I'm looking for passive $1-$2 NL in Las Vegas. Played a few times at Harrah's, and that's the type of players/game I'm looking for: Older + limpers. Not looking to play with headphone wearing know-it-alls.

Interested in the following rooms if you have any knowledge of them:

Bally's
Venetian
Caesars
Flamingo

And any others you can recommend.

I was so comfortable playing limit, but the lack of games is just forcing me to move on. I'm okay with that, and I've already ordered and today received Ed Miller's: The Course.

How long does it take to get comfortable? I've been having some nice wins, but after a couple of hours I run, when I used to play eight hours of limit. I guess it just takes time.

But is there some kind of time frame I should strive for? I'm looking to make a few hundred a month and I have all the time in the world to play.

Thanks!

Does it have to be on the strip?

Hit up the smaller "uncool" rooms like TI, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay, Mirage, Stratosphere, The MGM gets a lot of casual traffic.

Downtown has Binions and The Nugget

Off Strip, you have the Rio (now that it is post WSOP), Orleans, The Westgate (the old Hilton), Lucky Sevens, South Point near Henderson.

Now that allvegaspoker is down. It seems pokeratlas.com is it.

and bravopokerlive.com

Grind the weekly flamingo 13 hour promo. You qualify for friday freeroll tourney where top 10 get $300 next 10 $200 or something like that. Usually gets 100 runners or less and 13 hours is no problem in a week. Also the promo grinders are passive limping nits.

Flamingo is good. All the local casinos have limit games and Golden Nugget is good.

That is rough.

That's because a bad NL player only lasts 20-30 minutes at the table and then he's gone. Play 3 hours and only 2 or 3 of the people that were there when you sat down are still there. There are also lots of hit and run artists in NL. Win a big pot and they're out the door.

If you were good at LHE and not looking to get rich, why change? Lots of 3/6 and 4/8 around, even 8/16 at Orleans. Even at Flamingo 2/4 I wouldn't be shocked if a good player could win 2 or 3 big bets an hour.

Thanks everyone for recommendations.

Regarding Ed Miller's book "The Course". I found that it had some good tips but I am not sure:

• How much experience he actually had in the 1-2 or 1-3 games. He talks a good game but how real is it? How current is it?
• If his advice really is correct, then it appears to me it requires a lot more skill than I have.

Do any of you have other thoughts/suggestions on The Course?

so basically it's worth 4 dollars an hour (less per hour)if you play more than 13 hours and then you have to waste time playing a freeroll donkament to get that 4 dollars an hour? sounds great.

Time-based promo rooms are like waiting for death. Think TI but only 90% as bad. The worst one I can think of is at Bally's. For X number of hours of play you get a free mediocre Paris buffet. Of course, they jack up the promo drop enough that a free buffet costs you about $28 in promo drop.

I play mostly small stakes no limit because that's where the action is these days, but like you I prefer a good limit game. I'm competent at NL, but very experienced at limit which gives me a bigger comparative advantage over the average player. Unless I run very good in an exceptionally weak NL game, I can usually make as much or more money playing limit, with considerably less risk.

I suggest playing at The Orleans, my favorite poker room in Las Vegas. You will have a Holdem choice of 1/3 No Limit, 4/8 Limit w 1/2 kill, 8-16 Limit w 1/2 kill, plus 4/8 & 8/16 Omaha hi-lo (both 1/2 kill) almost all the time.

If the 1/3 games are good, with several weak players playing loose passive and paying off big hands, stay in no limit. If it seems like almost everybody knows each other and plays reasonably well, then switch to an easier, more manageable limit game.

Low stakes players have options at The Orleans that aren't consistently available at any other poker room in Vegas. It's worth leaving The Strip, and you can get a free shuttle ride. Better yet, save money and stay at The Orleans, as long as your priority is a good poker opportunity, and you aren't looking for high-end glitz and fancy ****.

unfortunately if you're a woman someone will always be trying to tell you how to play poker

Don’t play lower than 8-16 limit if you’re trying to make money. 4-8 limit and below are fine if you just want to socialize or relax and don’t mind playing in a game that might be unbeatable. Rake is higher than ever and those games were hard enough when the rake used to be lower.

I made the mistake of playing too much 4-8 (and that was when the rake was lower) and I don’t miss it at all.

+1. I know we are going to hear about Nits/Locals/OMC, but I wonder how many of them have actually played there more than once or twice. Or maybe aren't as good as they think they are.

Harrahs now has a similar free roll to Flamingos.

Do both.

The truth is NL isn’t a passive game and trying to find one can be tough.

Learn to not open limp. Learn when to call a raise and when to 3 bet and when to fold.

Use their aggression against them.

You can always play limit at Mirage and the Orleans as well as Flamingo.


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why not just stick with limit? the bellagio has some higher limit games if thats your thing.

whats the rule of thumb? the 40/80 game is equivalent to a 2/5 game in skill level, so i'd imagine you could play the 9/18 or the 20/40?

I can't speak about the Course but I'm currently in the process of reading Miller's Professional no limit holdem volume 1 and the 1%.
This is a leak of mine, I'll skip from one book to the other and at the end of the day, I haven't learned anything, anyway.

I have asked my self the same question, how much experience does Miller actually have i these games himself.
I did hear him say in an interview that he only played professionally for about 2 years before he decided, according to him, that he wasn't made out for the poker lifestyle and turned to writing.
But, I will say this about his books. It seems to me, they have all the relevant, winning strategys, and he does a good job of explaining them.

Weather he knows all this stuff on his own or he picks it up from collaborators, probably the second, I find these books I'm currently reading very informative. Especially the 1%. It is not only useful but eye opening. Helped me make sense of a lot of things. In short, his books are must reads.

What is the 1% (Ed Miller's book) about?

Well, like I already stated, I'm going back and forth and haven't read the whole book yet. Also, I don't know how much info I can divulge but here is the basics of it so far.
More or less, it's about betting and calling frequencies, so far.
It basically made me personally realize,
I'm folding too much,
I'm probably check raising in situations when I should be check calling.
We should be more sticky, play more fishy but with a tight pre flop range, not like a loose pre flop maniac.

I think that's all I can really share. like all poker strategy's, we each
have to use our own common sense in how exactly to implement each strategy. There are old man coffees where I play that I know 100%, when they donk bet into me, they have a very strong hand and I can easily fold, where with other players, I have an easy call. So far, the book hasn't differentiated similar scenario.
AT the end of the day, poker will always be a people game.

Thank you.

Almost any 1-2 game is passive.
Venetian probably has the most action.

Ed millers course is pretty good and spot on for low limit games. His 2/5 section and higher in my opinion wasn't the greatest. I would suggest some online training - which is considerably more expensive.

But if all you're interested in is 1/2 and low limits than ed millers book is spot on.

There are already a few good posts in here detailing what you asked, but I'll just add that on any given day or night, any 1/2 game in Las Vegas can be full of weak passive fun playing types.

At the same time, any 1/2 game can be full of headphone *******s who are there that day for whatever reason.

Typically, avoiding the bigger and nicer rooms will tend to be better to start out feeling more comfortable and less overwhelming. Some of my favorite spots that fit what you are looking for are Flamingo, Ballys, Sante Fe Station, and especially Excalibur if you want to time warp back into games where nightly there will be players who have never played NL poker live in a casino before.

Sure, as with all rooms, any given day can yield very different types of games, so don't be surprised to show up to a small room and sit in a 'terrible game'. (Backpacks, headphones, fish beraters, try hards where there are more 3bets in 2 hours than you might see in an entire month of play at 1/2, etc). It's just that, on the whole, you find a lot less of that in the smaller rooms.

Orleans for NL is nice because when the bad beat jackpot gets big, the games are full of weak passive type play to try to hit the jackpot. Outside of that, I pretty much avoid grump central. The freeroll rooms like Flamingo, Ballys, Harrahs can all have some fall asleep games almost on the regular. So if you just want to build up some hours of getting comfortable with the play and pace of NL compared to LHE, those are solid ideas. When Venetian does its daily high hand promo, another great time to find the weak passive play in 1/2. I think the next one isn't until October tho.

Full disclosure, I have played probably 3000 hours of LHE in Arizona and Vegas combined over the last decade, and I have probably about 5000 hours of live 1/2 and 1/3 in Las Vegas (and 2/3 spread limit Arizona) in the last 10 years, so I've seen it all. I have several of the early years of my live poker that I never actually tracked or journaled anything, so those numbers could even be much higher tbh.

Another caveat to 1/2, is time of day. The later the hours of the day/night, the more action games exist, and less of the weak passive type games they will be. These will be the higher income earning sort of game you want to work your way into playing more often than not, but they will be very different from the daytime nit limp small pot games you might be more looking for to tune up your NL play. I would say work your way into them as you feel more comfortable, and if/when you can withstand some bigger swings in your bankroll.

Best of luck on your adventure!

the Orleans is the best place to play limit in Vegas.
off the strip but a solid room.
I usually grind the Orleans during the day and check Bravo for whats happening at Bellagio.
the 4/8 and 9/18 games there can get very juicy.