[NickatNite]

I am getting sick and tired of sitting down to play video poker to have a couple drinks and spending $60 - $200.

Any advice on multi-table tourneys with buy-ins of $100 or less? The more detail the better, please include insight as to strength of play, ambiance of the room, dealer competence, attractiveness of waitresses, serious or fun games, usual number of buy-ins, etc.

Any day of the week, any time of day. I'm my own boss (I fired myself twice last week).

[vegaslocal55]

Try allvegaspoker.com
Best tourney in town for the money if you don't need a nice room is Sahara 7P & 11P daily. Large turnout, good payout, lowest buy-in ($45+20 I think). Lots of locals because it's the best cheap tourney.

[NickatNite]

Thanks, that site did the trick. allvegaspoker has a link to every multi-table tourney in town by casino.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by vegaslocal55

Sahara 7P & 11P daily. ... lowest buy-in ($45+20 I think).

FYI it's not the lowest. Cheapest tourney in town is Poker Palace. $17, IIRC. The participants can be a bit scary, but if you're looking for a cheap tourney, that's it.

Allvegaspoker is handy, but be aware that many of their tourney listings are very out of date. I've got a site that lists just the tournaments (avp's main focus is on cash games), but about two weeks after I'd finished visiting every room in town, my web server crashed and my most recent backup was months old - it was starting over almost from scratch... Our business should quiet down in the fall & winter, so I'll have a lot more time to make the rounds again and get the list updated. If anyone wants me to send them the link once it's up to snuff, drop me a DM.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by NickatNite

Any advice on multi-table tourneys with buy-ins of $100 or less?

My favorite is the Stratosphere tourney. $60 buyin, and the competition is pretty soft. Lots of European tourists (no idea why they're drawn to that place, but they are) who are taking advantage of the weak dollar and literally throwing their money away, just to have a good time. I was playing when a guy from the UAE set the record for the number of rebuys - he ended up buying in a total of 7 times. Typically runs with two tables, sometimes three, sometimes just one. $4k chips, blind structure isn't too steep and the payout structure is just about right.

I also quite like the Sit-N-Go tournaments at Mirage. I've won or chopped that tournament about 2/3 of the times I've played it. They have three SNGs, the cheapest of which is $70 for $1k chips. Single table; lasts about an hour. First place takes $420. Steep blind structure, mixed competition.

If bounty tournaments are your thing, the Aliante & Santa Fe Station casinos each have a good one. Aliante's is a $65 buyin with $25 bounties, and is very popular - they usually get 6+ tables going for that one. The Mirage also has a bounty tournament that I've played once, but don't recall the details for it.

I've also done fairly well at Mandalay Bay's evening tournament. I would play every Monday, when my girlfriend was teaching a class at the house. You don't start with a lot of chips, and the blinds get pretty steep after the first couple of levels, but if you can collect some chips early, it's not hard to beat.

Good luck!

[delgadobb]

Originally Posted by vegaslocal55

Try allvegaspoker.com
Best tourney in town for the money if you don't need a nice room is Sahara 7P & 11P daily. Large turnout, good payout, lowest buy-in ($45+20 I think). Lots of locals because it's the best cheap tourney.

This.

If memory serves, it's a $45 buy-in ($40something, anyways) with the option for a $20 add-on for more chips. Typically, I don't take the add-on unless (a) I'm short on chips & know the field is soft or (b) I took a beat & busted out early when I know the field is weak. Out of about six times playing I've only done the add-on once.

The structure's OK but not great & Sahara's a dump, but it is a good tourney if you want a cheap one with a good chance to make money. I've met a couple low-level grinders who claim they supported themselves solely by this tourney when they came to town. They usually get about 60-70 people so the prize pool's decent even if it becomes a shove-fest in the later stages (i.e. pick a hand & shove in your chips)

Allvegaspoker.com is a fantastic site to get a feel for where the games are decent, but as swagger mentioned it's more useful for cash games.

Most of the low-level buy-in tournaments are shovefests, meaning they give very little play & they're a crapshoot (lotsa gambling). As you move up, some provide a decent amount of play with a larger number of starting chips & longer blind levels. Most of the lower level tourneys below $100 take a lot of juice for the house, meaning it better be a soft field or it's too hard to consistently win money.

If you're willing to move up a little, the daily $120 & $150 tournaments at the Venetian get good turnouts & pay out well over 80% of what they bring in for entry fees. Most smaller tourneys pay out a max of 80% & often far below that - some as low as 60% of the money from entry fees! (Sahara's one of the offenders, but the fields are usually soft enough it's still worthwhile.) The competition is generally tougher at the Venetian, but still beatable. Both Wynn & Bellagio pay out a good percentage of entry fees, but I haven't seen the consistent traffic you get at Venetian. When I play a tournament, I'd rather have a larger field to get a good 'overlay'. I want to play for something significant where I can still do alright if I only make the final table.

Hope this helps,

[bizzy702]

try lasvegaspokersource.com
same info as other site, but more updated

[delgadobb]

Originally Posted by bizzy702

try lasvegaspokersource.com
same info as other site, but more updated

Uhhh, in a word ... NO!

Is this your web site or are you a shill for this web site? At least get it finished before you try to promote it as better than allvegaspoker.com.

Looked at this site, if I click on the 'Cash games' link (bread & butter of allvegaspoker) I see 'This will be up any day now. We apologize for the delay.' WTF? Then, if I click on the 'Training' link, I see a bunch of ads for places like cardrunners & PokerVT. Looks more like a money making machine (i.e. poker portal) & less like a community poker site to me. Looks like you're trying to create another version of Pokernews.com, maybe more localized to Las Vegas.

You can tell allvegaspoker.com is a community site, a labor of love. Light on advertising, heavy on content. Lasvegaspokersource.com sure seems like the opposite. Get it done & build a community before you promote it. My $.02.

[rentmax]

Personally, I really enjoy the tourney at Orleans. It runs about 75$, and averages anywhere from 4-7 tables depending on the night of the week. The structure is very player friendly as well.
Also, there appears to be a lot of locals and older clientele in this tourney than the major strip casinos.
**Bonus- cocktail servers very prompt here

[Willy702]

You'll go nuts playing these for long though. Most have lousy structures where its an all-in raise before the flop fest once you get to the money. Plus the take-outs are just terrible. Play these for fun once in awhile but I wouldn't get too excited about making them a regular thing for yourself.