Wsop 2018
The 2018 World Series of Poker will be here sooner than you think, with the first bracelet events starting May 30 — check out the full schedule here.
- 2018 WSOP Europe Schedule; 2018 WSOPE Event 1 - €550 The Colossus; 2018 WSOPE Event 2 - €1650 6-Max NLHE DS; 2018 WSOPE Event 3 - €550 Pot-Limit Omaha; 2018 WSOPE Event 4 - €1100 Turbo Bounty Hunter; 2018 WSOPE Event 5 - €1100 The Monster Stack; 2018 WSOPE Event 6 - €1650 8-Max Mixed PLO & NLHE; 2018 WSOPE Event 7 - €2200 8-Max Pot-Limit Omaha; 2018 WSOPE.
- Here's a really quick update on the morning of Day 2A of the 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. It's the morning after tournament organisers revealed details of this enormous prize pool.
John Cynn winning the 2018 WSOP Main Event with a SLOWROLL? After Tony Miles has been showing up with a weak draw for all of his chips, can you ever even con.
Perhaps my article on 'winnable' poker tournaments in Las Vegas intrigued you. Perhaps you've toyed with the idea of getting off the beaten poker room path and seeking out other rooms where those visiting Sin City don't usually tread.
In any event, with this article I'd like to shine a light on some good places to play poker in Vegas that you might not know about — some lesser-known rooms those out for the World Series of Poker might find worth their while.
Club Fortune
Club Fortune is my favorite room in Las Vegas for small action. It's about six miles off the strip on Boulder Highway in Henderson. It's on the site of what once was the only dog track in Las Vegas, but the heat got to the dogs and they had to close up the track. The little casino remained, and within is a great little poker room.
The five-table room opens at 12 noon and lasts as long as there are players, typically until at least 1-2 a.m., but often much later. Their steady games are $0.50/$1.00 no-limit hold'em with a $20 minimum and $200 maximum buy-in. They also often have $1-$6 spread-limit hold'em.
To get the games going before the 2 p.m. tournament, Club Fortune has what I believe is the best comp rate in the nation — $5 an hour from 12 to 2 p.m. The room is also extremely generous with free food, bringing it out in the evening for all seated players. Their rake is extremely competitive, too — $3 plus a $2 promo drop for high hands, pot splashing, and the like.
But as good as the comps, cash games, and tournaments are, the best part of the room is the friendly, helpful, 'everybody knows your name' management who keep the games fun and the players happy. Happy players make good games, hence, my recommendation.
Silver Sevens
Where should you go in Las Vegas for some of the softest competition in a limit poker game? There is only one place, and few if any tourists know of it. It's the Silver Sevens over on the East Side of the strip near the Sheraton Four Points, formerly known as the 'Terribles' Casino.
They typically spread only one game — $2/$4 limit hold'em, played with white $1 chips and the reckless abandon of a bunch of teenagers having fun in their basement. Don't expect a carefully run game with a lot of oversight. Count on a lot of drinking, dirty chips, and a whole lot of ambient noise from the slot machines that surround these worn out tables.
As far as the play goes, don't expect too much in the way of solid play, but you will certainly meet some interesting people, not to mention have a chance at some profit. Oh, and they still comp players the old-fashioned way — no hourly amount, just a free buffet dinner after playing for a couple of hours. But before you eat, make sure to wash your hands!
Santa Fe Station
At Sante Fe Station you'll find a surprising large, brightly-lit, fairly busy room on the north side of Las Vegas, north of downtown. They always have a $2/$4 or $3/$6 limit game, and they get a no-limit game going by 3 p.m. daily (sometimes it runs earlier).
The games are reasonably raked at 10 percent up to a maximum of $4, with an additional $1 drop to fund a whole host of promotions like flopped quads, hourly high hands, and the like. Players also earn $1 an hour comps.
There's a nice mix of young and old, and male and female regulars who fill up the tables, and a friendly atmosphere pervades the place. Maybe it's because they start things off right in the morning with a couple of boxes of donuts and the self-serve coffee machine. Few tourists make it up there, though I've played there several times and enjoyed it.
Sam's Town
Sam's Town, located on Boulder Highway at the southern border of Las Vegas, caters to the older, local, low-roller crowd, and as a result tends to appeal to folks who like things a little slower, a little friendlier, and a little less glitzy than what appears on the Strip these days.
Accordingly, the poker room at Sam's Town, in addition to spreading limit hold'em, also spreads a regular limit Omaha high-low 8-or-better game as well as a weekly $2-$10 spread-limit seven-card stud game on Saturday mornings.
The rake is still very low, with a $3 maximum, although they take $2 out for many different promotions like high hands bonuses. Players earn $1 or $1.25 an hour in comps, depending on the time of day. The food is extremely inexpensive, and the buffet pretty good.
Green Valley Ranch
The locals who live in and around the southern part of Las Vegas and in Henderson know the Green Valley Ranch to be the major poker room in the area, although few tourists visit unless their convention happens to be on site.
It's a large room, comfortably accommodating 22 tables. Unlike the other rooms mentioned in this article, Green Valley Ranch consistently spreads a wide variety of games — that is, not just $1/2 no-limit and $2/$4 limit, but also a $4/$8 limit game and a $5/$10 no-limit game. As the poker room manager stated to me, they provide 'Strip action off the Strip,' with a very strong local base that creates consistently great games.
Like Santa Fe Station, Green Valley Ranch is part of the network of Station Casinos with frequent, well funded promotions. They rake 10 percent up to $4 with an additional $1 taken to fund those promotions. They have a daily tournament at 10:00 a.m., plus a 6:30 p.m. tournament on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Players earn 1,000 points for each hour of live play, which translates to about $1 an hour. As an off-strip property, parking is free, and there's a really terrific and very modestly-priced buffet.
Conclusion
Don't get me wrong. There's nothing keeping you from the constant poker action at the Rio, the Bellagio, the Wynn, the Venetian, the Aria, the Orleans, the Golden Nugget or any of the other poker rooms you've heard of in Las Vegas.
But if variety is the spice of life, these rooms should add some flavor to your trip.
Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles and two books, Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003) and Winning No-Limit Hold'em (Lighthouse 2012). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.
Photo: Santa Fe Station Hotel & Casino.
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cash game strategylive pokertravelingLas VegasClub FortuneSilver SevensSante Fe StationSam’s TownGreen Valley Ranchno-limit hold’emlimit hold’emmixed gamesWSOP2018 WSOPRelated Tournaments
World Series of Poker
Here's a really quick update on the morning of Day 2A of the 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. It's the morning after tournament organisers revealed details of this enormous prize pool and the news that the winner will earn $8.8 million.
Yes, a record Day 1C turnout of 4,571 brought total player numbers this year to 7,874. That's a 9 percent increase year-on-year and helped create the second largest renewal ever of the WSOP Main Event.
Samuel Touil: Seized the overall chip lead on Day 1C
DAY 1A CHIPS DAY 1B CHIPS DAY 1C CHIPS TEAM PRO'S PROGRESS
Everyone making the final table will earn at least $1 million, and they will pay all the way down to player 1,182, who will earn the min-cash of $15,000. Player 1,183 will walk away with nothing except notoriety.
| Place | Payout |
|---|---|
| 1 | $8.8 million |
| 2 | $5 million |
| 3 | $3.725 million |
| 4 | $2.825 million |
| 5 | $2.125 million |
| 6 | $1.8 million |
| 7 | $1.5 million |
| 8 | $1.25 million |
| 9 | $1 million |
| Chart shows final table payouts for 2018 WSOP Main Event |
Such vast numbers bring a small degree of uncertainty, but it seems as though 3,508 players made it through Day 1C's five levels. (Figure to be confirmed) If so, that's bang on the 77 percent figure of Day 1C survivors that has endured every year since the WSOP went to a 50,000 starting stack for the Main Event.
Similarly Samuel Touil's chip-leading stack of 352,800 is just over seven times what he started with, which also follows the established pattern.
| Year | Total | Flights | C start | C end | % | Lead | SS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 7,874 | 3 | 4,571 | 3,508 | 77 | 352,800 | 7 |
| 2017 | 7,221 | 3 | 4,262 | 3,300 | 77 | 247,900 | 5 |
| 2016 | 6,737 | 3 | 4,240 | 3,252 | 77 | 394,100 | 8 |
| 2015 | 6,420 | 3 | 3,963 | 2,736 | 69 | 198,100 | 7 |
| 2014 | 6,683 | 3 | 3,768 | 2,571 | 68 | 206,175 | 7 |
| 2013 | 6,352 | 3 | 3,467 | 2,306 | 67 | 246,900 | 8 |
| 2012 | 6,598 | 3 | 3,418 | 2,300 | 67 | 240,350 | 8 |
| Average | 6,841 | 3 | 3,853 | 2,744 | 71 | 255,588 | 7 |
| Average since 50K | 4,251 | 3,276 | 77 | 321,000 | 6 | ||
| Chart shows year-by-year total number of players since WSOP adopted three starting flights, players starting/finishing Day 1B, percentage of survivors, chip-lead (gross) and chip lead (as rounded number of starting stacks) |
Touil now becomes the overall tournament chip leader, having nosed ahead of Day 1A leader Timothy Lau's 338,700 and Day 1B's Smain Mamouni's 311,000. At this stage we have seven players with stacks of more than 300,000, three who cam from Day 1A, three from Day 1B and one, the overall leader, from Day 1C.
| Name | Chips | Day |
|---|---|---|
| Samuel Touil | 352,800 | 1C |
| Timothy Lau | 338,700 | 1A |
| Truyen Nguyen | 324,800 | 1A |
| Chris Fraser | 316,100 | 1A |
| Smain Mamouni | 311,000 | 1B |
| Samuel Bernabeu | 309,500 | 1B |
| Barbara Rogers | 307,000 | 1B |
| Chart shows chip leaders at end of combined Day 1 |
The headline news from the world of PokerStars is that leading lights Daniel Negreanu and Igor Kurganov joined Chris Moneymaker on the rail yesterday. Negreanu was seated at the main feature table all day, which meant millions of viewers around the world got to share in his misery as his pocket jacks were beaten by Alessio Isaia's pocket tens.
Isaia is well known to us followers of the European Poker Tour (EPT) and the Italian Poker Tour (IPT) and has been a stalwart there for more than a decade, accumulating close to $3 million in cashes. But he'll be best known to the rest of the world now as the man who laid a beat Negreanu on Day 1C of the Main Event.
My main event in a nutshell! https://t.co/fyPXQCnX7X
Wsop 2018 Highlights
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) July 5, 2018There was better news for the nine other Red Spades flying yesterday. They're all into Friday's Day 2C with the following stacks:
Jake Cody -- bagged 98,700 on Day 1C
Barry Greenstein -- bagged 92,800 on Day 1C
Fatima Moreira de Melo -- bagged 79,025 on Day 1C
Leo Fernandez -- bagged 64,800 on Day 1C
Liv Boeree -- bagged 63,400 on Day 1C
Aditya Agarwal -- bagged 60,300 on Day 1C
Muskan Sethi -- bagged 43,800 on Day 1C
Jeff Gross -- bagged 41,300 on Day 1C
Jen Shahade -- bagged 35,000 from Day 1C
Wsop 2018 Payout
Be sure to follow their progress.
Today looks like being another busy day, with Maria Konnikova and Andre Akkari returning to the Rio in the attempt to build their stacks. We'll be taking a tour today of Jason Somerville's 'Run It Up' studios, as well as catching up with a couple more of our favourite players for some more features.
In the meantime, have a look through all our coverage so far:
Wsop 2018 Final Table Day 1 Part 2
A flippin' fantastic way to enter a poker tournament
Jeff Gross: A momentary pause in the perpetual motion
From the archive: Stages
Moneymaker surveys the world he created
Negreanu continues preparations for PokerStars Players Championship
Then and Now: Andre Akkari
An exceptional Day 1A
From the archive: Rio here, Rio there
Then and Now: Maria Konnikova
All systems go on 'cattywumpus' World Series
WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.