I'll keep this brief.

I stayed at the Orleans June 30 to July 5. Loved it. Heavenly bed, large and comfortable room, plenty of food options, movie theater, spacious and open poker room, plenty of action.

I chose the Orleans so I could play O8. I stuck to the 4/8 tables. Some of the tables were nitty, and I did have to table change a few times, but I never needed to table change more than once to find a juicy table. Unfortunately I was basically card dead for the entire 30 hours I was at the tables - it was pretty sick and pretty depressing. But no complaints - the room was run very well, the players *I* played with were friendly (I heard some jerks arguing elsewhere in the room but it never happened at *my* table), some of the cocktail waitresses looked really good in those outfits, can't complain about free drinks while at the poker table.

The comp system met *my* needs very well - I ate mostly Subway salads and the occasional Fuddrucker's grilled chicken sandwich on whole wheat, and thanks to the time I spent at the tables I didn't have to pay for much of it.

My only "deltas" were: 1. There was nowhere I could get free coffee. I'd been spoiled staying at the Winstar where I can just take my coffee mug down to the casino and fill it up. 2. My room faced south, so I didn't have much of a view - if I go again I'll try to choose a room that faces east.

I am a huge fan of illusionists, so for me, David Copperfield was a no-brainer. He's arguably the second-best illusionist in the history of the world after Houdini. His show was amazing - over half of his tricks were done out in the middle of the audience.

The other bucket list item I checked off was the Kiss Monster Mini Golf course at the Rio - huge Kiss fan from way back.

Went to the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp concert at the Hard Rock Casino. The show was average, but I got to get my picture taken with Bruce Kulick, and see Rudy Sarzo slapping the bass on stage, major thrills for me.

Watched the fireworks from the Rio parking garage. Perfect view, was fun.

Fanboyed the WSOP of course. Since I was only there the first couple days I didn't see a ton of celebrities, but I did see Erik Seidel, Liv Boeree, Tony Dunst, Marvin The Duckman Rattenmeier, Kara Scott, Ali Nejad, Allen Kessler, Mike Sexton, Daniel Negraneu, Alex Keating, Max Steinberg - actually that *is* quite a few!

I think the main takeaway was the king's lounge. There were pots being pushed back and forth at some of those tables that were larger than the price of my car.

OH - I did ride the High Roller at night in one of the open-bar spheres!

I definitely want to go back - I want to see Penn & Teller, do the Stratosphere tower, Eiffel tower, pinball museum, circque de soliei WOW if it's still there, and tour a few more poker rooms - I've been told the rooms at the Venetian and Wynn are sights to behold.

That's all.

sounds like a great time. I did Vegas last year for the first time (twice), stayed a bunch of places, including Orleans for a night one trip and Gold Coast the other. I like how they have a free shuttle to get around. played a lot of 2/4 LHE at Orleans.
I'm returning next week. I better play well or the wife won't let me go back.

Nice trip report. Sorry that you couldn't catch any cards; but you still managed to have a great time.

Lol at his show being amazing.... Reminds me of this Yelp review:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/david-coppe...source=(direct)
"(I wish I could give this 0 stars).
If somebody you know tells you it's a good show, make sure to remove them from your life - these people are pretty crazy. If your spouse says it's great magic - divorce them. Block your parents on Facebook if they liked it. Drop off your kids at the nearest Fire Department and drive away if they tell you they liked it.
This is absolutelly disgusting, cringe, cheap, fake, terrible, very bad, very very very bad show. I snoozed my credit card and reported it stolen so it cancels the transaction that bought these tickets."

I had the misfortune of sitting through it back in Feb, the show is absolutely terrible (luckily it was free). Half the show consists of super lame and dated 'magicians-choice' type tricks, it's completely amateurish. The other half consists of an UFO and a talking alien puppet. Not to mention many of his audience interactions and onstage guests are obviously plants.

You can tell also tell he's bored, uninterested, and just going through the motions, same exact lines and and jokes every show (twice a day), just reading through the script. There's no desire or passion, it's just a routine for him. In the words of a Yelp review, "damn bro, where's your dignity?".

For his big closing finale where he guesses what famous person the audience member picked, who was it? According to Yelp, it's either Brad Pitt (my show), Elvis, Abe Lincoln, or Michael Jackson.

why do you have to be the rain cloud over everyone's parade

TaiwanUP - In case you don't know this: Everyone's taste is different. And, this may be hard to believe, you are not always right in matters of taste.

Clearly David Copperfield must be doing something right to have stood the test of time. Maybe it's just not for you.

EVERYBODY is entitled to their opinion, including TaiwanUP.

Abraham Lincoln was the famous person chosen by the "random person in the audience" at my show (a sexy Mexican teenager who didn't look the least bit uncomfortable at being selected by DC, having a camera thrown in her face and heading on the stage - I even whistled at her and she didn't respond!). Things that make you go hmm?

DC "chooses" audience members by throwing flimsy plastic discs into the audience, so even if they are all plants, he's a pretty accurate flimsy disc thrower and he's taking a big chance that there are no basketball players in the audience to intercept them. There was also a part where he hit a beachball into the crowd, and when someone caught it, he said "Now throw it backwards over your head" and the person did, and then he told the NEXT person to the same. Do you know how HARD it is to CONTROL where a beachball ends up???

So even if they ARE all plants (a distinct possibility), it still takes a lot of skill and risk to pull it off.

I WILL concede, in all honestly, that I'd have preferred less prediction-based illusions and more disappear/reappear/teleportation/transportation/levitation-type illusions in his show, but I don't hold that against him.

Next time I go to Vegas I'm planning to see Penn and Teller - it will be difficult for me to be completely unbiased due to my historical respect for DC, but I will try my hardest to compare the two shows.

There was one illusion in particular where he chose a hot German blonde from the audience and led her to a spot literally 6 feet behind me - everyone else was watching the big screens but I just turned around in my seat - I was afraid the camera was going to catch me checking out the girl's keister, but I had to move my head about a foot to the left to be in the camera's FOV, so as long as I was in my original seatspace I could gawk with impunity.

Anyway, so 6 feet behind me took out a sheet of tissue paper, crumpled it into a ball, put the ball in his hand, started moving his fingers and the ball spun in his hand. He then had the girl move her fingers the same way and the ball spun similarly. David then took his hand away and the ball remained suspended in midair. He moved his hands around the ball as if to show there were no wires, then he moved his fingers and the ball spun in midair.

He then asked the girl what her favorite kind of flower was, of course she said rose, and he oragamied the paper into a rose. He then laid the paper rose in his hand, waved his fingers and the rose stood up in his hand and started rotating, then he took his hands away and the flower rotated in midair, then he took a lighter to the paper which flashpapered away in a poof and there was a REAL rose in its place with DC grabbed and gave to the girl.

All of this 6 feet behind me. It was pretty darned cool.

Thanks OP.

Awww good ole honest Abe, what are the chances?! Random audience members just seem to be choosing the same four people every single show, incredible. There is zero chance that the audience members he picks for this "trick" aren't plants.

It amazes me that in this day and age where information can be disseminated globally and instantly that he would choose such a non-magical "trick" for his grand finale.

It seems like he has multiple plants in the audience. He'll throw the disc/ball into the audience and then he tells the person to throw it again to their left/right/behind, he just has the real audience members keep throwing it until a plant catches it, not too hard.

I distinctly remember this one moment from my show where he says 'now I need a female volunteer', then he throws the disc and this lady catches it, but then he says 'no not you, give it to the lady next to you'! It was obvious that he wanted the plant to get the disc. I was just thinking 'wow, he's not even trying to hide it, so blatant and obvious, just straight up DGAF anymore'.

Btw in your show, did he 'choose' an audience member that was Asian and didn't speak English very well?

And to be fair, not all of his acts require the use of the plants. There could be real audience members legitimately chosen for a few of the acts.

I have a bit of interest in magic myself, not a hardcore fan but I do follow it here and there. I actually remember going to a DC show as a kid like 25 years ago in Costa Mesa. Don't have a through recollection of the show but it was definitely much more impressive than his current Vegas show. I remember one trick where he was flying in a big clear plastic box, that was pretty cool.

I haven't seen the Penn and Teller show yet but I have been to a taping of their TV show "Fool Us" which is filmed in the same theater. By all accounts, P&T is a good show, they seem to still be passionate about what they do. Btw P&T absolutely despise the use of plants in magic shows, they loathe and detest it, which is why they don't allow it on their TV show.

Perhaps you can also check out the Shim Lim show next time, he won America's Got Talent, and he's also been on "Fool Us":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E598_IU0lxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTJbWylt4-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAN-PwRfJcA

And this dude is pretty impressive too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbsm2rmg-IU

Thanks!

How was the action in the 2/4LHE game by the way? I played 4/8LHE a few times because it's actually my best game but I thought all 3 of the tables I sat at were tough, and quickly said "screw this" and went to O8!

OP, nice post.

Glad you enjoyed your trip. Tourism, not poker, drives the economy here.

Come back often.

For What Little It's Worth .........

I only have about 10 hours of 2/4 play at the Orleans so my observations may be suspect.

I'm not good enough to judge the quality of play (hence my preference for 2/4) but I suspect anybody with real talent is playing at the higher limits.

Pre-flop raises were at a minimum and six or more to the flop was not uncommon. The games seem to be geared to having a good time rather than making money. The best example for me was hitting my Queen high flush on the River with an unpaired board and only three of the suit showing. I bet and was NOT raised by an Ace high flush.

Again .... only 10 hours of play so don't take this as gospel.

Oh .... one more thing.

Had several times when the list was 12 or more and it would have been a couple of hours for a seat to open (after 45 minutes only one seat came open). Check Bravo.

I played at Orleans on both of my trips last year and echo the same sentiments. going for 2/4, long wait to be seated. the games were very social and friendly. I liked the dealers. drink service was very slow and sporadic. used my comps for a free lunch at (one of?) the Asian restaurants and it was good.

New chapter to the story. I will simply state facts as they happened and let everyone draw their own conclusions:

I've been attending Dallas Magic Club meetings lately. There's a member who is one of the best mentalists in town. I went and talked to him about David Copperfield, telling him that about 2/3 of his act was predictions. The guy was surprised - "He did MENTALISM? That's a surprise, because Copperfield was never known for mentalism." I told him about how he throws plastic discs into the crowd, and another guy who happened to be standing there came up and said, "Oh, yeah! I caught one of those discs a few years ago and got to go up on stage! I got to hold a podium while a car appeared above my head, he asked me what color my underwear was and how long it'd been since I'd had sex," (the mentalist laughed, interrupted him, and said, 'How long HAD it been?!?!?' and the guy said, 'about 8 years!' and the guy continued - by the way, all of those same things happened in the show I attended, as I'm sure he's been doing the same act forever.) "and I got to open that locked box, and it STUNK TO HIGH HELL of the FRESHEST, FRESHEST, FRESH MAGIC MARKER I've ever smelled!"

I told him I was really surprised to hear his stories because I'd read in so many reviews that David uses plants in all of his shows. The mentalist laughed and said, "HAHAHA you're a STOOGE aren't you Daniel???" I mentioned the thing about how reviews have shown it was one of four famous people every time. The guy said, "I'm sure he uses plants for SOME of his tricks, but not all of them."

We got interrupted before I was able to continue the conversation.

100% of all mentalists are trained in Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Speaking of Neuro Linguistic Programming, sometimes I've seen them hold trainings at the Palace Station. They're kind of a cult like Choice Center which Daniel Negreanu is a blind follower of.

As to the Orleans...they have the best tournaments in town with the lowest rakes and the best structures compared to others in town with similar buy ins. Many of their day tournaments have surpassed 80 entrants, even on the dullest weekday.

Awesome place.

Way late to this but thanks for posting. I'd love to make a trip back to Vegas that focused a lot on playing O8 as well.

Also late, also happy I found this TR. Tx op!

Oh, great. It is Mr. Orleans.

Are you a shill or a plant?

The Dallas Magic Club is having their monthly meetings on Zoom during the pandemic. This past Tuesday our guest was - you guessed it - David Copperfield. I couldn't believe it. The theme for the month was magic collecting. David joined our chat for about 20 minutes to talk about what he's been collecting. Apparently early in his career he was obsessed with the future, with taking magic in directions it'd never gone etc., and though he was insanely successful doing so, he never took the time to study the HISTORY of magic until later in his career. To make a long story short, he now owns half of Houdini's library.

Side note #1 - anyone remember Bozo's Circus? I watched that religiously as a kid - TV Pow!, Bucket #1, Bucket #2. Anyway, one of the other members of the DMC was personal friends with the actor who played Wizzo the Wizzard. He had a BUNCH of souvenirs from the show in his house including the cabinet they'd use to slice a girl into pieces and a bunch of signed posters.

Side note #2 - the next day I told my daughter's 21-year-old babysitter that I got to do a video call with David Copperfield and she said, "Oh cool! Who's that?"

I think a lot of people under 30 don’t really know him, he hasn’t been that present to the public eye after those false rape allegations. Last year ABCs 20/20 had an episode about Sigfried & Roy and my wife had no idea who they are.

FWIW, I went to David Copperfield shows twice, the first time in Frankfurt in the mid 90s and then again in LV maybe 10 years ago. Fell asleep pretty fast both times though.