Vegas Football Promos -- October Ante Up Column

Here's my latest column for Ante Up, which features the Vegas football promos.  As side note, each year I do this it seems like fewer and fewer rooms are doing football promos.  For whatever that's worth.  The link to find my column on the Ante Up site is here.  Remember I only write the Vegas portion of that post.

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The NFL season is under way and many of the poker rooms around town have promos to encourage poker players to watch the games in their rooms. Here’s what is available.

ORLEANS: For Sunday morning and evening NFL games, seat drawings are held after every score. Field goals and two-point conversions are worth $25, touchdowns by the offense are worth $50 and TDs by the defense or special teams pay $75. Safeties are $75. There will also be a $25 splash pot after any score.

For the Monday and Thursday night games, the promo is Escalating High Hands of the Quarter. The best three hands of each quarter are awarded prizes: $100 for first, $50 for second and $25 for third.

An additional $25 is added to each prize for every field goal, TD or safety scored during the quarter. There are separate jackpots for hold’em and Omaha, same prize amounts for each game.

WESTGATE: Football squares run for three games Sunday as well as the Monday and Thursday night games. Players need a flush or better to earn a square and the payout is $50 for each quarter. There’s a high hand of the quarter worth $50.

SAM’S TOWN:  There are football squares for the Sunday morning game, as well as the Sunday, Monday and Thursday night games. The payout is $50 for each quarter. A flush or better is needed for a square.

STRATOSPHERE: For three games Sunday, and the Monday and Thursday night games, the high hand of each quarter wins $50.

MGM: The promo revolves around high hands and leads to a $25K invitational in January. On gamedays, the best hand of each 15-minute period will receive a cash prize, the size of which depends on how many cash games the room has going at the time.

If it’s seven or fewer, it’s $50; if it’s eight of more, the prize is $100. The best hand of each gameday earns an entry into the Invitational. The promo runs Mondays and Thursdays 4-midnight and Sundays 9-9 p.m. The promo will run during the playoffs, times to be determined.

The Invitational will be Jan. 26. Every qualifying player who registers for it will receive $200 and the winner of the tournament, which will be using a shootout format, gets $5K.

MANDALAY BAY: During the Sunday, Monday and Thursday night games, between 5-9, high hands hit are worth an extra $100. High hands start at jacks full or better. The regular payouts for high hands are $500 for royals, $300 for straight flushes, $100 for quads and $50 for jacks full or better, so the $100 bonus is on top of that.

SOUTH POINT: During NFL games, a random player in a cash game will be selected for a cash prize after every score. It’s $50 for a field goal, $100 for a TD and $200 for a safety. 

The promo runs during the Sunday morning, afternoon and evening games, as well as the Monday and Thursday night games.

Additionally, for the Sunday, Monday and Thursday night games, a player will be selected at the beginning and the end of each game and will choose a prize. 

These winners will receive a football square for the Super Bowl, where the payout will be $2,500 for each quarter and $5K for the final score.

MIRAGE: High hand of the quarter is paid for three Sunday games as well as the Monday and Thursday night games. The first quarter pays $75, second quarter is $125, third quarter is $150, fourth quarter is $200 and overtime is $100.

When the Raiders are playing, there will be splash pots every time they score: $50 for a TD, $25 for a field goal and $100 for a safety.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD: The new promotion is super jackpots. Every day, for a different eight-hour period, high hands get the super-jackpot payout. Royal flushes pay $5K between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Straight flushes pay $2K between noon and 8 p.m. Quads pay $500 between 4 a.m. and noon. The rest of the day, royals are worth $500, straight flushes are $200 and quads pay $100.

Additionally, there’s a royal-flush room-share bonus, which runs 24-7.

Any time a player gets a royal, every active player in a live game receives a payout, the amount depends on how long it’s been since a royal was last dealt in the room. It’s a sliding scale that starts at $25 and increases a maximum of $500 if it’s been at least 15 days since the room has seen a royal.

VENETIAN: The $225K Lucky Shot series and drawing runs Oct. 21-27. It’s a combination of a tournament series and promotional drawing. Each tournament has a fixed prize pool, regardless of the number of entrants. On the last day of the series, a drawing will be pay cash. 

Players earn one drawing ticket for every $250 in tournament entries they make. On Oct. 27, the first 21 tickets drawn will pay $2K. The last ticket drawn will be the grand-prize winner and that player will receive $10K.

The main tournament is a $250 event with six starting flights beginning Oct. 21.

Players start with a 25K stack and play 30-minute levels on Day 1, 40-minute levels on Day 2. The prize pool will be $150K. A maximum of 81 places will be paid.

The evening events include two $125 superstack tournaments with a $4K fixed prize pool, a $200 bounty tournament with a $9K prize pool and a $125 bounty tournament with a $6K prize pool.

The Final Straw

Well, it turns out my last post was too short.  Don't laugh, but I left out vital information about my one session at MGM from July.  I also may have screwed up the hand history that was the main topic of the post.  So this post is my attempt to remedy all that.

First things first, I have a critical update on the straw situation at MGM.  Readers will recall that over a year ago I learned that MGM had a new policy.  They were no longer provided drinking straws in beverages.  I wrote about it here.

Well, when I went into MGM that Friday night, I had forgotten about that—until I received the diet Coke I ordered and it came without a straw.  Damn. They still have this stupid no straw policy?  Oh well.

But a few minutes later, I noticed a few drinks around the table with straws in them.  And when the waitress came back around, I saw that she had a container of straws on her tray.  So I asked her if I could have a straw, and she said sure and handed me one.  Apparently, they have straws but you have to ask for them, they don't just automatically put one in for you.

Well, that's good enough, I thought.

But then I noticed the straw she handed me was one of those god-awful paper straws, which are almost totally worthless.

So….you have to ask for straws and they're paper???  Yeesh.  As long as they are going to give out those damn paper straws, can't they at least make it automatic so you don't have to remember to ask?  It's the worst of both worlds.

I know getting accurate, current information on the straw situation in Vegas is more important to my readers than any discussion of poker I could come up with, so I had to make sure I related this to you.  It should have been in my previous post, but I messed up.

Anyway, for those of you who do come here more for poker than straws (there must be some of you out there), I need to correct my last post anyway.  You probably should reread before continuing, it's here.

My good buddy "Zourah" left a comment for me on Twitter.  Actually he tried to leave a blog comment but it didn't go through.  So let's see what Zourah wanted to comment:

"But pocket 8s do make a straight there don’t they?

I really don’t have a problem with calling the turn given your position but you’ve underrepresented your hand to the point it’s worth raising the river."

Well that had me perplexed for sure.  But first, to get to Zourah's point on my play, I think he's right and I already admitted that I misplayed the hand.  I should have raised on the river.  I have no argument with Zourah's recommendation.

But had I butchered something in the relating of the hand history?  Did I describe the guy as having a straight?  Well, I reread my post and sure enough, the way I told the story, he would have had a straight.  How did I miss that?

I had to reconstruct my thoughts.  I recalled that when I was reviewing my voice notes and the contemporaneous notes I made at the table, there was a bit of a discrepancy.  My written notes said the turn card was a 9.  But I remembered somewhat disputing that when I listened to myself relate the hand on the recorder.

Sure enough, I just played back the voice note and I was debating what the turn card was.  I can hear myself saying, "I don't remember what the turn card was.  I wrote here 9, but it might have been a 7.  I don't remember.  I know it wasn't a really low card and it wasn't an over card."

This happens all the time when I do voice notes.  I know I tap those notes into my phone really fast and frequently screw up.  But if my finger slipped trying to type a "7" I most likely would have typed a "6" or an "8", not a "9".  But clearly the next morning when I voice-recorded it, I was not sold on that card being a 9. 

Since my voice note wasn't sure though, and I had written 9 at the time, I went ahead and called it a 9 in the the post without realizing the implications of that.

So I suppose I should just say it was a 7 and move on.  That way he didn't have a straight.  In the long run we're all dead it doesn't matter if he had a straight or just two pair because he was always losing to my full house. 

But it reminded me of just unclear it all was to me at the time of showdown.

Here's what I remember.  I called and waited for the lady to show her hand, which she did promptly.  I only could see one card, the Jack.  But the dealer declared her hand to be trip Jacks, not a full house.  At that point, the other player was unhappy, he turned over his hand and I thought it was a pair of 8's.  But before I could be sure, he flipped them back over face down and mucked them.  Meanwhile, I was in the process of showing my hand, which I did fairly promptly, but not before he had already conceded the pot by mucking his hand, after the brief display.

In other words, he thought he was beaten by the lady's trip Jacks.  He definitely conceded the pot to her before he even saw my hand.

Which he wouldn't have done if he had a straight, of course.  He would have known his straight was no worse than the second best hand and could still have conceivably been the best hand.

But as I said in the previous post, it's hard for me to believe he called with just an unimproved pair of 8's.  He wasn't that bad a player.  Maybe he was a bad enough player (or just having a brain freeze) to think his straight was losing to trips?  Or perhaps he somehow thought the lady had a full house?  I couldn't see her other card (she was on the far side of the table from me) but the dealer told me (and everyone else) she just had the three Jacks.

Another thing I failed to put in my previous post:  When he turned over his hand, he muttered something about, "I knew I should have been wary of the paired board."  Well, that's something you're more likely to say when you have a straight than just a pocket pair, isn't it?

So I can't be sure what happened there.  Why was I confused about what the turn card really was?  And did the guy concede the pot even though he had the best exposed hand at that point?

I'm actually thinking he may have had the straight there.  And somehow thought the lady had turned over a boat.

Of course if the lady had turned over a boat, she would have won the pot, as her boat would have been better than mine.  I'm assuming if the dealer had misread her hand she would have said something.

Although maybe she missed it too, maybe she trusted the dealer.  I have to assume that there is a greater than zero pct chance I was awarded the pot in error.

That would be unfortunate for the lady, but ultimately that's on her for not speaking up.  She was a solid player but you know we all make mistakes.

And of course, there still exists the very real possibility that the guy just screwed up by mucking too soon.

It's also possible that the turn card was a 7 and not a 9.  I thought it might have been a 7 the next day. That would explain everything but the guy's bad play.

Anyway, thanks for Zourah for pointing this out (no one else did) and giving me all these possible scenarios to consider.

I Finally Found a Hand to Play

This was my Friday night session in Vegas in July.  It was my first—and, as it turned out, my only—visit to the MGM this trip.  This session is basically all about one big hand that I didn't play well but, you know, luck is a good thing.

I was quite card dead for most of the session, and it was kind of a decent game.  After texting me to see where I was playing, my pal Don showed up, but we never played at the same table.  When he texted me he asked how the games were, and I said they were good but I couldn't find a hand to play.  By the time he showed up and was waiting for a seat, I showed him my stack and told him, "I finally found a hand to play."  He said, "I see that."  I added "But you won't like how I played it," I warned him.  "Probably not," was his reply.

I couldn't have had much less than my original $200 buy-in because of not playing anything.  Finally I got pocket 10's in early position and I limped in.  Don and I had discussed that hand just the night before.  Of course I should raise with it and he was reminding me of that very fact.  I explained that whenever I do, it seldom works out well for me.  So with the first pocket pair I'd had all night, I just limped in.  No one raised and five of us saw the flop.

And a fine flop it was.  Jack-Jack-10.  Always nice to flop a boat.  The lone woman at the table bet $10, a guy called, and I just called.  The others folded.  The turn card was a 9.  I checked, the lady bet $40, and the guy called.  When I checked, I was thinking I'd probably check-raise.  But when the guy called the $40, I started thinking I might get more money if just called and didn't chase anyone out.  So I just called.

I didn't like the river card, a Queen.  Players love to play Queen-Jack.  It struck me as plausible someone just hit a bigger boat than mine.  Hell, for all I knew, the lady had Jack-9 (another hand people love to play) and I was beaten on the turn. After my check, the lady bet $55 and the other guy called.  It struck me as very possible my hand was not the best.  I hated it, but I just called.

The lady turned over Jack-something.  The something wasn't matched with anything on the board.  The guy turned over pocket 8's.  At least that's what I think it was.  He only had it face up for a second. Maybe I missed something.  I mean, it's hard to believe he would have thought that was good against two other players. He couldn't have had a straight because he was obviously disappointed to see the lady's trips and he hadn't seen my hand yet. Whatever, my boat was good and it was a nice pot, but I know I cost myself some value there.

Not much happened after that either.  I had 5-3 in the big blind and no one raised.  The flop was 6-3-2 and no one bet.  The turn was a 5 but now I had to worry about a low straight.  I checked and called a bet of $10 from the aggro Euro at the table.  The river was an 9.  There was no flush possible and I checked.  This time the Euro put out $30. I just had a gut instinct that he was full of crap.  I shrugged and called.  All he had was a deuce for bottom pair.

And that was all that was worth reporting on.  I was able to cash out with a $110 profit.  During the game I had a good seat for the parade of scantily clad females attending the nightclub, and I was able to explore said parade more fully after I cashed out.  But I have to say, it was a disappointing show. For some reason there wasn't a big crowd for the club that night. But the extra money in my wallet was most welcome.

I Showed Her the Nuts

On this particular night in Vegas, I met up with my pal Don for some poker and dinner.  Don graciously offered to burn through some of his comps for dinner.  We ended up deciding to play at Mirage and eat at the burger place there (LVB Burgers, I believe it's called).  I'd eaten there once before with Lightning.  It was fine, nothing special, and not cheap.  We each had the burger/fries/drink combo, and after tax, the bill came to $51. That's two burgers, two orders of fries and two sodas.  Twenty-five bucks for a burger & fries at a casual burger place?  Like I've been saying for years now, Vegas ain't what it used to be.  Fortunately Dave's comps covered it.  Of course I volunteered to cover the tip.

After the meal we headed over to the poker room as planned.  We not only got into the same game but were sitting right next to each other, Don on my immediate left.

It was an ok game. It was short-handed a lot of the time. I managed to win a few hands, but Don had terrible, terrible luck.  He was mostly card dead and when he did get something to play he couldn't win a damn pot.  There was one time when he did win a small pot, and he said to the dealer, "Count the deck….I'm not supposed to win a pot here, something's wrong."

Early on, after three limpers I made it $12 with King-Queen of spades.  No one called.

Then came a more interesting hand.  In early position, I opened to $10 with Ace-Queen of diamonds. It was four-way.  The flop was rather favorable for me:  King-7-4, all diamonds.  I was first to act, and I figured even though I flopped the nuts, I had to bet.  So I decided to bet, but bet small.  I put out $15.  A guy made it $35 and it folded to me. 

What to do?  If I assume he had a weaker flush, I just have to call and keep calling as I take his money.  But what else could he have?  Two pair?  A set?  Would he raise with those hands?  I thought he might.  If he did have a set, I didn't want to make it cheap for him to draw to his boat. And if he did have a set, he'd call a raise from me, and I could build a nice pot (hopefully for me and not for him if he ended up catching his boat).  I put $60 on top of my $15.  He tanked.  But finally he folded, saying, "I don't have a diamond."

Well what did he have?  Did he raise on that board with just a King?  Two pair?  Hard for me to believe he folded a set there.  Don and I talked about afterward.  He thought it was a mistake to re-raise.  He said I should have just called, the only hand he could have had was a smaller flush (he hadn't heard the guy say he didn't have a diamond—of course, we don't know if he was telling the truth).  He said he wouldn't have raised with a set but I dunno if that's true.  He might raise with a set hoping to protect his hand against someone with a naked Ace of diamonds.

So I won the pot and possibly misplayed it.  What do you think?  Should I have just flatted his $35 bet?

There was a woman at the table, across from me, who was wearing a low-cut top.  I know you're surprised that I would notice such a thing, but somehow I did.  She was in seat 2 and I was in seat 7 so I had a fairly unobstructed view.  Now when I saw her stand up, she really didn't have a great figure, and I couldn't get a good look at her face because the baseball cap she was wearing kind of hid it.  But I did notice the cleavage—there was a lot to notice if you know what I mean.

We had seen her win a few nice pots and at first we thought she was a good player, but as we watched her more we came to realize she wasn't that great a player and she had just gotten lucky.  

Anyway, I had Ace-6 of hearts in the small blind and just about everyone limped in.  So I completed and we saw a flop.  Six, seven of us?  Something like that.  I couldn't tell you what the flop was, but there was one heart on it and it checked around.  The turn card was the something other of hearts.  The aforementioned lady bet $15.  With the nut flush draw, I called and we were now heads up.

The river was another heart, giving me the nut flush through the back door.  This lady had been fairly aggressive all night and I figured she was likely to bet again on the river since she had bet the turn.  So I took a chance and checked.  My instincts were solid.  She put out $50. 

My inclination was to make it $150 but I thought about it a bit.  My check-raise there is going to scream "nut flush."  Especially since I had been playing so tight.  She could easily fold.  But I thought there was some chance of a call, she had been so aggro.  I decided to make it only $125 figuring it would be slightly easier for her to call that.

She went into the tank.  I was thinking she was going to fold but no, she did call.  Sweet.  I showed her the nuts and she mucked without revealing her hand.

Later, I was in the small blind with pocket Jacks.  After a bunch of limpers, the button made it $20.  I called, no else did.  The flop was Ace high and it went check-check.  The turn was a blank and he bet $20.  I called.  No betting on a blank river. Before we flipped our cards over, Don said to me, "You have Queens?"  He was thinking I had Queens and the button had Kings.  Very close.  The button had the Queens, still good enough to win.  Dave suggested that maybe I should have bet the turn since he checked the flop.  Maybe he would have folded his Queens?  Who knows?

Meanwhile, Don's horrible night continued.  He lost the last of his buy-in when his top pair/top kicker lost to a flopped set in a three-bet pot.  He didn't rebuy and I cashed out a little bit later, up $115.

It was a fun evening, for me anyway.  I wish Don had had a better night.

With A Little Bit O' Luck

Well, maybe just a tad more than a little bit.

My most recent session in Ventura wasn't going so well.  Another session where I was totally card dead.  Up to this point I had had a total of two pocket pairs.  Both times it was pocket 7's.  BTW, is it just me or does it seem like whenever you get so few pocket pairs that you notice how few it is, they always seem to be the same pocket pair?  Anyway, those two hands didn't pan out.  I never saw Ace-King or Ace-Queen or any big cards where I could play them.  No suited connectors (well, I think I might have gotten 3-2 suited under-the-gun once). 

I did manage to win a very small pot early when I was in the big blind and no one raised.  My King-9 caught a 9-2-2 flop.  I bet something and didn't get a call, even tho six of us saw that flop.

But that was it.

So after a several hours, I was about ready to call it a day.  The table at my 2/3 game had started off fairly juicy, with a few aggros putting chips into play.  I never had anything to battle them with.  Then the aggros left and the game got dull.  A lot of chopping the blinds.  We were short for awhile but another game broke and we got a player from that table.

That new player had a short stack, around $55-$60.  For the first few hands, he shoved every time he entered a pot.  After a few times doing this, he managed to get enough chips so he started playing more seriously.  He got his stack close to $100 and then up over $100 when this hand happened. 

I had decided to play no more than another two orbits after posting my blinds.  And on the button I looked down at a couple of Aces.  Finally a pocket pair.  And it wasn't any damn 7's, either.

The fellow I just mentioned who came to the table shoving his short stack was under-the-gun, and raised to $15. By now his stack was over $100, but not much over.  After a few folds another guy called the $15.  His stack was over $300.  It came to me, and I was sitting behind around $220 at this point (down from my $300 buy-in).  I made it $60, which I thought was the right size.  My assumption was the initial raiser didn't have enough to call, he'd either shove or fold.  And my money was on shoving.  Since he had stopped open-shoving, it didn't appear to me that he was opening light.  I couldn't imagine him having a hand good enough to raise with that he would let go easily, especially since he had demonstrated a willingness to put his chips in play.

The guy on my left, the small blind, had me covered at least three times over  He had been one of the aggros when the other aggros were there, but once the others left he had been fairly quiet.  So I was a bit surprised when he cold called a $60 from the tightest player at the table. 

Now it was back to the initial raiser, who did what I expected and shoved.  The other guy folded instantly.  It was back to me. I asked for a count of the shove, and it was $111.  I thought that was enough for me to be able to raise, but I have to say, I've seen some weird rules interpretations in this room (really all CA card rooms) so I asked if I could raise.  The dealer did some math and told me I could indeed raise.  No one at the table objected.  In fact, the guy behind me, who had called me, actually said "yes" to my question before the dealer did.  Hmm….maybe he wanted me to raise?  Did he have Kings perhaps (or, a long shot, the other two Aces?)

Anyone think I should have just flatted there?  It didn't make sense to me.  And I couldn't really raise without shoving.  "All-in," I announced.

The guy on my left spent a good bit of time in the tank.  Finally he said, "I know you've got me beat," and reluctantly folded.  He did, however, show his hand.  Pocket 10's. I was thinking his initial call of my $60 kind of sucked, but what do I know?  I was grateful for the dead money.

The dealer put out the flop.  It was Jack-high, two fairly low cards.  At which point the other guy flipped over his hand.  Two Jacks. Yuck.

Fortunately I didn't have much time to dwell on my misfortune because the dealer quickly put out the turn card, which was a beautiful, gorgeous, smokin' hot Ace.  The river card was something or other.  I had started to turn my hand over at the sight of the Ace but I don't think I beat the dealer to putting out the river card.  Anyway, the guy with the Jacks groaned, I said something  like "Gee,"—you know to indicate that I was at least acknowledging my good fortune (after his initial good fortune).

Then the guy said, "One more Jack…..jackpot."  Huh?  Then I realized what he meant.  "And you would have had the bigger share, with the losing hand."  Yes indeed. The minimum hand needed to be beaten to qualify for the bad beat jackpot here (and in the other CA rooms I've played in) is Aces full of Jacks. Had he caught his one-outer to taken the pot from me, I would have been very happy.  The BBJ was worth $15K.  So I would have gotten a tasty $7,500.  He would have gotten $3,750. and the rest of the table would have split the rest.

Ordinarily I wouldn't even mention it, but this was probably the closest I've ever come to actually hitting a BBJ. And it was all set up for it too.  All that was missing was the case Jack.  Hey, it was only a 1-in-42 chance (counting the fact that we'd seen two 10's in addition to our own hands.  That's a better chance than I usually have, right?

Oh well, winning the pot with a little bit o' luck and turning a losing session into a profitable one would have to do.

I played another two orbits, just as I had planned, and called it day.  I cashed out up $92.

Vegas Poker Scene—September 2019

Here's my latest column for Ante Up.  Guess what?  The Ante Up website has finally been updated, and they just posted my latest column on it last night.  You can find it embedded in the entire West region report here.  This is the actually column as is printed in the magazine, not my draft version as it has been for the past few months.

Enjoy!

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Andrey Pateychuk of Russia won the Deepstack Championship Poker Series’ $5K main event on July 20 at the Venetian Las Vegas for $547K. Yake Wu of China received $336K for second and Stephen Chidwick of the United Kingdom earned $245K for third. The event drew 564 entrants for a $2.6M prize pool.

The room hosts the DeepStack Showdown series Oct. 14-20. It features a $400 Monster Stack with a $250K guarantee and five starting flights beginning Oct. 15. Players start with 30K chips and play 30-minute levels on the first day, 40 minutes on Day 2. The top 15 percent of each Day 1 flight will be in the money, with the top 5 percent advancing to Day 2.

Also in October, the cash-game promo is a high-hand giveaway. Every half-hour between noon and midnight, the best hand receives $600. If a player matches the winning hand, that player will receive $1K.

GOLDEN NUGGET: The $600 championship event of the room’s Grand Poker Series finished June 30 and had 1,313 entrants. Michael Policastro from Pennsylvania won the title and $90K. Jeffrey Colpitts of New York took home $80K for second and Israel’s Oren Orly earned $78K for third. The prize pool was $677K.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD: Ben Farrell of the United Kingdom won the Goliath main event for $162K in early July. Ignacio Molina of Andorra won $154K as runner-up and Remi Castaignon got $152K for third. The $1,700 event had 744 players and a $1.1M prize pool.

BELLAGIO: Turkey’s Akin Tuna won the Bellagio Cup in July for $430K. Houston’s Greg Back grabbed $254K for second and Bulgaria’s Fahredin Mustafov took home $166K for third. More than 140 players paid $10,400 to enter, creating a prize pool of nearly $1.4M.

ORLEANS: The final four in the $400 championship event in late June agreed to a deal with Brett Murray of California taking the top prize of $30K. Michael Plaxco of Alabama, Kazuki Sasaki of Japan and Evan Biscow of California each took home $20K. The event had 583 entrants and the prize pool was $200K.

WYNN: Connecticut’s Justin Adams and Virginia’s Sang Ku Kim chopped the Wynn Classic main event in July for $345K each, with Adams declared the winner. Clifford Goldkind of Maryland received $246K for third. The $1,600 event drew 2,300 players for $3.3M prize pool, smashing the $2M guarantee.

ARIA: Tom Marchese added to his nearly $20M of career winnings by taking home $1M for winning the PartyPoker Millions event in early July. Jeremy Ausmus took home $650K for second and Ana Marquez earned $445K for third. The event had 536 players and a prize pool of $5.3M.

SOUTH POINT: Qualifying for the holiday freeroll runs Sept. 1-Nov. 30. Players must log 120 hours of cash-game play to qualify for the freeroll, which runs in December.

Players earn double credit between 9 a.m.-noon, 4-7 p.m., and 10-midnight. You’ll receive cash-bonus payouts for playing more than 120 hours during the qualification period. First place for the freeroll receives $40K. All players who qualify receive $120.

CAESARS PALACE: The room runs five tournaments daily. At 10 a.m., it’s $100 for 12K chips with a $1.5K guarantee. At 2 p.m., it’s $150 for 15K chips with a $2K guarantee. The
6 p.m. tournament is $125 for 12K chips and a $1.5K guarantee. At 9 p.m., the $150 tournament starts with 15K chips and has a $2K guarantee. The midnight tournament is $100 for 10K chips and a $1K guarantee. All events have 20-minute levels except the midnight tourney (15 minutes).

RIO: Tournaments run four times a day at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 and 9. Each has a $65 buy-in and starts players with 5K chips. An optional $5 dealer add-on gets players 5K more. The levels are 20 minutes and there’s a $500 guarantee for each.

FLAMINGO: Six tournaments run daily, except Fridays when there’s no 10 a.m. tournament. A $65 tournament runs at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 9 and midnight. These start with 20K chips, have 15-minute levels and offer a $500 guarantee. At 6 p.m., an $80 bounty with a $700 guarantee is offered with $25 bounties. A $55 turbo with 10-minute levels runs at 4 p.m.

Limit hold’em still thrives here with a popular $3-$6 game (minimum $30 buy-in) that’s always running. A weekly freeroll is available for 12 hours of live play. There are high-hand bonuses.

COMINGS AND GOINGS: Mark Selby has returned to Westgate to manage the poker room after a four-year stint running the room at the Stratosphere. Selby opened the poker room at Westgate when it was known as the LVH and ran it for two years before leaving for the Stratosphere. He once managed the poker room at Riviera, too.

Andrew Simon is the manager at the Stratosphere. He has been there for more than 10 years and has been a supervisor for four years.