing for the V to do is embrace its position as an NL room that spreads limit games on occasion when there are enough customer requests. If they took that approach rather than trying to be everything for everyone they would have a much happier customer base - communication is the key, players want information.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

Now that the deepstack tourney is over What/When/How much are the daily Venetian NL tournaments?
Thanks

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I'll be at the Venetian with Mrs. C Aug 8-9, and was hoping to play some limit. The deep stack tourney and WSOP will be done. Will I have any luck finding LHE up to 9/18 at the V?

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'll be at the Venetian with Mrs. C Aug 8-9, and was hoping to play some limit. The deep stack tourney and WSOP will be done. Will I have any luck finding LHE up to 9/18 at the V?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hit or miss. Start a list and try to get lucky, when the games run they tend to be good. If things run sour run across the street to the Mirage. It cant hurt to try.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

With the change in day shift room manager I suspect the day games will be run better and smoother. It will be more IF YOU WANT IT WE WILL SPREAD IT. This will help drag the games into the nighttime hours. Should be good all around for both the players and the "V".

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
With the change in day shift room manager I suspect the day games will be run better and smoother. It will be more IF YOU WANT IT WE WILL SPREAD IT. This will help drag the games into the nighttime hours. Should be good all around for both the players and the "V".

[/ QUOTE ]

The Buzz was good for the day shift manager change when i heard about it last week, xing my fingers!

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I have been gone for a little over a week (out of town) but I hear from reports the change has been good. Tom is an A #1 dude and should be a big plus to the day shift.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

Thanks TT. I'll see what happens.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I was in Vegas for the last five weeks, and I thought that the $2 rake 8-16 game with $4 chips was awesome. Apparently, there were plenty of complainers, and one day they changed to 9-16 w/$3 chips. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but shortly after the game pretty much stopped happening.

I hated the $3 chips, and preferred the 8-16 game by a lot, but still tried to play and I think once when I went in was the game running.

They did try and accomadate players. They got a $5/point chinese poker game going, before they even knew how they were raking the game....

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I stopped into the Venetian in the middle of the afternoon before the WSOP got started and they had one game going.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'll be at the Venetian with Mrs. C Aug 8-9, and was hoping to play some limit. The deep stack tourney and WSOP will be done. Will I have any luck finding LHE up to 9/18 at the V?

[/ QUOTE ]

Likely 4-8, or nothing at all. Walk down the street and enjoy.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I was at the V last night (friday), the room was back to pre-WSOP levels of traffic - meaning it was a bit less than 1/2 filled. Only NL games, there was a long list for a rotation game, also a list for 9/18 and 15/30 but the games were not spread. There was one 4/8 table with two names on the waiting list.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
I was at the V last night (friday), the room was back to pre-WSOP levels of traffic - meaning it was a bit less than 1/2 filled. Only NL games, there was a long list for a rotation game, also a list for 9/18 and 15/30 but the games were not spread. There was one 4/8 table with two names on the waiting list.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks TT,

Sad -- but maybe (like you said) they're just going to be a NL house.

Guess I'll just have to count on the Mirage and Wynn for 6-12, 8-16, 10-20 and 15-30.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I was at the V last night (friday), the room was back to pre-WSOP levels of traffic - meaning it was a bit less than 1/2 filled. Only NL games, there was a long list for a rotation game, also a list for 9/18 and 15/30 but the games were not spread. There was one 4/8 table with two names on the waiting list.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks TT,

Sad -- but maybe (like you said) they're just going to be a NL house.

Guess I'll just have to count on the Mirage and Wynn for 6-12, 8-16, 10-20 and 15-30.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually if I ran the room I'd promote it as an all NL house because thats what the customers want here, and the limit business is just too hard to take away from the other rooms in town. One of the V's mistakes is that they are still promoting itself as a room for all people/all games, although it sounds like a good strategy in reality its not - owning a significant share of the NL market would increase the rooms traffic. Someday perhaps management will embrace the "niche" factor of their consumers, until then they will continue to alienate players like you who come expecting XYZ game who get nothing but a waiting list all night long.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
Actually if I ran the room I'd promote it as an all NL house

[/ QUOTE ]

You probably should run it. And your suggestion is a very good strategy for that room. They could realy run with it.

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
With the change in day shift room manager I suspect the day games will be run better and smoother.

[/ QUOTE ]

???

Did Ari get canned, left on his own terms, or moved to another shift?

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

Ari has left to become Director of a room in Atlantic City.....

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

I've been to Vegas twice so far this year and missed the V's deep stack tournament by a week or two both times.

Does anyone know if this will be a regular/quarterly event, or do I just need to wait before booking my next trip?

(Looking at September after school starts back up...)

Re: A Surprise at the Venetian !
 

[ QUOTE ]
Ari has left to become Director of a room in Atlantic City.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Guess he decided to go back home. Good for him.