2024 Las Vegas Summer Series - non-WSOP

If they're getting big overlays, how long before they pull the guarantees like Orleans did a few years ago?

For the Wynn one day tournaments ($1100 $250K gtd), does anyone know if you can register the night before, to avoid lines/alternate lists?

Not sure how early registration opens, but from my experience playing last Sunday's $1100 tournament, you shouldn't worry about it. They started with 4-5 players per table and the seats didn't fill in for at least 45-60 minutes, and they opened new tables over the first few hours. There weren't alternates until later on as we go to the late registration deadline. It seems a lot of players showed up late for this tournament, but everyone who was there before or right after noon was in with no problem.

Great, thank you!

Laziness is common [for the most part] in the casino industry, and the service sector at large. Those aren't exactly industries that attract highly ambitious individuals; and I can't blame the labor as the pay is generally low. Folks want to show up, do their job, and forget about work when they get off their shift. There isn't much career progression; why should anyone care about improving processes, work efficiency, and customer satisfaction? Try working in that sector of the economy and you can experience all the things I just listed.

I agree with the all-too-common, poor choice of poker chip color schemes, especially for tournament chips. Why not use highly varied colors that don't look similar in certain lighting conditions? Colors should be bright and from each primary color. Bright greens, pinks, yellows, blues, and black. Pastel colors are poor as they don't pop enough.

I think it's deliberate, to save electricity, having only 2 or 3 operational elevators.

Maybe so. But it’s a hazard and a major PIA. And since when is anything in Vegas interested in saving electricity?

Some bean counter probably figured out they could shut down some elevators certain hours and save money.

Just back from a long weekend in LV. A quick report on waits to reg etc

Played the $600 o8/s8 last Thursday at Orleans. Arrived 30 minutes early. Very short line to reg. Tournament wound up drawing around 240 including around 50 alternates (if memory serves). Alas, I busted just before dinner.

Played the $800 o8/s8 Saturday at Aria. Arrived 10 minutes late. No line (though you had to reg in the sportsbook down the hall).. They drew similar numbers. Again I made it to around the dinner break.

Both tourneys well run, though dealers were better on average at Aria (obviously harder to find good mixed games dealer in general).

AA

I’m thinking it’s more likely due to maintenance and trying to keep all the evidence on the same usage schedule. But they should make an exception for the WSOP timeframe. At least during the mega field events.

Playing in the 40k at MGM and pretty light turnout for now.

This is my first time at this place and I’m not impressed. The casino as a whole seems pretty dated looking to me. Poker area seems mediocre at best and akin to a local place rather than a premier casino on the strip.

I don’t know, maybe I came in with too high of expectations.

I officially hate it here at MGM. It’s way too loud, the machines are loud, the other players are loud, the TD making random announcements is loud, and my dealer is quiet. People are raising and I can’t hear what the dealer is saying. This place is ridiculous.

They still haven't posted any results to Hendon Mob.

I know this seems like a nitpicky and lame thing to harp on, but players DO care about that.

No results in a full month reeks of low effort.

You would never catch Wynn, Venetian, or WSOP sleeping like this.

I ended up cashing a little over min in the 40k but I’ll still never go back there. They’re incredibly unprofessional.

I even heard the TDs talking to each other about how it’s a recreational room and tournaments aren’t serious there. Which may be true but THEY should still try to act professional.

They were all MIA when we were one knockout away from being hand for hand. Absolutely no floor there whatsoever. I had to go track them down to tell them they need to be there for hand for hand.

They had forgotten to give late registrants their chips and whenever someone would late reg, they would ask if they were sitting “regular or in the 20s?” which prompted puzzled looks by literally every person they asked this same horribly vague question to yet they didn’t clarify that they were actually asking what table they were assigned to. They seem to have their own lingo and expect everyone else to know it.

Ugh, such a horrible experience. Soft field, though.

Yikes. I'm glad I dodged the venue this summer.

There were some events that looked promising on paper, but the operation seems lackluster and there's no shortage of competition.

I think any venue which wants to hold a series during the summer falls into one of two categories… competing for scraps or trying to build/maintain a brand. I’m pretty sure MGM fits into the former category, and mostly likely holds this series as a pure cash grab. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this series represents a significant up-tick in their poker revenue. So I’m sure most people
in their operations, especially the higher-ups who tend to take a dim view of poker in general, are perfectly happy to put up a shabby product that will make for the best poker month they have all year.

I dunno. The day I played their $40k guarantee they only had 94 entries. That's not the typical "shoot we only made 12% instead of the 17.5% we were hoping for" overlay, they actually lost $2,400 for that tournament. Maybe that was an aberration and they usually hit their guarantees, but based on my experience and the comments here, maybe not.

They still make the 17.5%. The overlay money comes from the promo fund.

Promo fund? As in a PSJ? If that's the case it seems pretty crappy for their cash games to be raking pots for a promo fund that is then used to pay tournament players instead of funding high hand bonuses. Or is there some separate promotional marketing fund you're talking about?

No. They had 94 entries at $400 apiece, taking in $37,600, and paid out $40,000 in prizes, losing $2,400 not considering staffing/overhead/etc.

So they didn’t take a rake in this tournament? I guess people got what they paid for. 😆

Yeah, I heard they had an overlay and I’m guessing it was just a week where maybe WSOP didn’t have a lot of lower buyin events happening. I think MGM goes for the scraps, as mentioned, and caters to the low buyin crowd.

When I played a couple nights ago, it was the week when WSOP had two different $600 deepstack events. MGM needed 100 entries for the 40k guarantee and ended up with 183 when all was said and done.

I think that's the likely explanation. It was the same day as Flight B of the $1,500 Monster Stack. So yeah, may not have been as many low-buy-in players in town that weekend. Plus Orleans had a $300 monster stack that day and Golden Nugget had the final flights of their $300,000 mystery bounty tournament for $350. Plenty of competition for a smaller audience that day. In other words, poor planning on MGM's part, as they should have seen that coming and done something different that day, or at least had a lower guarantee.

As for whether they made money, thanks to Black Aces for pointing out the basic math. Whether they robbed some other fund to cover their shortfall or just took the loss, this tournament was clearly a big loser for them that day. Sounds like it may have been an aberration, but I still question whether MGM will be a viable venue for a summer series in the long run. Sounds like at least a few of us aren't likely to be back.