Vegas Poker
I haven't played any live poker in many years but decided recently that I have one night a week available and have nothing to do. I think I would like to play some small weekly tournaments to kill some time.
From what I have read online most of the smaller tournaments now have a huge vig. Any recommendations? I think I will be trying the Southpoint $100 one tonight.
Quote: strictlyAPbetter off grinding 1-2
Yeah, I was thinking that too. Why not just play cash games? It's easier to fit into your schedule and you don't have the ridiculously high entry fees.
The go to website concerning Vegas poker.
By the way its really a 110 buy in, 10 buck add on for the dealers and get a bunch more chips.
dont listen to strictlyap, play what you want.
I play both cash and tournament, both have positives and negatives and both require different strategy.
If you get bounced out of a tourney early, play cash.
Quote: terapinedhttp://www.pokeratlas.com/poker-room-reviews/las-vegas-nevada
The go to website concerning Vegas poker.
By the way its really a 110 buy in, 10 buck add on for the dealers and get a bunch more chips.
dont listen to strictlyap, play what you want.
I play both cash and tournament, both have positives and negatives and both require different strategy.
If you get bounced out of a tourney early, play cash.
So you pay $110 and $20 goes to the house / dealers?
I guess if you just want to play for fun, it's fine. But you are not beating a 22% vig, no matter how good you are.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceSo you pay $110 and $20 goes to the house / dealers?
I guess if you just want to play for fun, it's fine. But you are not beating a 22% vig, no matter how good you are.
90 dollar entry fee plus 10 dollar rake gets you 7500 chips
optional 10 fee goes to dealers, get 2500 additional chips.
Its great value, everybody does it.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceSo you pay $110 and $20 goes to the house / dealers?
I guess if you just want to play for fun, it's fine. But you are not beating a 22% vig, no matter how good you are.
$20 out of $110 is not a high amount removed for house/dealers. It's actually a pretty low percent. 20-25% is pretty standard.
Also, $20 out of $110 is not 22% either. It's 18%
ZCore13
Quote: Zcore13$20 out of $110 is not a high amount removed for house/dealers. It's actually a pretty low percent. 20-25% is pretty standard.
Also, $20 out of $110 is not 22% either. It's 18%
ZCore13
$20 out of $90 is 22%.
As in, you are making a $90 bet and paying a $20 commission up-front, win or lose. That is 22% vig. Just like when you make a sports bet at -110 you are making a $100 bet and paying $10 commission up front, that is considered a 10% vig. That is the standard way of calculating it -- a percentage of the amount bet, not including the vig.
I wasn't making a statement about what is standard and what isn't; just pointing out that it's completely unbeatable. I'd assume that at higher stakes the percentage drops.
Quote: terapined90 dollar entry fee plus 10 dollar rake gets you 7500 chips
optional 10 fee goes to dealers, get 2500 additional chips.
Its great value, everybody does it.
Right. The fact that everyone does it makes it a 22% vig on a $90 tournament. You are not beating this game.
Of course, not taking the deal is even worse, since the casino is giving the other players tournament chips for the $10 -- ie, they are giving them your equity. How is that for a scam? Give some money to our dealers and we will take something away from the other players and give it to you.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceJust like when you make a sports bet at -110 you are making a $100 bet and paying $10 commission up front, that is considered a 10% vig. That is the standard way of calculating it -- a percentage of the amount bet, not including the vig.
I'm one who subscribes to the notion that only the winners pay the vig, not the losers.
The following is from an article written by Bob Stupak in an old Gambling Times magazine, circa 1983:
There are two inter-related concepts about casino profits that most players, and even many longtime casino executives, don't really understand. First, players are paying the house edge only when they win - never when they lose. Put another way, you might say that the house makes money not on customers' losing bets but on their winning bets because the house pays slightly less than the true odds on those winning bets.
If a fellow comes in and makes one bet for $1,000 on the craps table and loses it, he pays nothing for it. But if he wins the bet, he should get approximately $1,028 for his $1,000. Then he would be getting true odds. Instead, he wins only $1,000. So by winning the bet, he pays a $28 vig. By losing, he doesn't. Customers are often a little flabbergasted when I tell them, "I only make money when you win, not when you lose." That may be hard to believe, but nevertheless it's true.
The second thing people don't realize is that a casino does not make its profits by winning money. For example, a fellow came into Vegas World with $28,000 a few Saturdays ago, and lost it in about 10 minutes. Now, we didn't EARN that money. We just WON it. We were GAMBLING and we got lucky. But I can't survive on WON money. I can only survive on EARNED money. That guy's $28,000 is just in escrow. Sooner or later somebody is going to come in and win it back.
Everyday some people win and some people lose. One day per week or month there might be more winning bets than losing bets, but in the long run they even out. The only thing the casino EARNS is the money it retains from winning bettors by paying them slightly less than true odds.
Note that "vig" and "house edge" are often used interchangeably. The "vig" might be considered 10% but I always like to point out the house edge (on -110 to 100 bets) is only 4.54%. Some of my friends think the house edge is 10% and it's not always easy convincing them otherwise.
In sports betting, if you win the bet, you get the extra $10 back, so it is not the same as a commission paid up front.
In the poker tournament, that $20 is gone forever, win or lose. You get paid fairly on your $90 bet, but you don't get your $20 back.
So, actually, the poker tournament is much worse.
Quote: strictlyAPdont listen to me? funny if you can play with any kind of skill i doubt anyone out there would say much less variance and less vig in cash games- not to mention you have the ability to add in game selection - kinda of nuts to call me out on that one
just kidding. Your 1st post was real short with no explanation.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceActually, in fairness, my example wasn't a good one.
In sports betting, if you win the bet, you get the extra $10 back, so it is not the same as a commission paid up front.
In the poker tournament, that $20 is gone forever, win or lose. You get paid fairly on your $90 bet, but you don't get your $20 back.
So, actually, the poker tournament is much worse.
So, let's make an apples-to-apples comparison here.
When you see a sports bet where you can bet either side for -110, what's really happening is that you are paying the casino a $5 fee for the right to make a fair $105 bet. You make your $105 bet, tack on a $5 administration fee, and if you win you get your $105 back plus another $105. If you lose you get nothing. Either way, that $5 fee is gone.
In the poker example, you are paying a $20 fee to make a fair $90 bet.
In the sports betting example, the fee is $5 / $105 = 4.76%. In the poker example, it is $20/$90 = 22.22%.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceWhen you see a sports bet where you can bet either side for -110, what's really happening is that you are paying the casino a $5 fee for the right to make a fair $105 bet. You make your $105 bet, tack on a $5 administration fee, and if you win you get your $105 back plus another $105. If you lose you get nothing. Either way, that $5 fee is gone.
In the sports betting example, the fee is $5 / $105 = 4.76%.
That's a very interesting way to look at it. I've never seen it expressed that way before. But shouldn't the fee = the house edge? A 110 to 100 bet does not equal a 4.76% house edge. All reputable gambling sites, including this one, give a 4.54% house edge for 110 to 100 straight bets.
Quote: EdCollinsThat's a very interesting way to look at it. I've never seen it expressed that way before. But shouldn't the fee = the house edge? A 110 to 100 bet does not equal a 4.76% house edge. All reputable gambling sites, including this one, give a 4.54% house edge for 110 to 100 straight bets.
House edge is usually given as a fraction of the total, but commission or vig is usually given as a percentage of the base. Obviously the latter will be a larger number, since the denominator is smaller. The "fee" is just the numerator, which is the same regardless -- the only question is, what should it be divided by?
This is the standard way to calculate commissions -- it's used in craps, pai gow, and baccarat, for example (craps is the only one of those games where you ever have to pay vig up front, though)
I think you already have a pretty good realistic understanding of what to expect, and your plan makes perfect sense to me given your clear idea of what you're doing it for: some entertainment in your spare time. Which is, after all, what these things exist for.Quote: DRich...I have one night a week available and have nothing to do. I think I would like to play some small weekly tournaments to kill some time...
You've read well, and you're absolutely right that you'll have a hard time finding small tourneys with much lower total juice (including any dealer add-on) in this $100 or lower buy-in range. The economics of it make that just impossible unless the blind structure was made so steep forcing the play to be so fast that nobody would enjoy doing them. The cost of putting these on does not scale down proportionally with the buy-in, the casino poker rooms generally plan to lose money on them even with the hefty juice %, and they do them to provide an entertaining amenity to bring in customers. Almost nobody is so foolish that they are pretending they are going to pay the mortgage and buy their groceries with these, and given that you quite sensibly aren't either, I think they can be a reasonable entertainment value for the money and entry to casino tournament play. If you look around you'll see quite a few at < $100 that have a lot higher juice than this one you mention at SouthPoint.Quote: DRichFrom what I have read online most of the smaller tournaments now have a huge vig. Any recommendations? I think I will be trying the Southpoint $100 one tonight.
If you'd like to play on the Strip then Mirage has several dailies from $50 to $100 with juice in the 15-20% range with a structure that I think allows for a reasonable amount of play before the blinds make it a shove-fest. I ignore most poker room's websites because they are either not updated as things change or contain almost no real information, but I think their website at Mirage does a better job than most of describing what they have and is usually kept up to date more than many others: http://www.mirage.com/casino/daily-poker-tournaments.aspx
Most poker rooms are now on the Bravo app in conjunction with their poker room management and poker table player tracking system. The publicly available "BravoPokerLive" app is primarily designed to provide real-time information on the status of current cash games and any waiting or interest lists for those games, but you can also use it to cruise the individual rooms' information about their tournaments to see what appeals to you. If you see conflicting information between what they've put on Bravo and what a casino's own website says, Bravo is more likely to be correct. If you'd rather not download the app you can also access it on the web at http://www.bravopokerlive.com/ Participation on Bravo is very comprehensive in the Las Vegas area, with about 80%+ of local poker rooms using that Bravo-Genesis system including almost all of the medium to larger rooms being on it.
When I play next I will look for a tournament that doesn't allow rebuys.
DrawingDead, thank you for the information and I will check out the Bravo site and app.
Specifically for tournaments, I agree that's true, and for tournaments in some rooms it will have more detailed information than what some of them have put on Bravo. It is free, as is Bravo. Apart from tournament info, I would NOT recommend relying on some of what AVP/PokerAtlas says about cash games and general room descriptions. I definitely would have over the past eight years; but now not so much.Quote: DJTeddyBearYou might find the All Vegas Poker app to be better organized. At any rate, it's either free or 99 cents. I forget which.
Quote: EdCollinsThat's a very interesting way to look at it. I've never seen it expressed that way before. But shouldn't the fee = the house edge? A 110 to 100 bet does not equal a 4.76% house edge. All reputable gambling sites, including this one, give a 4.54% house edge for 110 to 100 straight bets.
Through the sports book, one bettor bets the favorite at $110 to win $100. Another bettor bets the dog at $110 to win $100. That's $220 in total action. The house pays the winner $210 and keeps $10.
10/220 = 4.54%
Quote: DRichDoes anyone here play poker regularly in Vegas?
I haven't played any live poker in many years but decided recently that I have one night a week available and have nothing to do. I think I would like to play some small weekly tournaments to kill some time.
From what I have read online most of the smaller tournaments now have a huge vig. Any recommendations? I think I will be trying the Southpoint $100 one tonight.
Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder is an excellent resource on how to make money in the low buy-in, high juice (18% to 25%) fast structured poker tournaments of Las Vegas.
Quote: DRichAs I mentioned in the original post I haven't played live poker in a few years. Although I didn't realize that the Southpoint tournament allowed rebuys, I still enjoyed myself and think I played fair. The tournament started at 6pm and I never did get a count of the players, but after rebuys there was 70 paid entries. I played until getting knocked out at about 10pm and finished in 12th. Only the top five were paid and first place was around $2,200.
When I play next I will look for a tournament that doesn't allow rebuys.
DrawingDead, thank you for the information and I will check out the Bravo site and app.
Cardplayer Magazine online has a comprehensive list of daily poker tournaments in Las Vegas. Click on the Poker Tournaments tab, then click on Las Vegas Poker.
