Report of Treasure Island Las Vegas closing its poker room as of Tuesday, Aug 28th.

Author points out that TI is among a number of LV poker room closures that have occurred in recent years.

https://www.uspoker.com/blog/treasur...-closes/24509/

“Yes, TI is closing its poker room. The reason is because it is a small space, and is not competitive with larger poker rooms on the Strip." (statement from TI Treasure Island Casino provided within article)

That's a shame. They had a nice little $1/$3 game going there; but yeah, I rarely saw more than one cash table going at a time.

I racked up a few points there, maybe 25 hours or so, but I have no idea if they can be cashed outside of the poker room or not.

It was an odd room in an odd location.

Other than Ruffin liking poker, I'm surprised it stayed open this long

Also looks like paying customers to play promo doesnt work and only creates local nit fest tables. Promo could work if they spread a new , fun game variant, that Tourists liked AND wasn't avail anywhere else on strip.

Lots of easy examples that would better balance the local / tourist ratio

The 2/5 Trash Talk game that ran a few years back at Hard Rock comes to mind but there are dozens of other ones that would work as well.

RIP Poker dream of packing your bags and moving to Vegas to grind TI 60 hours a week

Consolidation continues. Its better for the game though, less rooms will just drive those players elsewhere. Get some larger rooms going then some real competition in player rewards could come about. Lots overhead to run rooms with 3-5 active tables at best.

100% agree

Meh. I stayed at TI last Vegas trip and couldn’t bring myself to play in their poker room. Much rather walk to Wynn/Venetian

I lived in Vegas from June 2016 to october 2016 and every week I told myself I would go do this. Not once did I, just grinded Aria and Bellagio. Sad to see them close tho I hate what's happening to poker. Breaks my heart.

Agreed. I stayed at TI two weeks last year and almost all my play was across the street at the Venetian. None was at TI.

[QUOTE=PTLou;54210595]It was an odd room in an odd location.

Other than Ruffin liking poker, I'm surprised it stayed open this long

Also looks like paying customers to play promo doesnt work and only creates local nit fest tables.

"Less promos are better." D. Negreanu

Two of my best friends were dealers there, so this kind of hurts.

I got to listen on a daily basis to the ineptness of this room since Isaac, the old manager, left. Both friends had some GREAT, and original ideas to help business that went completely ignored.

There was a lack of a dedicated poker room manager. The table games manager oversaw the room and knew absolutely nothing about poker. He knew so little about poker and refused to learn anything, that I am skeptical he knows anything about table games and probably has his job thru some kind of nepotism, or maybe he's there thru the Peter Principle. Totally feels like he sabotaged the room.

The "floors" they had, made inconsistent rulings between day and night shifts. Both were pussies and afraid to say anything to the so called manager about ways to improve the room. Afraid to be forceful and put their jobs on the line and now they don't have jobs, anyways.

Every time they changed their tournament buyins, the percentage of the buyin going to the prize pool shrunk. Their final tournaments were $45 buyins ($35+10) +$5 dealer addon, so 30% of the buyin effectively went to the house.

They never had the fortitude to get away from the pay for play program when they still had a chance. Waited until the Venetian started throwing up high hand and splash pot promos and coudn't compete anymore.

And as a final insult, they never gave away whatever remaining promo dollars they had remaining back to the players. I wouldn't be surprised if the table games manager doesn't even realize it's a gaming violation. Of course, it's possible, they may have been running at a deficit, and didn't have any remaining money.

Anyways, I had to vent a little. Both friends are out of work and it's not like they work for Mlife or Caesars so could get transferred to another room and it's the super slow season after the WSOP and school starting so nobody's hiring right now.

I told them this was coming, but one of em was like "nah, Ruffin loves poker, there'll always be poker at TI". Feels bad to be right, right now.

The person who oversaw the poker room was not the table games manager. He was the Director of Casino Marketing. It is true that he had no experience whatsoever with poker. He had never dealt poker or worked in a poker room in any capacity.

Not sure about the "inconsistent rulings." In all my time working there I hardly witnessed any rulings having to be made in the first place. It wasn't the type of room where the floor was often being called to make rulings. As for being afraid to say anything to the guy in charge about how to improve the room, how would they be "putting their jobs on the line" by offering suggestions?

This is true, but the new tournament structure was getting more players than the old $88 structure.

The money will be given away. The manager may be clueless about poker but he is aware of gaming regulations. Most poker rooms give the money back to the poker players before they close the room. I'm not sure what is going to happen here, if it's going to be given away as part of a generic casino promotion or what, but either way it sucks. The poker players put money into that, they should be the ones getting it back, not slot and table game players. Your speculation about the promo fund running at a deficit is wrong. I have seen the actual numbers.

Fortune, I appreciate the response and clarification of some of the details.

Having a hands off "Director of Casino Marketing" as poker room manager helped the room in no way shape or form. Forgive me if all I know about him is that he is so inept at poker, that it is hard for me to have any belief in him in other aspects of his job(s).

I may have been a little harsh on the "pussies" comment. If you think you or everyone there truly did all they could, then it's probably true.

Dealers were good. Not a lot of floor calls. Maybe I'm remembering more the way they were handled, the professionalism, the ability to not insult the players while explaining the call, than the actual calls themselves. There was a definite disparity between how day and night shift tourneys were run, and actually was a deciding factor in chasing me from the room.

I was trying to give the room an out by saying they were running promo money at a deficit and thus had no money to return to the players. Agreed it sucks that they will probably not be giving it back to poker players.

Maybe everything was inevitable, anyway, what with the Venetian doing promotions now. Seems like Harrahs and the Mirage are suffering somewhat as well.

If you were let go, good luck to you, hope you land on your feet quickly.

Thank you Mcbrag. The person in question was no doubt inept at poker, but probably through no fault of his own. I think the casino just didn't want to spend the money on a dedicated person so they just threw it in his lap. It's definitely a recipe for disaster not having a true poker person be in charge of your room.

I was told in 2007 the only reason why a lot of hotels in Vegas opened small poker rooms was to get guests to book hotel rooms. Because poker was so popular it was like a loss leader. TI was a perfect example of this.

I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I stayed and played in the TI room last summer, only a few sessions but there was plenty of value to be had in the games. The hotel is ok, good value and good location for Wynn and Venetian and i really liked the vibe at the pool

1 of the most funniest things that i ever saw at the table happened at the TI room

im sat in a game, a new player comes rolling past on one of those hover board things and finds a seat. he immediately gets involved with me first hand, and check raises all in when i have top two pair, he has 2 random cards, with no draw or pair. i stack him, and he instantly gets up and rides out on his hover board never to be seen again!


also, one guy know to all the locals called "Joe" sat in a game and donated $3k+ in a matter of hours, i was told by the dealers hes a regular and does it all the time, the weird thing was the other locals didn't want him at the table which shocked me as he was massive massive value just giving money away.

^^

maybe they didnt want him in game because they are likely bunch of nits, and knew with "joe" they would usually to play hands with him for full stacks.