LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

According to the floorwoman I spoke with the LV Hilton will be shutting down their poker room on the 17th. I know a few people on this forum want smaller LV rooms to close, but I'm not in that camp and feel sorry for the people who worked there. They room was open for only a little over 2 years.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Do they have a jackpot?

The best part about a poker room closing is that they have to give the jackpot money back to the players. The last time the LV Hilton closed their poker room, the hold'em jackpot was about $36k, so they drew a "lucky seat" once per hour, at $500 per hour. When that money was gone, they shut it down.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

hate to see any room close

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

I know someone who works there too, and of course I don't wish any misfortune on the staff. But some of the rooms in vegas need to close for the overall health of the poker industry. Poker caused a sensation, and all the greedy corporations tried to jump on the bandwagon without bothering to do their research first. Krispy cremes causes a sensation when they open in a new city, but they aren't stupid enough to open a new store on every corner. Can't say that for vegas casino execs. My guess is that the narrow-mindedness and greed that made the hilton open the room in the first place is the same thing that closed it. From what I've seen of casino management in las vegas I don't expect anyone to learn a damn thing from this.

Al

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

I know it seems odd but closing this room is actually good for Las Vegas poker.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know someone who works there too, and of course I don't wish any misfortune on the staff. But some of the rooms in vegas need to close for the overall health of the poker industry. Poker caused a sensation, and all the greedy corporations tried to jump on the bandwagon without bothering to do their research first. Krispy cremes causes a sensation when they open in a new city, but they aren't stupid enough to open a new store on every corner. Can't say that for vegas casino execs. My guess is that the narrow-mindedness and greed that made the hilton open the room in the first place is the same thing that closed it. From what I've seen of casino management in las vegas I don't expect anyone to learn a damn thing from this.

Al

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Krispy Kreme was stupid enough to open on every corner and is now BUSTO.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Which poker room is the closest to Hilton? without taking a cab.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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Which poker room is the closest to Hilton? without taking a cab.

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Sahara or Riviera. They are a walk across the street. Of course, these are Vegas streets, so that will take longer than you think.

Wynn is a bit farther, but a much better choice.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

They have a jackpot, but from what i understand it was less than the $20,000 they use for their monthly freeroll when they stopped taking additional money, so the last of the jackpot money was used in their final freeroll.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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I know it seems odd but closing this room is actually good for Las Vegas poker.

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Yours is a minority opinion. I'm aware that having all or most LV poker concentrated in one spot will be better for the non-hold 'em games, but less competition will almost certainly lead to rake increases and worse service. IMO the negative impact of the latter dwarfs the positive impact of the former.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

When I first got interested in poker around three years ago, there were about a dozen rooms on the Strip, 8 or so off-Strip. Roughly 20 city-wide.

There are now 24 on the Strip alone (if you count places like O'Sheas and Trop, which have a few tables, but no room, as such.)

Think the poker boom has led to enough growth in the player base to warrant a few more rooms, but not as many as are currently open. Certainly feel badly for the employees when a room closes, but think it's inevitable.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
When I first got interested in poker around three years ago, there were about a dozen rooms on the Strip, 8 or so off-Strip. Roughly 20 city-wide.

There are now 24 on the Strip alone (if you count places like O'Sheas and Trop, which have a few tables, but no room, as such.)

Think the poker boom has led to enough growth in the player base to warrant a few more rooms, but not as many as are currently open. Certainly feel badly for the employees when a room closes, but think it's inevitable.

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Its worse than that. I moved out here in July 2004. By July 2006 I counted over 30 new poker rooms in the area since I had moved out here. Sure some of those rooms were small like the Tropicana or Railway pass, but it also included big rooms like Caesars, Wynn, Venetian, MGM.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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I know it seems odd but closing this room is actually good for Las Vegas poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yours is a minority opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree its the minority, however my opinion is shared by some very powerful people in poker such as our hosts here at 2+2. There have been some long and very interesting threads about the over-expansion of the Vegas poker market as well as what happened last time there was an over-expansion in this forum already, if someone can share the links I'm sure you would find the topic very interesting. Additionally I think Mason discussed the prior bust in one of his Poker Essays books.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Stayed at the Hilton in Apr, 2006 because that was where GF's convention was taking place.
Hit the poker-room a couple of times and there was obviously nothing special about it. Felt super laid-back and a friendly-enough atmosphere but I think that's common when there's only 1 table running...and later on maybe 2.

No doubt some of these small poker-rooms kind of need to go. But at least it was nice and convenient for me during the brief time I stayed there.

I will always treasure my memories of the guy holding A4 getting 2 opponents bet into him and then later call down his raises on a board of A44AA.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know someone who works there too, and of course I don't wish any misfortune on the staff. But some of the rooms in vegas need to close for the overall health of the poker industry. Poker caused a sensation, and all the greedy corporations tried to jump on the bandwagon without bothering to do their research first. Krispy cremes causes a sensation when they open in a new city, but they aren't stupid enough to open a new store on every corner. Can't say that for vegas casino execs. My guess is that the narrow-mindedness and greed that made the hilton open the room in the first place is the same thing that closed it. From what I've seen of casino management in las vegas I don't expect anyone to learn a damn thing from this.

Al

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What?? What are they supposed to do? "Poker sure seems to be taking off since that accountant guy won all that money. But let's not be greedy and open a poker room. We should let all the other casinos make the profit on poker."

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

There was so little action at the Hilton during its run that it makes absolutely no difference overall for poker if the room stays open or not.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Lots of these small and [censored] rooms need to go. Why should every single casino have a poker room? Each individual casino has fewer games and there's fewer games/limits overall to choose from.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Whats the O/U on the venetian's room staying open without a major overhaul?

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Also, would closings of a couple more of these smaller rooms like the Hilton have any chance of helping a room like the Venetian? My hunch is that such a situation would benefit rooms like Wynn and Caesar's slightly perhaps.
I'm not exactly sure why I think that.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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Whats the O/U on the venetian's room staying open without a major overhaul?

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The V's room isn't going anywhere, its the worlds largest resort. I would guess they can afford to operate at a slight loss if thats what is occurring. The real question is when will the poker room management be changed, logically thats a possibility since its ridiculous if the worlds largest resort doesn't have a successful poker room.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Yeah, I think the Hilton poker room closing will have about as much impact on poker on the strip as the closing of El Cortez poker room would. The folks who are playing at the Hilton will (mostly) not find somewhere else to play, and those that do will be few in number. Mostly it's just going to make life that much harder for wannabe poker dealers in Vegas as the Hilton dumps a pile of experienced dealers into the marketplace.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Pretty easy to figure the places that just threw out a few poker tables on the casino floor--Trop, O'Sheas, Riviera--will be the first to go.

I've wondered a bit about Harrah's properties. Currently, they have a room in every poperty they own on the east side of the Strip (except the red-headed stepchild Bill's.) Do they feel a need to offer poker at every property because the operate the WSOP, or will they pull the plug on at least a couple of these places?

Something I noticed about the Strip casinos that were open three years ago: they all had reasonably accessable parking for locals. As much as tourists say they don't care to play with locals (and some locals don't care for the "locals" casinos) LV residents do seem to form the base on which poker room business is built, even on the Strip. And they don't seem to like lengthy hikes to the poker room (nor valeting to avoid the hikes.) Will this have any affect on places like MGM and Planet Hollywood, with their parking a fair distance from their rooms? Is there enough increased tourist business to sustain them? Believe MGM used to have a room, and closed it when the interest began to decline (late 90's/early 2000's). Would they do it again?

Then there is the possibility UIGEA will be overturned in the foreseeable future, and US gaming corporations moving into online gambling. The opportunities for cross-promotion between the two for poker are huge, and could spark another boom.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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I know it seems odd but closing this room is actually good for Las Vegas poker.

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Yours is a minority opinion.

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I agree its the minority, however my opinion is shared by some very powerful people in poker such as our hosts here at 2+2. There have been some long and very interesting threads about the over-expansion of the Vegas poker market as well as what happened last time there was an over-expansion in this forum already, if someone can share the links I'm sure you would find the topic very interesting. Additionally I think Mason discussed the prior bust in one of his Poker Essays books.

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TT, I hear what you are saying, and please don't take this as me being snippy, but since when did casino/poker room management ever pay attention to people who know what they are talking about? I wish they would, but it's not their track record to do so.

Case in point: MM has written quite a bit about BBJPs and other assorted promotions being detrimental to the games. But darn near every room in town takes a JP drop of some sort. Some are using if for high hands, and if structured correctly, those may be the least detrimental type of promotion. They're catering to tourists, and the tourists like the possibility of winning these, even if the likelihood is slim. Some of these folks happily play 6/5 BJ, so math ain't their strong suit.

Would guess that the Bellegio and the Mirage get what you are saying, and we all know where Bellagio sits in the LV poker heap. Mirage may not have the status is used to, but seems to holding it's own in the face of a lot of competition.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
TT, I hear what you are saying, and please don't take this as me being snippy, but since when did casino/poker room management ever pay attention to people who know what they are talking about? I wish they would, but it's not their track record to do so.

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Things are changing a bit, but in general I agree with you. With that said you would be surprised some of the conversations we have held this year however, management in a few rooms now realize that Mason wields a mighty strong pimp hand, he influences more poker players than any other resource besides television.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

I can think of a couple reasons why a BBJ would hurt the game. Could someone paste a link on MM's take?

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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I can think of a couple reasons why a BBJ would hurt the game. Could someone paste a link on MM's take?

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The search function and I are fueding today. All I can find is this thread from January (it is lengthy.) MM posts about halfway through and reprints an article about what makes for a good poker room. (Think it is from one of the Poker Essays books.) Is is far too lengthy to cut and paste, and it addresses more than BBJPs. But an interesting and worthwhile read (might grab a cup of coffee before settling in to tackle this thread):

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...part=2&vc=1

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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There have been some long and very interesting threads about the over-expansion of the Vegas poker market as well as what happened last time there was an over-expansion in this forum already, if someone can share the links I'm sure you would find the topic very interesting

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I read those threads and I didn't find the arguments presented by those in favor of contraction to be compelling. I feel even more strongly about it now that some poker rooms are trying to get away with $5 rakes.

One thing that I would agree with you on is that I hope rooms owned by Harrah's close shop. The less presence Harrah's has in the LV poker world the better.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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There was so little action at the Hilton during its run that it makes absolutely no difference overall for poker if the room stays open or not.

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Every month they had a freeroll with 60-80 qualifiers (played at least 40 hours in the month. The action may not have seemed much but thats a minimum of 2400 player hours a month that can now be picked up by other card rooms.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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Also, would closings of a couple more of these smaller rooms like the Hilton have any chance of helping a room like the Venetian?

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I suspect that the locals who frequented the Hilton will siphon off to the other local rooms that offer similar freeroll promotions. As for the tourists who played there, I think they will likely either gamble on other games at the Hilton or trickle off to random north-strip and mid-strip poker rooms.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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Things are changing a bit, but in general I agree with you. With that said you would be surprised some of the conversations we have held this year however, management in a few rooms now realize that Mason wields a mighty strong pimp hand, he influences more poker players than any other resource besides television.

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Better late than never! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

There was something that struck me in the articles I read a few years ago (some of them dating back to the late 1990's.) It was the sense that casino poker was a "dying" game. Rooms closed because they felt demand would continue to dwindle.

Right now, casino poker isn't dying. The demand is normalizing, with the potential of steady, modest---although not spectacular-- growth over the next few years.

So it is on the rooms to figure out how to not only survive, but thrive, during this "normalizing." And the ones who do it well will be in the best position when the next "boom" occurs (when gaming corps enter into online gambling.)

If ever there was a time for poker/casino management to listen to folks who know what they are talking about, right now would be it, as I think the bulk of the contraction will occur in the next 12-18 months. (imho)

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

*TT*,

What do you think Venetian management is doing wrong? When that room opened I was hoping that all the Bellagio action would find its way there since the room was new, clean, unbelievably spacious and the floor was on their best behavior. It seems to me that inertia has kept them from being able to regularly spread big games.

The same thing happened with chessclub.com (the world's biggest chessplaying site). They got there first and no site was ever able to seriously compete with them since once they had the players (fish and GMs alike) no one was ever able to pull significant numbers of players away from them no matter how many trainloads of cash they threw at them.

Bellagio had the lion's share of the action when poker came to TV and that almost seems to make them the winners by default. I'm not saying it's impossible to unseat them, just very unlikely given the inert tendencies of human beings in general. That goes double for gamblers.

Even Steve Wynn wasn't able to seriously dent the Bellagio's action. I figured that if anyone in town could have and would have done it, it would have been him.

Again, are they (Vm) necessarily doing anything wrong?

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There have been some long and very interesting threads about the over-expansion of the Vegas poker market as well as what happened last time there was an over-expansion in this forum already, if someone can share the links I'm sure you would find the topic very interesting

[/ QUOTE ]

I read those threads and I didn't find the arguments presented by those in favor of contraction to be compelling. I feel even more strongly about it now that some poker rooms are trying to get away with $5 rakes.

One thing that I would agree with you on is that I hope rooms owned by Harrah's close shop. The less presence Harrah's has in the LV poker world the better.

[/ QUOTE ]

To clarify when I talk about whats good for poker, I really mean whats good for the industry-player relationship, not what is good for me the player. For example if it was me the player I'd be pushing the Venetian to spread limit games, however I know thats bad for the industry and the Venetian poker room to continue to advertise games that they dont get, hence I have been advocating for them to take a "NL only room" marketing stance. Of course they should still spread limit games, my reference is to their advertising and how they manage the lists - it should be limit games by request only and the computer should only include limit games when they are running or there is a legitimate interest list. Empty lists only turn off potential players, there needs to be action to encourage action. I hope this small example shows how I think about casino-player relationship concepts.

Now back to the subject, I have traveled the nation playing in major and minor poker markets. In every city there is one constant, poker is strong 24-7 in markets where there is consolidation. We are only going to talk about low to low-medium limit games since the rooms that ideally should shut down only cater to that consumer. LA - 2 major rooms and 2 medium rooms - the perfect storm. AC - 2 major rooms and 2 medium rooms. Phoenix - 1 major room and 1 minor room. Vegas - 30 or so total rooms, only 4 of them are "major". Also keep in mind Echelon and City Center are opening within the next two years, both are expected to have large poker rooms and Wynn is rumored to be expanding their room when Encore opens. Now imagine if 8 of these tiny strip rooms closed. O'Sheas, the Strat, Monet Carlo, Luxor, etc and all of their business consolidated to create one giant low-limit room. Pretty hot eh?

The mistake players make is they think "I want the power of choice", they think choice is many rooms. Unfortunately this leads to many rooms with 1-3 tables of action with games that often break, and the consumer loses the ability to change tables. Compare that to Commerce's field of games 24-hours a day, almost all players would choose the large field over the small field of options.

last week a student of mine and I spent 2 hours traveling around town just looking for a game to sit in together at 10am on a Monday, I can guarantee that in AC or LA that would not have been a problem.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
*TT*,

What do you think Venetian management is doing wrong? When that room opened I was hoping that all the Bellagio action would find its way there since the room was new, clean, unbelievably spacious and the floor was on their best behavior. It seems to me that inertia has kept them from being able to regularly spread big games.

The same thing happened with chessclub.com (the world's biggest chessplaying site). They got there first and no site was ever able to seriously compete with them since once they had the players (fish and GMs alike) no one was ever able to pull significant numbers of players away from them no matter how many trainloads of cash they threw at them.

Bellagio had the lion's share of the action when poker came to TV and that almost seems to make them the winners by default. I'm not saying it's impossible to unseat them, just very unlikely given the inert tendencies of human beings in general. That goes double for gamblers.

Even Steve Wynn wasn't able to seriously dent the Bellagio's action. I figured that if anyone in town could have and would have done it, it would have been him.

Again, are they (Vm) necessarily doing anything wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

Bobby - all of this has been discussed before in very long threads over the past two years in this forum, some of them are linked in the forum sticky, its a good place to start for classic threads.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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management in a few rooms now realize that Mason wields a mighty strong pimp hand, he influences more poker players than any other resource besides television.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's an incredible overstatement.
As a poster, Mason isn't very well liked, or respected on 2p2. If he initiated a campaign to boycott a popular room, I think the effect would be quite negligible.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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The folks who are playing at the Hilton will (mostly) not find somewhere else to play, and those that do will be few in number.

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Not that there were that many players to begin with. But when I played there awhile ago quite a few of the 'regulars'...maybe props, I don't know...were talking about having played on this night or that at the Bellagio or the Mirage tourney, etc.
They seemed to be semi-regular LV poker-players who just happened to include the Hilton on occasion as part of their tour. Again though, it was awhile ago and I don't really know. And if those players are just going to take all their play over to other places instead of dropping out completely there aren't going to be many of them obviously.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

TT, I was wondering your thoughts on poker markets such as Tunica, Stl, or the much lesser known areas like Miami, OK. Being from the MidWest (Bootheel of MO), LV, AC, and LA are all very very far away. I by no means am a professional but I do play my fair share, I play mostly 1/2 NL or 2/5NL but occasionally play 4/8 or 6/12 limit at a hole in the road casino (Casino Aztar Caruthersville MO) because that is the only game around. I'm aware that it is a different situation since I don't play professionally but are any of these locations good for poker and are these locations going about providing poker the right way? I know you may not have an answer for this since these locations are far less populated and are insignificant, but it seems I've never had trouble finding a game in Tunica or STL...

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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[ QUOTE ]
management in a few rooms now realize that Mason wields a mighty strong pimp hand, he influences more poker players than any other resource besides television.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's an incredible overstatement.
As a poster, Mason isn't very well liked, or respected on 2p2. If he initiated a campaign to boycott a popular room, I think the effect would be quite negligible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Snow - you have no idea how wrong you are, Mason is the puppet master, he controls our group-think much more than you realize.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

[ QUOTE ]
TT, I was wondering your thoughts on poker markets such as Tunica, Stl, or the much lesser known areas like Miami, OK. Being from the MidWest (Bootheel of MO), LV, AC, and LA are all very very far away. I by no means am a professional but I do play my fair share, I play mostly 1/2 NL or 2/5NL but occasionally play 4/8 or 6/12 limit at a hole in the road casino (Casino Aztar Caruthersville MO) because that is the only game around. I'm aware that it is a different situation since I don't play professionally but are any of these locations good for poker and are these locations going about providing poker the right way? I know you may not have an answer for this since these locations are far less populated and are insignificant, but it seems I've never had trouble finding a game in Tunica or STL...

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Tunica is similar to AC, its a strong market year round. Oddly Vegas is not strong year round at all, its mystique is more romance than reality. I don't know enough about Miami, as a player it doesn't interest me. I'll be visiting St Louis within the year because my friend is opening a nightclub at the Ameristar, at this point I don't know enough to give feedback.

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

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n every city there is one constant, poker is strong 24-7 in markets where there is consolidation

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This is just plain wrong. Foxwoods is the only room in its region, and it's a giant clusterf**k. In LA the rakes are humongous.

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Now imagine if 8 of these tiny strip rooms closed. O'Sheas, the Strat, Monet Carlo, Luxor, etc and all of their business consolidated to create one giant low-limit room. Pretty hot eh?

[/ QUOTE ]

This theoretical room would almost certainly be able to get away with a $6 rake due to the lack of competition from other rooms. Pretty hot eh?

Re: LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17
 

Thanks, I appreciate all the info you have given in this forum. Being one of the few "young kids" that prefers playing poker live the B&M forum has given me much insight. I have lurked around the B&M forum for a while and tried to read as much as I could to learn the game I love, and having someone like you to learn from, I feel has helped me understand poker, not my game per say but all the other parts of playing poker that doesn't involve the cards...

I think I learned some important lessons from many of the regs in B&M about poker without having a ton of experience and I know it has helped me prevent many mistakes I would have made otherwise.