Back to the Bike—The New Bicycle Hotel & Casino

Yesterday I went down to the Bike for the first time in over 6 months.  There were a couple of reasons I went there instead of Player’s Casino.  I had an appointment in the West L.A. area, which put me a lot closer to the Bike than Ventura.  But the bigger reason was that they had just opened up the brand new hotel at the Bike on December 1. and I wanted to check it out.  I did an interview with Bike head honcho for PokerAtlas recently, which you can see here.  So I want to share my thoughts on the new and improved Bike.

Of course, I didn’t stay in a room there, or even look at the rooms, but I have to assume they are very nice.  But I can talk about what the average player who won’t be staying there will see when they head down there.

The poker area and 99% of the casino area remains unchanged.  Some of the casino area that was lost during the reconstruction has been enhanced.  There’s now a high limit Baccarat where the old giftshop/newsstand used to be.  But most everything else that involves gaming has not changed. 

But the front part, where the hotel is, is all new and honestly, quite beautiful.  Seriously, it is quite shocking to see how great it looks, especially if you’ve been going to the Bike for years.

The hotel lobby is super, super nice, very modern, although surprising small.  The front entrance and the valet parking looks just fantastic.  They even have a concierge!

They’ve added a spa, which I didn’t see, as well as a pool.  I didn’t see any evidence of a pool, so it’s possible it’s not ready yet or maybe I just didn’t explore enough.

The gift shop is brand new, not much bigger than the old one, but much nicer (except for the fact that they didn’t have the new issue of Ante Up magazine out yet). 

They’ve added a few restaurants, including a brewery. It looks very nice, but a quick glance at the menu made it look a little too frous-frous for my extremely pedestrian tastes.  There’s also a coffee place (shocking, I know) that sells Starbucks apparently but doesn’t have a Starbucks sign anywhere that I could see.  The website mentioned an “Asian fusion” restaurant, which I didn’t see (maybe not open yet?) but I wouldn’t go out of my way to look for since that is so not my thing.

On their website, they list a 24-hour snack bar.  But I didn’t see that either.  Do they mean the little hot dog stand they sometimes have in the tournament area?  Until now, it’s always been hit-or-miss as to whether that is actually open any time I go.  In addition to serving hot dogs (with mayonnaise) and all my favorite—Mexican fast food—they have pizza and chips, stuff like that.  Is that what they mean?  I would hope not, because when I got to the tournament area, there was an empty stand there that showed a hot dog cooker in the background and no one selling hot dogs or anything else.  I would think if it was a 24-hour snack bar that they are advertising on their website, it would be more than what I saw, which, as I said wasn’t even open yesterday, even tho there was some big-time tournament action going in (WSOP circuit event there now).  But I will cut them some slack and figure that the closed “snack bar” was the result of the remodel not being completely complete.

I’m curious to see how the hotel does, businesswise.  They went with a rather high end, “boutique” style hotel.  I wonder how the poker crowd will like that, as opposed to a more workman-like hotel they could have gone for.  Since southern California is ridiculously spread out, the location is as centrally located as anywhere else for someone visiting as a tourist who wants to hit all the typical tourist things.  Traffic will be horrible pretty much around the clock, but that’s L.A. for you, you can’t avoid it.  Still, I can’t imagine anyone staying there unless they planned on playing a lot of poker.

Speaking of poker, I continued the pattern of having just rather unexciting, near break-even sessions since getting back from Vegas.  It is the very opposite of “variance.”  I swear I’m not trying to play it safe and avoiding high variance situations.  It’s the cards that are just dictating it, honestly.  Again, another card dead day.  I had two small pocket pairs and then pocket 9’s, which I’ll get to in a second.  Just two or three suited connectors.  No Ace-King or Ace-Queen.  If there’s anything to this “law of averages” thing, I should start getting monster hands pre-flop every other hand one of these next sessions.

Almost nothing to talk about, but I’ll mention a few hands.  I know the first two times I raised (one with King-Queen suited in early position, don’t recall the other), I just took the blinds.

In late position, I raised to $15 with 6-5 of spades.  Seriously, I did.  The button made it $30, one of the blinds called….so I called too.  Probably shouldn’t have but I was playing so few hands I thought I’d give it a shot. The flop had back-door flush and straight draws, no one bet.  On the turn I picked up a gut-shot straight draw, and folded to a $50 bet.  I dunno, maybe I should have bet the turn there with some fold equity, but I nitted up.

In early position I raised to $15 with Ace-10 of clubs.  Four of us saw a flop of Queen-Queen-10.  I made a c-bet of $30 and took it down.  It was the first pot I won that was more than just the blinds.

Early position again, I got two 9’s.  I almost fainted from seeing two cards in my hand that matched.  There had been a straddle ($6, utg) so I made it $20.  Three players called.  The flop was 7-4-2, rainbow.  Well, with an overpair, I bet out $65.  The guy on my immediate left said, “Well, I gotta go play in a tournament anyway,” and shoved.  He had only a little bit more than my $65.  When it folded back to me, I didn’t even bother with a count, I could see that the extra I’d have to put in couldn’t possibly have been enough to make folding correct.  So I called, we didn’t show.  I didn’t like the Ace on the turn but I did like the 9 on the river.  But I didn’t need it.  Mr. “I gotta to play in a tournament” showed 6-4.  Nice.

That put me up slightly for the day.  A bunch of other players left, either done for the day or heading for the tournament, and the game broke. I would have had to have waited for a seat at another table, so I decided to call it a day, and booked a whopping $10 profit.

I’m unlikely to play in town again before heading to Vegas for my Xmas/New Year’s trip.  So we shall see if my no-variance brand of poker continues up there.

Oh, and if any of my readers happen to stay in a room at the new Bike Hotel, please let me know what you think.

Should I Avoid Rooms That Have Freerolls?

Remember the post I did here about promos and how they make me stupid?  Of course you do.  I know my loyal readers memorize every word of each of my posts (because, you know, there are so few words in them anyway).

I pretty much “wrote” that post—in my mind, anyway—while driving back home from Vegas after that rather unsuccessful trip.  I was thinking a lot about the promos and how they had affected my play.  Or to be more accurate and put the blame where it belongs, how I let them affect my play.

But there was one kind of promo that was also on my mind during that drive that I didn’t talk about in that post. Freerolls.

The thing is, freerolls don’t really affect my actual play, that’s why I didn’t include a discussion of them in that post.  But not long before then, I saw or heard someone make an observation about freerolls that made me think I was making a mistake by ever playing in a room that had a freeroll as one of its promos.

Now, freerolls can be different things at different times and in different places.  I’m talking specifically about the freerolls that rooms in Vegas offers.  Freerolls that you have to qualify for by playing a certain number of hours within a certain time frame.  And that are funded by the promotional drop that they take out of each pot in a cash game (and they sometimes take it from the tournament fee, too).  I know online sites offer freerolls that you don’t have to qualify for—that’s totally different.  Your local poker room may offer freerolls that are different, maybe sometimes that are house funded.

Freerolls are offered by rooms in Vegas to get people into them and to play longer than they otherwise might to qualify for the freeroll.  The hours required aren’t that many, really, sometimes 8, or 10, or 15, or 20, usually within a week.  Then you have to show up at a certain time on a certain day and play in what is basically a turbo tournament (few starting chips and a fast structure) and if you do well enough, you win some money.  Could be $100, $200, $400, not usually more unless it’s a really big freeroll where you accumulate hours over a month or a quarter instead of a week.

The obvious thing about any freeroll in Vegas is that it is geared towards locals.  The average tourist isn’t going to be in town long enough to qualify for a freeroll, and even if they are, they might not be available for the freeroll anyway.

The fact that so many rooms on the Strip offer freerolls is proof that even the Strip poker rooms need local players to keep their rooms going.  No poker room in Vegas could survive with just visitors playing. The locals are an important part of their customer base.  And so all the poker rooms are competing for the same set of locals. Freerolls not only get players in the room, it keeps them there and prevents them from playing in a competitor’s room.

As an aside, I would love to know what the percentage of business the local base is for the average poker room in Vegas.  I have no idea.  I wonder if the rooms are able to track this (with player’s cards, I guess they can, at least partially).

Now, I’m not a Vegas local so those freerolls are clearly not aimed at me.  OTOH, I’m not a typical tourist either.  When I go to Vegas, it’s usually a minimum of 10 days at a time, so if I wanted to, I could probably qualify for most of the weekly freerolls available.  It would mean playing a lot of poker in the room that had the freeroll, largely to the exclusion of other rooms, but as you may have noticed, I tend to do that anyway.

I might be inclined to try to play in a freeroll or two if I could set the rules and more importantly, the time and day of the freeroll.  But obviously I can’t.  So unless the payout is particularly juicy, the odds of winning money are very good, and the freeroll is scheduled at a real convenient time, I’m not going to bother with it.  You may feel I am being too close-minded to the idea of freerolls—so be it. With my limited time in town, I just don’t want to have to deal with them.

Would I view them differently if I lived in Vegas?  Perhaps.  I suppose at that point I would consider them and I would have to evaluate each one’s merits.  And if the freeroll was held at a time I considered convenient, and the other details were to my liking, maybe I would work my poker schedule around a freeroll.  But I probably would only do that occasionally, not regularly.

I want to make it clear that I don’t begrudge any room for having a freeroll as one of its promos.  Poker room managers have to do what they can to get people in the room.  If the freeroll helps them do that, good for them.

And so during that drive, I started to ask myself if it makes any sense at all for me to ever play in a room that has a freeroll as one of its promos.  Because, you know, a “freeroll” isn’t really “free.”  It’s the players own money being recycled back to them.  That money that goes down the jackpot slot every pot funds all the house promos, be it a bad beat jackpot, high bonuses, cash drawings, Aces cracked, etc.  And yes, the freeroll.

Almost any other promo in a room I’d play in, I have a chance to win some of that money taken from each pot (some of what used to be my money).  I can win a cash drawing or a football drawing.  I can get a high hand or a splash pot or even Aces cracked.  I could win a bad beat jackpot.  So I always have a chance to get some of that money back.

But if I am committed to not playing in the freeroll (whether I qualify or not), there’s a part of that money I contribute that I have zero chance of getting.

Think about it, here’s how an actual Vegas freeroll works.  The locals who qualify meet at the appointed time and split up all the money the tourists so generously donate during the week.  That’s pretty much it, right?  A little simplistic perhaps but let’s face it, the whole concept is based a bunch of money being donated by players who will never show up for the freeroll.  If you had a room that was 100% locals who were all committed to showing up for the freeroll, the math wouldn’t work.  The winnings would be too little, and/or it would be way too tough to cash in the tournament.  It can only work with a lot of visitors just giving their money away thru that promo drop.

Why should I be one of those visitors generously giving my money the grinders in any room I play in?  They are usually tough players anyway.  They very well may have gotten some of my money during the week (some of them surely did).  And they are tough to get money out of as well, assuming they are good grinders.  Why should I just hand them more money, uncontested?

A question you might be asking is, “Are the games different in rooms that offer freerolls?”  Well I have definitely seen some evidence of it.  I’ve been in a few games—usually near the end of the freeroll qualifying period—where there were mostly guys talking about how close they were to getting all their hours in.  None of these players were putting any money in the pot unless they had the nuts or close to it.  So yeah, they were playing like super-nits.  But you know, if they’re grinders who can play that many hours in a week (to qualify) and still be profitable, they might not be playing very differently if there was no freeroll to qualify for.  And also, the one game I remember that was just ultra-nitty and they were all talking about how close they were to making their hours, well, if there was no freeroll, I don’t think any of them would have been there playing and the game I was at wouldn’t have existed.

But the truth is, most of the time when I play in rooms with freerolls, I don’t really notice it.  The games don’t seem any nittier than the average game in a room that doesn’t have a freeroll.  Good players don’t spew chips whether they’re trying to qualify for a freeroll or not.

On the way home, while I was vowing never to play in a room that had thr kind of promos that would affect my play, I kind of also vowed to stay away from any room that has a freeroll I don’t intend to play in.

But it’s been a few weeks, and I wonder if it really is going to make a significant difference to me.  With the amount of hours I play, how much of an impact does it have on my bottom line, just giving a certain portion of my promo drop money to the grinders?

I know a lot of the grinders are somewhat maniacally about things like rake and promo drops.  It affects their hourly rate.  Some of them will not play in a room with a promo drop, or where they take a $5 max rake instead of a $4 max rake.  But other grinders tell me that makes little difference.  Some actually prefer the promos—they think it attracts the fishier players and they more than make up for the extra rake by being in easier games where they can win more often.

But that logic probably doesn’t work with freeroll rooms.  The players that freeroll attracts are not the fish.  It’s the grinders who are tough to win money from anyway.

I’m still working this through in my mind. I doubt I will avoid freeroll rooms 100%, but I probably will play in them a lot less next time. If you have any thoughts, please let me hear them. If you only play in Vegas occasionally, do you ever give any consideration to whether a room has a freeroll in deciding whether or not to play there?  Do you avoid rooms with freerolls that you won’t be able to play in?

Vegas Poker Scene (December Ante Up Column)

Here's my newest column for Ante Up.  The link for it on the Ante Up website is here.   Remember, my contribution is embedded in the entire West Coast report.  So below is just my Vegas report.  The magazine should be in your local poker room sooner, rather than later.

And there's an added bonus too.  A few months ago, they printed a profile I did of a Las Vegas poker room staffer, Josh Hayes.  I forget to reprint it here, so you will find it at the bottom of my column below even tho it was in a previous issue.  You can find it on the Ante Up website at the bottom of the page here.

Josh deals at MGM, a room you may have heard of.  If you are guessing that he has been mentioned on this blog with a blog pseudonym, you'd be correct!

Joseph McKeehen, the 24-year-old pro poker player from the Philadelphia suburb of North Wales, Pa., put on one of the most dominant performances in November Nine history, bringing to close the 46th annual World Series of Poker at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas by pocketing a whopping $7.6 million.

It’s his first WSOP victory, and what a title it is, besting more than 6,400 players. “This is definitely the greatest accomplishment anyone can have in this game,” McKeehen after his win. “I was always confident I could make money playing the game professionally, but to get this really proves something.”

Josh Beckley was runner-up ($4.4M) followed by 61-year-old Neil Blumenthal ($3.3M).

Also, longtime popular pros Jennifer Harman and John Juanda were elected to the Poker Hall of Fame, becoming the 49th and 50th members. Juanda, 44, has five WSOP bracelets and more than $16M in tournament earnings while Harman, 50, has more than $2.5M in tournament earnings and two bracelets, but it’s her prowess at the world’s biggest cash games that makes her remarkable.

ORLEANS: The popular locals favorite on Tropicana Boulevard, two miles west of the Las Vegas Strip, is a worthwhile stop for visitors. If you don’t have a car, you can get there and back via a shuttle bus than runs every 45 minutes to and from the center of the Strip.If you don’t mind staying off the Strip, the hotel has some of the best room rates in town.
The poker room recently changed its tournament schedule and it’s not all no-limit hold’em.Mondays and Saturdays at noon is $75 Omaha/8. The same tournament runs Thursdays at 7.Wednesdays at noon is a $75 Omaha/8-stud/8 event.Tuesdays at 7 is $100 PLO while Sundays at 7 is a $100 HORSE tournament. All of these tournaments have 20-minute levels and 10K stacks.

There are two superstack turbo NLHE tournaments on the schedule: Mondays at 7 ($100) and Fridays at noon ($75).These tournaments have 15-minute levels and players start with 20K chips.

Bounty tournaments run Wednesdays and Saturdays at 7 for $125 ($25 bounty). Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon are $75 NLHE events.These also have 20-minute levels and 10K stacks.

The most popular regular NLHE tournament in town runs Friday at 7 p.m. ($125, 12,500 chips, 30-minute levels).

A nice variety of cash games are always available.No-limit players enjoy the $1-$3 game with a $100 minimum and a $500 maximum.During busier times, you can find a $2-$5 game ($200-$500 min-max). Multiple limit hold’em and Omaha/8 games are available, too.

Hold’em and Omaha games have progressive bad-beat jackpots. Promos change monthly, so ask about them.Recent promos have included high hands of the hour, big bonuses for high hands during certain hours, cash rewards for playing the most hours during a month and cash drawings.

MIRAGE: Daily tournaments have been added at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. to join the 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. tournaments. Most days these have a $65 buy-in for 10K chips with 20-minute levels.

“The Stack” tournament has been a popular Saturday fixture for years and is running on Fridays and Sundays, too.

It starts at 11 a.m. and offers players a 25K starting stack with 25-minute levels.The regular 7 p.m. tournaments on Fridays and Saturdays are now $100 events.Both nights the starting stack is 15K, and on Friday there’s a $25 bounty. Levels are 20 minutes.

Promos for the cash games include a bad-beat jackpot, high hands ($100 for quads, $200 for straight flushes, $500 for royals) and $75 for Aces Cracked (8 a.m.-2 p.m.).The most popular cash games are $1-$2 NLHE ($100-$300 min-max) and a $3-$6 limit game with a $30 minimum buy-in.

SUNCOAST: The locals room in Summerlin has started spreading a big cash game.It starts every Tuesday at 6 p.m. and is $2-$5 NLHE.The game has a mandatory button straddle and the buy-in is $500 minimum and $3K maximum.

HARRAH’S: The mid-Strip room is running a $10-$20 HORSE game Tuesday nights at 6. Added to the traditional HORSE mix is deauce-to-seven triple-draw. The game is being dubbed “HorseT.” The stud games have a $1 ante, a $3 bring-in and a $10 completion. The minimum buy-in is $100. After just a few weeks, it’s filling up with a healthy wait list.

VENETIAN:  Berzad Teranie of California won the $1,600 Deep Stack Main Event for $66K.He outlasted Anuj Agarwal ($60K), also from California, and Nemesio Alegado of Illinois ($53K).The prize pool was $420K with nearly 290 entries.

The Winter Weekend Extravaganza will be Dec. 9-13. The highlight is a $250 event with three starting days beginning Dec. 10.

It offers a $100K guarantee. Single-day tournaments between $125 and $200 are scheduled and all events have guarantees.
New Year’s Extravaganza returns as well.It runs Dec. 25-Jan. 10.That’s a bit longer than past New Year’s events.The big event is a $400 tournament that’s part of the River Card tour and has a $150K guarantee.

The two starting dates are Jan. 1 and 2.There’s also a three-starting-flight $250 event that starts Dec. 27 with a $100K guarantee. On Jan. 6, a four-starting-flight $250 tournament features a $150K guarantee.The other tournaments are single-day affairs priced between $125 and $300.Again, all events have guarantees.

WYNN: Pennsylvania’s Joseph McKeehen, just before winning WSOP main event at the November Nine, took down the championship event of the Wynn Fall Classic, earning $90K.Seth Berger of New York earned $60K for second and Jeff Roberson of Nevada won $38K for third. The $1,600 buy-in had more than 260 entrants and a $388K prize pool.

BELLAGIO: The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic runs Dec. 4-20. The $10,400 main event begins Dec. 14 and runs to Dec. 19. If that isn’t a big enough buy-in for you, you can enter the $100K Alpha 8 event Dec.18.

Other events include a $10,400 PLO tournament Dec. 10 and a pair of two-day seniors events, one priced at $1,090 on Dec. 7 and one at $1,600 on Dec. 10. NLHE events priced between $500 and $5,000 round out the schedule.

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Meet Josh Hayes

Josh Hayes has been a dealer in Las Vegas since 2004. He has been dealing at the MGM Grand’s poker room since 2005.

How did you get into poker? I started out dealing blackjack and roulette at Jokers Wild Casino in Henderson, a small locals casino. They opened a poker room within my first year working there. When I saw that it was much better pay and less stress than working in the pit, I signed up for poker school the next day and transferred within two months.

Why play at MGM? We have more rooms (5,005 plus three condo towers) than any other property on the Strip. Between that and the Grand Garden Arena events, there’s always a large influx of tourists to play against. Our $1-$2 no-limit action is generally among the best on the Strip.

What do you do when you’re not dealing poker? I host and produce four fantasy sports podcasts and write daily fantasy sports articles forrotowire.com. If I’m not doing that, I’m likely chasing my 1-year-old daughter around. — Rob Solomon