I'm a winning 2/5 regular rec who plays for money. Last year everyone was raving about how insane the cash games were during the Colossus. I also heard good things about Planet Hollywood's 2/5, but the room is kind of small and I hear wait lists for cash games were >4 hours across the strip. I asked my friend how she managed the Colossus insanity last year and she said she had to completely change her schedule and play at absurd hours like 3 am even in bigger rooms like Aria. I'm staying at the Monte Carlo with a couple friends, and we're looking at playing in the rooms right nearby, namely Bellagio, Aria, PH, and maybe even Bally's during Colossus.

Could anyone who was there during the Colossus last year please give me some tips on how to spend my week? Should I really plan to sleep and play weird hours? Are the more obscure rooms like MGM and Monte Carlo's own room worth playing during Colossus? Also I may be a winning player, but I suffered a heavy hit to my br recently so I'll have to prioritize softness over convenience (whether it be wait time or stake size) this trip.

Any and all advice is much appreciated.

You don't need to play absurd hours if you don't want to but you need to get in a game by noon. If you wait until 7pm then you are going to have to wait for hours.

My local room typically has 3+ hour waits on Fridays so I'm used to it. Just get on some lists, go have dinner, and keep checking back to see where you are. At some point the lists will move very fast because most of the people will have moved on. The good part is there are lots of games. You can also try the old Vegas lubricant at places like the Bellagio.

Note that all daily tournaments will be canceled because all the tables will be filed with cash games.

You can't play anywhere unless you call way ahead. Aria was 200-300 deep by 2pm last year. Bellagio was even worse. You won't even get into the Flamingo if you don't call ahead. If all hell breaks loose you can always try Fremont Street. We are talking 25,000 people in a very limited amount of poker space. There's really no viable plan for this amount of insanity.

My advice would be to show up before lunch, and don't plan on moving rooms that day.

What date will it die down a bit?

Regretting booking 2nd-11th now.

Are any rooms running their daily tournaments during this?

Dam is it really that bad? Maybe I should skip playing the colossus and hop in a cash by noon and grind till midnight haha.

I'm flying in Thursday and staying till Tuesday

I played in the Colossus last year and it sucked. Made $5k playing cash games. The daily deepstacks are OK but I would rather play cash than the bigger tourneys AINEC

Grunch from title alone: Anywhere, just start butt early, or you'll be on a wait list forever. Even Flamingo had 5/10 with a waitlist last year.

While the games are great, the atmosphere is ridic if you aren't in to crowds. I'm waiting till the next weekend to come in to town this year.

I looked up the daily tourneys, specifically at the Aria and Venetian and none were cancelled.???

You looked today to see if something in 3 days would be cancelled?

Last year on Card Player has the results of the tourneys during the series. Best I can do, but it is a guide. also he had to/did refer to last year, at least by implication.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments

Agreed. Last year everyone said how great it was for poker, but I thought it was mainly a hassle. June 12-15 this year.

Noon... better get there way before noon!

play the bigger rooms that spread more than 2 tables of 2-5, get there by 11 a.m. and you'll be fine.

Should I play 2/5 at Rio and try to catch some of the bustos from the Colossus? Received that advice from a couple of acquaintances too.

If you're looking to start in the pm then Rio would probably be your best bet. That's the WSOP cash game room near the tournaments by the way, not the small casino level room next to the Sportsbook.

Caesars has added 6 tables by the sports book to capitalize on the cash game demand. They'll probably wish it was 60 at some point.

You could be right, I hate those places and didn't go in. Every place I went was packed to the gills and cancelled dailies, even Harrah's. If those places had space for dailies maybe that says something about their popularity or lack thereof.

There was no wait at Mandalay Bay and Luxor. MB had some juicy games going too.


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You can always make an online poker acct at wsop.com whilst in nevada and play that while you wait for your name to be called.

There will be action at 1/2 and 2.5/5 online for sure.

I'm definitely not going to bother trying to get into live cashgames until colossus is over.

last year I put my name on list at B, went to Rio and got right into a game. played for a few hrs, called B and I was like 9 down. went back to B, chilled at bar for like 20 min and my seat was open.

you'll never have a prob finding any game you want at Rio. it's just brutal cuz no shufflers, green dealers and terrible cocktail service. other than all of those pretty heinous issues, Rio is great.

And the fact that it's freezing in there...you forgot that one.

Places like the Venetian will have 15-20 $2-5 NLHE games going so even though the list appears super long it often isn't that bad. We were like 115th on the Venetian $1-2 list last year but with 17 tables going it only took an hour.

Once I was seated at NLHE I waited 5-6 hours each day for PLO. They had games going but nobody was leaving. I was pretty surprised when they called off 15 names for a new table and the $1-2-5 PLO game filled, everyone else had been waiting 6 hours like I was, some even more.

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would u say the situation is as bad after colossus? I booked for the last week of wsop trying to avoid the mad house I heard about.

Im actually sick I have booked 2nd-11th.... **** my life....