Poker Tournament · EDGe Vegas

During my last trip to Las Vegas I did a bunch of things I don’t normally do.

One of those things was playing in casino sanctioned gambling tournaments. During my stay at Planet Hollywood I played in a Poker Tournament at Rio and while I was staying at Venetian I played in a slot tournament, which I detailed at Vegas Chatter.

Both tournaments were fun, but the poker tournament more interesting as that’s something I’ve seen on TV and had some kind of expectation.

There had to be about 2,000 players spread over two days. Each session was made up of 30 tables of 10 people. Like me, the players were mostly tourists taking advantage of comp rooms.

I was pretty stoked to be playing on an official World Series of Poker table.

If the idea of the tournament was to get people into Rio to spend money then the tournament did a good job as I lost a few hundred bucks killing time that I’d win back from Planet Hollywood later that night. I would not have visited the Rio without the tournament.

While the tournament was fun, I only lasted about 20 minutes as I was the 3rd or 4th player knock out from my table. I lost most of my chips to a river flush. I had Kings over Queens. This is why I don’t play casino poker. After a few drinks in the Diamond Lounge I headed back to the strip and did something. Probably drink and gamble.

Even though I lost the poker tournament I would certainly enter a tournament like this again in the future. I wouldn’t go out of my way for it, but if I happen to be traveling during tournament time I’d certainly take a casino up on the offer.