On a recent podcast with Abe Limon (host on LVAB), he mentions he doesn't think Vegas is the best place to play poker for a living. He says because of all the new casinos popping up all over the country that people are making less trips to Vegas. He calls LA the "poker capitol of the world" which may be true but how the heck can you afford an apartment? And the traffic sucks!

I am also not sure how measurable this is. I mean, Vegas is packed on a pretty regular basis with conventions, holidays, weekends, fight nights, etc. It is still and will always be the #1 tourist destination in America.

I do agree that a 5/10 NL or PLO game is probably softer in somewhere outside of Vegas in general, but a 1/3 or 2/5 game in Vegas is still full of mostly tourists or recreational players. With the low cost of living, no income tax, low rake, and strong comp system, it would seem Vegas is still an ideal place to play poker. If you are playing higher limits, then perhaps he is right.

I am wondering what everyone opinion is on this or is there a thread about this. Sure Vegas is full of pros or people at least attempting to make a living playing poker, but at any given 2/5 game 7 or 8 players are still recreational - I would think.

I would love to hear from some local Vegas grinders on their thoughts on this.

The easiest way to determine is simply to take a weekend and play in LA.

I'm not 100% sure but I think limon is an online exile who had his choice of places to move after Black Friday. Certainly, a lot of the BF exiles I know settled in LA.

Vegas poker is nothing compared to what it was 10 years ago. So many huge cities now have poker rooms in driving distance. No one needs to come to Vegas anymore to play poker.

Combined with the economy and Vegas giving out very few offers (along with flights to Vegas being 3x what they used to be) and it means fewer, harder poker games.

it really depends on your situation. LA may be "better" in terms of theoretical flow but Vegas poker has better predictable action. And you still get tourists even at 5T in Vegas, whereas LA you have monkey rake, crappy service, and higher cost of living which make the game dynamics different.

During WSOP series, which is maybe 3 months out of the year, Vegas trumps anywhere else.

The 3-4 months after WSOP, the game dynamics change drastically, but then taper off and begin to accelerate through with the conventions and the tourists coming through.

I like playing in Vegas more, just because of the adult disneyland effect.

Gobbo does have a good point though, with Vegas having mandatory resort fees all over except those who grind up a diamond card and flights being pricey, Vegas is becoming more of a club/dining destination vs gaming.

If youve never watched live at the bike id suggest you do so then answer this question. the live at the bike games are an accurate representation of a standard LA game. they are taken right off the casino floor and open to anyone.

people in the chat regularly think the game is a setup because the action is so insane. the last uncapped 5-10nl game had TWO players who would not fold to any size re raise pre so pots were regularly going: raise 30, re raise $500, snap call (or ship with some random hand like K9)! at the end of the day los angeles is a very rich town and vegas is a very poor town. the games that go are good but there are very few games anymore. the game i just mentioned seems amazing now but it was pretty standard at much higher stakes 24/7 eight years ago. all poker is in major decline, easily off 50-70% from boom highs. a lot of good but under-rolled pros need to go broke fast (and its happening pretty fast tbh) for the ecosystem to get back to "healthy" but on a much smaller scale.

I am a big fan of the show and your podcast. Very insightful and entertaining!

This is brought up often enough and although the games are worse than they were years ago, I feel for the low level stakes, Vegas is still an profitable place to play considering the low cost of living. Once you move up to consistently playing 5/10nl and higher, I would say it is time to move to a better poker city for that level.

For the same reason why Vegas is great (low cost of living), it sucks for high stakes because it is a poor city compared to LA, South Florida, or NJ/Philly and Maryland. More rich people locally help big games.

Yes, WSOP time makes the games amazing but that is a few months a year only.

I have logged over 8k hrs in Vegas games since BF with a top shelf w/r. The games are fine. That being said I have travelled quite a bit and the games outside Vegas are fantastic in comparison

My daughter left for college on the east coast this fall so there is nothing holding me in Vegas. I am leaving to play elsewhere. That should answer your question

People in/from LA never let go of the chance of telling you how much better LA is than everywhere else in the world. Despite the lack of water, high taxes, overall intolerable people, expensive fuel, 24/7 traffic, high cost of living, and big rakes the poker games are pretty good (If you have the roll to live there).

While I agree with you for the most part (I live in LA and hate playing poker here), lol at Vegas having an endless supply of water.

I'm not sure where you got that assertion from? I never mentioned anything about Vegas and an endless water supply.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a 2/5 game on the strip with 7-8 rec players.

I don't play poker when I go to Vegas anymore. The games are too boring. No one talks and its not enjoyable.

I believe Limon and Nichoel agreed on a recent broadcast of LaTB that low-level NL is frequently better in Vegas given the nature of the players there being largely tourists, but that the higher level games (5/10 and up) are easily better in LA.

Sorry if I'm misquoting.

los angeles isnt a great city, its 5 or 6 great cities, and ya, its expensive, but thats why the games are the best in the world (from what ive seen traveling extensively). The rake seems a little high but thats compared to vegas, compared to the rest of the world its lol low. you also get "free" food if you play mid/hi stakes so that offsets the rake a bit.

I do agree, if you play below the 5-5nl level vegas is much better. The only advantage LA has in that area is that you can get a "prop" job in LA and be paid to play some low stakes games.

You listed "lack of water" as one of the negatives of living in LA. If we are comparing LA to Vegas, both are in very similar situations in regards to water, i.e., lack of.

Gotcha. Well in ten years or so when I am sick of this place, I'll be sure to include that for arguments sake on the reasons it sucks to live in Vegas.

Got into this discussion with a couple of Aria 2/5 regs on my list trip. They agreed that since there are so many poker rooms/casinos around the country now that the LV rooms just dont have the steady stream of true tourists as they used to. Sure for a couple months a year you are going to get packed for CES and WSOP but just not like before.

DC is a pretty good example. For the longest time we all drove to AC to play - or went to LV. Now there are three big rooms within an hour drive and a 4th to open up next summer. MD Live has some of the best/softest games I've played in and they have been like that for a few years.

Sure Vegas still may continue to be the tourist capital or whatever but IMO the games will probably continue like this.

Yeah, sorta. Open to anyone, but you have to sign up months in advance. And you don't think people play differently when they've been looking forward to being on tv for months?

The only time I watched much of Live@theBike was when they had a 20/40 limit game going, but they had open seats and were saying that anyone could come off the street and play. I would have if I had been close enough.

If poker players from Not California weren't so irrationally fearful of high cost of living, poker players from California wouldn't feel as compelled to inject a little rationality into the conversation.

Poker, at least above a certain level, thrives where people are rich enough to afford big losses in big games. That always means high COL and high traffic.

Big corporations not only understand that COL and general desirability vary, but have quantitated it. It comes down to a single percentage factor they use to calculate what it takes to get someone to move from Location 1 to Location 2. IIRC, Vegas to LA is like 1.5. So if you assume BF exiles are rational (which may not be the case), you should understand that poker has to be at least 1.5x better in LA.

Couldnt agree more, this is why I think the games are so good here. Something like 6 of the top 8 counties in terms of per capita household income are here. Sure it costs a lot and the traffic sucks - but the games are damn good.

If you are making say, $20/hr at 2/5 in Vegas you can survive. In LA - I am not sure how that would be possible, or it would be very difficult.

There is nothing irrational about recognizing the COL in SoCal. What you're missing is that it has to be 1.5x better just to not be _worse_ than Vegas, and at the lower stakes things aren't great in Vegas. The idea isn't to move somewhere that might have games that are so much better than Vegas that you can barely make up for the COL difference and thereby probably not be worse off.

The point is that you can make more than $20/hr at 2/5 in LA.