My adventures at Sam's Town, Boulder Station & Santa Fe Station:
These are all locals casinos, away from the Strip. Why would I play out there? one word......BINGO. That's what my wife likes to play so......you get the idea.
Sam's Town is owned by the Boyd Group/Coast Casinos. It was one of the first casinos I played Poker in when my wife & I started going to Vegas regularly over 20 years ago. It had a very western theme back then, and a very active poker room. It has gone through multiple expansions and modernizations (toning it done quite a bit) and the poker room has moved around, but has not been modernized that much.
It has about 10 poker tables. On Sunday Night they had 1 cash table ( 3/6 Holdem, Kill) and had 2 tables playing a tournament. It was too late to register and I wouldn't have played. It was CRAZY PINEAPPLE. I watched for a few minutes and it was nuts.
They have no signup board (or tournament clock that I could see) & the cash table was full. So I walked to the podium and asked how long the wait list was and was asked how many chips I wanted. I asked again about the wait list and was told there would be an open seat for me in just a moment. ( I figured a player may have been racking their chips to leave that I didn't realize) what happened was the floor yelled out Dan and raised his arm up. "Dan" almost immediately stood up and racked his chips and the floor said "There is your seat sir." It seemed to be a fairly tight table, so when a kill pot came, and I had K Q suited in position, I raised and all but 1 folded. Flop was rag, rag, Q so I bet out and got a call, Turn was K, bet & call. River was A, I'm confident, bet again and call. My 2 pair were beaten by his better 2 pair, A-K.
Down $42.00 one hand. I was astounded at no point was there a raise or value bet. But chalked it up to ..???.whatever.
Then as someone busted out of the tournament, they said "get ready Bill" and went up to the podium to buy chips and the Floor yelled "Bill" and motioned up with his hand. "Bill", was the player who so passively played A-K, almost immediately racked his chips and stood up. I played another 30 minutes till wife's bingo session was over and cashed out down $50.00. I heard from one of the players next to me that Sam's Town uses Prop players to get games started and keep them going. Their prop players are not supposed to act or bet overly aggressive (I guess they consider raising with the nuts to be aggressive) toward the guests.
I heard that they have a Monday evening NL Crazy pineapple tournament as well, but that sure didn't interest me, Nor the $23.00 Buy-in at 10:00 A.M. which they proudly mentioned had been ALMOST filling a full table last week.
I wouldn't make a special trip to Sam's Town and in fact the next time wife played there, I scored Extra Points for playing Bingo WITH her in the Bingo room instead of in the Poker room !
The trip to Boulder Station, which is also on the east side, on Boulder Highway, about 5 miles from the Strip was a Push. Again they have a Bingo Hall which is why we were there. They have a room with about 10 tables and all were full and active, they had several NL, Limit & Omaha games going. There is an electronic waitlist system to sign up by swiping a players card and I signed up for several games. By the time the Bingo session ended, I had moved up a few places, but was not even close to getting a seat, so we went to eat and moved onto greener pastures.
I've played this room before, at a less crowded time. It is a smoking room, which can be bothersome but they do have some nice high hand bonus and the Stations Casinos Bad Beat Jackpot, as well as a lot of Omaha.
Wednesday was time for a visit to Santa Fe Station. Another Stations Casino, It is on the North side of the Valley, about 10 minutes from Downtown. They have recently expanded/remodled the entire Casino, along with the Poker room. They have about 10-12 tables, lots of flat screen tvs, comfy adjustable rolling chairs. I would say it is a close second to Red Rock as the nicest Stations Poker room
They have a Noon NLHE tournament that plays almost exactly like the one at the now closed Sahara, which I used to love (and do well in) A $50.00 buyin gets you 6000 chips and the $20.00 rebuy gets you 4000 chips. I believe most pros will tell you to (,& I always) utilize the rebuy as soon as I sit down. Thus your $70.00 buyin gives you 10,000 chips and you can play this tournament like a deep stack (Turbo). I was the only one to immediately use the rebuy at my table and I didn't see anyone else at other tables rebuy early either.
The tournament also allows re-entry for the first hour, after using the rebuy. Anyone familiar with the Sahara Tournament will recognize this pattern.
I didn't have any outstanding hands or any bad beats, just played what I think was solid deepstack poker for 2 hours and ended up at the final table with a pretty good chip stack.
All of the Station Casino poker rooms have a progressive bad beat jackpot and a royal flush bonus for cash games. BUT, This is the first (and only) tournament I have seen that has a Tournament bad beat jackpot. It was $28,000 for Aces full being beaten by quads. There is also a tournament high hand payment for straight flushes and royals. Truly a unique promotion by Santa Fe. You also earn poker comps while playing the tournament. They have the Bravo electronic tracking system and you earn $1.00 per hour on cash and tournament tables here.
Once to the final table, it became apparent that the remaining players where pretty good & pretty regular. The dealer will know your name by the bravo system, but all of the other players seemed to know each other as well. As with most Vegas tournaments, the blinds start to increase painfully after the 2nd break. Even an average chip stack at that point only has about 10 big blinds. So I felt obligated to push with 7's against an A-Q that hit the Q, then the A just to rub it in. Ended up 4th for $290.00 !!!!
I liked the Santa Fe (Cash win aside)as it was a well run room, & tournament. And the "feast" buffet was decent and a bargain since we used the comp money off the card !
Next: Getting closer to the Strip: The Orleans & Hard Rock
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