Chances of playing with known WPT player at Bilageo

[pig4bill]

I've seen her. Agree w/your assessment. Unless he picked up a new one since the one he had in the Spring.

[lgas]

Just to add some data points to the list of "poker celeb sightings in low limit games", I've played with:

- Huck Seed at $2/$5 NL at the Bellagio a couple years ago. Apparrently the dealer dealing the game was the same one that dealt him the winning hand when he won the main event.

- Daniel Negreanu $10/$20 NL at the Bellagio about two years ago maybe. He just sat down and played about 20 hands from the stack of a friend of his.

- Mason at $5/$10 NL at the Wynn maybe about a year ago? Pretty much unremarkable.

- Macaulay Culkin at $2/$5 NL at the Wynn same timeframe. He was bad. Very bad.

- Rene Angelil at $5/$10 NL at Ceasars during this years WSOP ME. He played crazy for a couple of orbits then doubled/tripled up and left immediately.

- Nick "The Takeover" Schulman at $10/$25 and $25/$50 NL at the Borgata a couple times over the last year or two. One time he was absolutely destroying the table, another time I was on a sick heater and absolutely destroying the table and he just stayed out of my way mostly.

Also, playing in tournaments that pros play in obviously gets you exposure to a lot more of them. I've seen almost every name pro in real life and I've only played in 2 WSOP ME's (and visited the one 3 years ago) and one or two other big tournaments. As far as actually getting to play with them, my most memorable experiences are:

- Ted Forrest was directly to my right all day of day 1 of the WSOP ME last year. He played a lot of wierd pots. At first it looked like it was a calling station, but he kept scooping pots when he'd call down with third pair, etc.... so he started to look "spooky" as other people say... then kept doing it and people started having better hands so he started looking more like a calling station again.

- Barry Greenstein was directly to my right when it was down two tables at the $1,500 first event of the Bellagio 5-Diamond event last year. He opened almost every unopened pot and made it very hard for me to play. I eventually re-popped him and he folded that hand but still didn't really slow down. I outlasted him and made the final table, only to go out 9th.

- Michael Gracz, Tony Ma, and Lars Bonding were also at the final table of that event. Lars (not especially famous, but I think he won a WSOP circuit event or something... I saw him on TV anyway) was by far the most aggressive and difficult player to play against.

- During this event I was at a table for a while Evelyn Ng, had Scotty Nyguen in the chair behind me at another table, etc.

- I think I also played with David Sklansky at one of the Bellagio $1000 tourneys maybe 3 or 4 years ago, but I didn't recognize him and would not have realized it was him if someone hadn't said something about it after he left the table.

So I guess the two points to take away from this are:

1. If you spend enough time in poker rooms, you'll run into the famous players.

2. Tournaments are probably better for stalking them than cash games.

Also, you can always just go to the Bellagio and check out Bobby's room.

Anyway, thanks for asking this question because it was fun thinking back and trying to remember all the pros/famous players I've played with.

[Witzo]

Only WSOP event I played in was a $2000 limit event at WSOP last year. My first table had Negreanu to my immediate left, Tony Costa to my immediate right and Michael Gracz half way in between me.
Was so happy for that table to be broken up to end up being stuck at a table with Chris Ferguson and Miami John Cerenuto.

[Assani Fisher]

During WSOP at the "Bilageo"...

Sam Grizzle at $2/5 NL
Brad Booth at $25/50 forced $100 straddle NL
Shawn Sheikkan(sp?) at $100/200 limit
Jennifer Tilly in $1060 MTT

Played with many more well knowns at the Rio than Bellagio, but thats obviously only due to the WSOP. Since the tourney will be at the Bellagio, most big players will be playing there. As a general rule, the games start to get tougher and start to attract the bigger players once you hit $10/20 at the Bellagio because thats where there is no minimum buy in. As for limit, I'd say that you'd have to hit up considerably higher than $20/40, but I'm not positive.

[NicksDad1970]

I played 2/5NL 200$ buy in at The Bellagio a year or so ago. I played against the lead guy in TILT and one of his friends who was on one of the soaps.

Those couple days I was there I saw E-dog, Phil Ivey, Jen Harmon, Mel Judah, Dewey Tomko, Sam Grizzle, Eskimo Clark, Sam Farha, etc etc.

Bottom line is, unless there's some huge tourney somewhere out of town, if I were you I'd expect to see many many TV pros.

You also might be surprised that they all don't play huge games. One or two of em might even ask for a stake.

[SirRaleigh]

Interesting. I bet you these players run into werid plays either in tournaments or open games where oppenents play differently just because they are stars. Who wouldn't want to bluff Johnny Chan. That would be too funny.

[LasVegasMichael]

Specifically talking about low limits, I have seen the following:

Moneymaker playing 2/5NL At Caesars (Jan '06)
Moneymaker playing 1/2NL at Aladdin (summer of '04)
Steve Zolotow playing 1/3NL at Venetian (August '06)
Cheryl Hines playing 2/5NL at Venetian (April '06)
Jason Alexander playing 1/2NL at Venetian (Jun '06).
Jason Alexander playing 6/12 at Venetian (Jun '06)
Gavin Smith playing 1/2NL at Venetian (Aug '06)
Phil Gordon $10 point Chinese Poker at Venetian (Aug '06)
Ron Rose 2/5NL Ventian (April-August '06)
Bob Stupak wandering around Wynn's poker room (not playing)
Hachem playing a sit n Go at Venetian

This is strictly low limit sightings. Pros seen playing high limits and in tourneys are toom any to list. Like others have said, spend enough time in any of the big poker rooms, and you will see poker celebs at some point.

[DayTripping]

[ QUOTE ]
Specifically talking about low limits, I have seen the following:

Moneymaker losing at 2/5NL At Caesars (Jan '06)
Moneymaker losing at 1/2NL at Aladdin (summer of '04)
Steve Zolotow playing 1/3NL at Venetian (August '06)
Cheryl Hines playing 2/5NL at Venetian (April '06)
...

[/ QUOTE ]

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