The lists can be pretty brutal for some games. What I have normally done, is to call ahead and put your name on the list. You headover and check-in, go for lunch or a snack and then hopefully you are close to the top. I also think it's best to be flexible and put your name on a few different games.

Also, looking on Bravo to see what the situation is in terms of number of tables and the list for that game. 3 tables with a 55 person waitlist is a no go, 10 tables with a 55 person waitlist can go pretty fast.

Yes, this is key for getting into a cash game. If there are a good number of tables for the game you want, the long list can go surprisingly quickly. Especially in the evening, when many of these rooms are breaking tournament tables and turning them over to cash games. A lot of people at or near the top of the list will have bailed. so when they open a new table they may end up getting down to 16th or lower on the list before it's filled.

Thanks for this info to 2 replies. I’m at airport in ny now and got a relay so will prolly miss my connecting flight. Kinda bummed bc I really wanted to fire last flight of $1600-2mill at Wynn. Guess we will have to try super hard at wsop shootout Friday haha!

Some poker rooms quit answering the phone during WSOP.

Wynn in the past only allowed sign up in person. That may have changed with their migration to PokerAtlas.

If OP hasn’t already, get Bravo and PokerAtlas apps to see what lists are like, sign up on app and poker room phone/rules for signup.

Be warned - some rooms only show the list of folks in room and checked in, not call ins. Aria wa stray way last year

Very long alternate waits at Wynn and Aria today for their events

Playing the Resorts World nightly right now.

Pros:
Comfortable chairs
9 handed
Good dealers
GOD AWFUL players

Cons:
Colors of chips too close together, and too close to some felt areas
Table surface insanely busy, hard to distinguish chips and cards
Late reg open til 11:30 for a 7pm nightly, too long

I really like that room, and I can confirm the field in their tournaments is super soft. How did you finish? If you were there until the end, how late did it run? I'm considering playing it if I have an early bust from the Monster Stack this weekend, but if it's likely to run past 1:30 AM or so I'd probably only consider it for the last night of my trip.

Played the $150 Green Chip Bounty last night at GN......

I was freerolling from a cash game and totally intended on playing fast and loose from the first hand.

Starting stack 12k, blinds 20 min
Hand 1: QJo raised 1 limper, heads up on a AJTr flop, cbet, call, turn 9o, check/check, river 7, bet/call, V turns over A9

Hand 2: 74hh called 3x raise pre, 3 ways, A48r, turn Th bringing backdoor, river blank fold.

Hand 3 (same player as hand 2): Q3 bb option checked, flop Q98dd, check jam 10bbs, OMR reships over me, turns over K3cc......lol turn K.

Better value for $50 down the road at RW, no brainer.

Ended up 6th. Structure was really good for a nightly, maybe a bit too good if you want to play the next morning haha. I busted at 3:09am. Avg stack was still over 20 bigs. They said it usually goes until 4-5am.

There were 87 runners, paid 9, $4590 up top.

Congrats on the cash. Yeah, I 'll definitely save that for my last night though.

Oh yeah, you missed one other con for RW, it's the one that bugs me the most: they use different size chips for their tournament. The 5k chip is bigger than the smaller denominations. I suppose it saves the dealers from constantly having to ask the newbies to keep those chips on top or in front, as you can't hide them in a stack of smaller chips, but I really prefer all my chips to be the same size.

Thx! And I actually didn't hate that, esp since they were close in color to the 500. Def felt weird stacking bets with varied sizes though.

Can anyone tell me approximately what time the Venetian 1-Day events are finishing?

I might be wrong but I assume 1-2 am? I would look at the structure and guess how many players there will be (look at recent Hendon mob). Would then figure out chips in play and maybe maybe divide by 3 players- say 10 mill in chips. 3.33 mill would then divide that by 20 to figure out level where 3 are left- if you aren’t anti chopping: most of the time folks will chop if you ask I feel. Not all but I’m sure most folks would take a icm deal if you get them some extra dollars on top of what the value is. Sure some people don’t chop but most folks seem ok I feel

Finishing up my first trip to play a few tournaments, thought I'd share my experience.
Fri 6-14 WSOP Monster Stack A - bagged, woohoo! 2 days to play elsewhere before Dat 2

Sat 6-15 MGM Grand Stack $400 $40k guarantee
Thus was my first time playing here. The tournament area was freezing, there's a low ceiling over 2/3 of the tables so the AC vents are too close. If you're in the outer row it's 5 degrees warmer but still cool. The field was pretty soft, I found it very easy to spot the few strong players and lots of players fit into profiles I'm used to from my local card room. Dealers were a mixed bag, as we clearly had a mix of their regular dealers and some temps. Chairs not comfortable at all, really wish I had a seat cushion, which I don't nor.mally use. They only got 94 entries (far fewer players as there were plenty of reentries) and they ended up with an $8900 overlay. Just over $12k up top. I ended up finishing 10th for $1150. Should have been more but AQs cracked by A8o. Not sure hiw late it went, the final table started just before 8pm. Overall good value low-cost tournament with a very good structure.

Sun 6-16 Wynn $1,100 $250k guarantee
My first time playing the Wynn. Nice tournament area, pretty good dealers, I found it very comfortable. Large field, I think they topped 400 entries. Decent structure, though they skip the 300-500 level. Stronger players overall than MGM or low-buyin WSOP events. Had a hot start but ran into a massive cooler and lost half my stack and it was downhill from there. Made it about halfway through the field. Not sure I'll play much more at Wynn as I prefer the structures at Venetian for a similar price point.

Mon 7-17 WSOP Monster Stack Day 2
Spun up a 22bb stack and made the money, then busted when my aces were cracked by queens. Ah well, got it in good.

Good trip, can't complain about cashing 2 out of 3 tourneys even if I did bust each if them with 75%+ odds. Already looking forward to coming back for the Mini Main and likely one other tournament.

Low turnout at MGM? Can't say I'm surprised. The vibe I get from MGM's engagement with tournament poker is that they do the absolute bare minimum. For example, it's June 18th and right now they haven't posted ANY results of their summer series (which started May 28th) to Hendon Mob.

https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/fes...hp?a=r&n=54065

Does this actually matter? No, but it just reeks of laziness. If you don't care about your own series, how do you expect anyone else to care? Their social engagement also seems to lag behind the likes of Wynn and Venetian, who are good about posting results, winner pics, etc.

Can't put forth minimal effort and expect to draw traffic from other rooms in the peak poker season.

Yeah a couple of the players there made similar comments about MGM. It's too bad, because they have plenty of space and there's nothing else poker-wise at the south end of the strip. One of the reasons I chose it was that it was an easy monorail trip to and from Horseshoe, so I didn't need to muck with an Uber (Nugget, Orleans, Wynn) or have to walk too far in the heat (Aria or Wynn). They should be capitalizing on that accessibility for WSOP players.

Nice. I was on the fence about MGM but if they’re having soft fields with low turnout, I’ll gladly play there!

Is Venetian new poker room opened? How are MTTs at Venetian this year?

They aren't opening the new room until after the summer series.

I played an event there around Memorial Day weekend. Same experience as a typical Venetian tournament.

Just fyi you dont need to walk in the heat much from Aria to the Shoe. The Vdara/Bellagio connector is air conditioned. You will be outside for 90 seconds on the front end to Vdara and 3 minutes across the pedestrian bridge through the bazaar on the back end. Although this is the most tilting ****ing sight in the world and says everything you need to know about how inept Caesars is:

I'd forgotten about that connector. Kind of a circuitous route from the poker room but yeah, it beats the heat.

Yeah, pretty sad. Pro tip: if you go around the side of the escalator there's a path so you can stay at ground level and walk through the valet area instead of over it.

Yeah but then you are dodging cabs and ubers

CET escalators are always busted. The one to the Paris parking garage, the one to the Horseshoe basement, various ones in the Rio. And yet I don't think I've ever seen the Orleans one to the movie theaters broken.

It’s faster, and not significantly longer in the heat to circumvent going up and down escalators by just going around them, and across the Horseshoe main entrance/valet area.

And a better question for CET is, why do they tolerate having more than half of their HS elevators not functioning at any given time when they know there will be hundreds of people looking to go up and down at set times each day. The elevators at HS have always sucked. But you’d think they would at least look like they’re trying. But in typical CET fashion, they have a captive audience (literally when it comes to the elevators), and it’s clear CET doesn’t give af.