Hello MTTC,

Thinking about going to Vegas in 2009 around june. I'm curious how high my expenses would run... I'm currently broke (21yr old student ) but my vision of a trip to Vegas would include a 1500$ WSOP event coupled with some lower buy-in events at other places. I figure a ticket would be ~$1000 from Amsterdam NLD. How much should I estimate the total tripcost to be? around $5k, including ~10 day hotel and spending money? I'm not the highroller, bigspender, baller-type-of-guy, but I don't want to be a cheap guy, so I'm guessing $5k is too low of an estimate..

If anyone would advice against me going to Vegas, please don't hesitate to say so.

I'd really like to know about your experiences. Your (first) Vegas trip, how much you spent, what tournaments (cashgames) you played and what your experiences were. The Do's and don't's and any other piece of advice is well appreciated.

I'm particularly interested in people in the same situation I'm in (broke students). What kind of tournaments did you play and how did you like them?(That's why I posted in MTT - delete if inappropriate..)

ty

So you're broke and planning on spending $5k on a trip in 9 months?

thats pretty much the idea, yes

Lets do the math:
1k for plane ticket
1.5k for wsop entry
750 for 10 mights hotel. This is at a 2 star, and I don't even know if you can get a $75 average with weekend nights.
250 for food. I would spend closer to 500, but a broke student might be able to get by on $25 a day.
??? clubbing/drinking/misc purchases/pit gambling

You have at most 1.5k left for other poker. You can afford a few small stakes cash sessions and a few small wsop sats or small buy-in tourneys. I think they run like $70, $140, $280 stt sats, but i'm not sure. Hopefully you run good.

My last trip I went by myself for 3 days during the week just to play poker. and stayed at MGM for about $100/night. I am not a baller so I spent most of the trip playing in both the morning and evening mgm mtt's ($100 and $80 buy-ins), and a few 1/2 nl sessions. The tourney structures suck but that is off-set by the fact that the competition sucks even worse. I ran good and paid for the trip +1k. Watch the tourney director there though. He will include dealer tips in the final table chops without telling anyone. He did it to us and I kind of called him out on it, but let it go since I didn't want to be the douche.

I think MGM, Ceaser's, and Orleans have decent small stakes daily tourneys, not sure how the wsop affects them.

you forgot money allotted for strippers, and outlandish amounts of alcohol

pretty much did what u want to do this past summer op. except i was there for ~ a month.

took 20k down with me and stayed with a buddy at planet hollywood/venetian for the poker rate which came out to about $70 per night per person, about $120 a night per person for weekends. try to figure out where u will be playing most and get a room there or nearby as cab fees can and will pile up quick unless ur a fan of walking around in 40 degree heat.

played one 1500 event and found it to be a complete waste of money and incredibly crapshooty as u only start with 60bbs (obv i knew this going in). if ur only taking 5k save ur money and play some smaller tournies with better structures. rest of the time i played a bunch of the venetian deepstack tournaments (brag: took one down for ~42k) or cash games at venetian or rio. i didnt play at bellagio because their poker room blows and the staff are even worse unless u tip them and/or are well known.

btw, towards the end of my trip i was dying to get out of town...that lifestyle is not for everyone and it can ware u down fast. 2 weeks would probably be the maximum amount of time id stay there in the future.

Lol. You europeans and your crazy systems of measurement.

Crazy Euro: "Jolly well ole chap, if you want to get your knickers cleaned you'll have to walk 3 kilometers that way."

Sane American: "I mean honestly what kind of mythical distance is a kilometer"

CE: "It's approximately 100 unicorn trots at medium pace of course, now where's my tea and crumpets"

Just ignore me, sleep deprevation is getting to me.

Other than celsius, the rest of the world is on to something...

Tho I guess I can actually kind of "get" celsius too, so really Americans are just ******ed in every way...

Unless you're hell bent for Vegas, I would consider going to Atlantic City. It's definitely going to be a lot cheaper to stay there and you won't be as tempted to blow money on strippers and such. You can stay at the Ascot (right next to the trop) and they'll give you a deal if you stay 10 days. It's cheap living and by no means anything nice, but it's CHEAP. 10 days probably like $350. Food in AC is definitley cheaper than Vegas if you know where to go....

Main thing - if you're trying to simply play poker and have an OK time, go to AC. If you're trying to live the vegas dream for 10 days, go to vegas and expect to blow through at least 8-10k.

oh man dont tell someone coming all the way to the us from europe to go to AC. that's just mean

AC isn't bad, i mean if you're in the casino/resort the whole time it's nice enough, the trump marina is really nice and away from all the ghetto shyt. Hilton is right on the beach, good enough for me, though i can't play live, i still like going with my family sometimes.

then again i live an hour away

HAHA it depends on what they're looking for. Sounds to me he's as broke as I am trying to play some poker. AC is definitely going to be a cheaper way to do it than Vegas... don't you agree?

Aside from the fact that AC in general is a gross *****hole, the casinos are pretty nice and the beach, well, it's the beach.

No, I'm definitely going to live the Vegas dream, but I guess if I'm wise, I'll wait one more year.