VG: Why do I sometimes feel so small?

Awesome Andrew and Random Dave hit East Fremont and the Arts District for some First Friday non-poker fun, then go home to sign away all future affiliate value sign up as beta-testers for the real money WSOP software … but not before yours truly donks off 1.4 million in play money Omaha on the EA Sports app, and somehow pays $3 in real US currency to reload!

Meanwhile back in the VG studio, we bring in Tournament Dave to report from the daily tournament tables of Venetian and Aria, where he keeps chopping up the top-heavy tournament cash and finishing ITM 2/3 of the time. Up for high-quality discussion here: the allure of tournaments with buy-ins over $100 … why early events offer more value to regs … the rationale of cutting deals at a final table … unique emotional swings of tournament-structured tilt … and was that a creatively appropriate way for floor to pull cards out of the muck?

All that and you’re ready to enjoy some hand porn. This week we look at a man who’s not afraid to get a little sexy in position with a relatively big stack and J-9s on the bubble.

Vegas Grinders 1.9

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Two high-profile incidents and the fast-approaching summer months led state gaming regulators and Las Vegas police to issue a stern warning Thursday to hotel-casino operators: Keep a close watch on your nightclubs and pool parties or face disciplinary action for any illegal activity.

In a memorandum from Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett and Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, resort leaders were told they are responsible for any criminal conduct in their venues, even if a nightclub, ultra lounge or day club is operated by a third-party vendor.

“Recent investigations have not only shown a lack of enforcement effort to curtail criminal activity on the part of patrons, but that venue staff have played an active role in condoning and/or facilitating the criminal activity,” Burnett and Gillespie wrote.

In an interview, Burnett said last month’s shooting and ensuing multicar wreck on the Strip, which left three people dead, played a large role in the notice to gaming licensees. The grisly, pre-dawn shooting had its origins in a dispute at the Aria valet area.

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Crap. Free hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip, and I left my bathing suit at home.

The Wynn Classic wraps up, and so does Erick Lindgren’s brief flirtation with redemption. (LOL-ouch on the bubble.) Likewise, Multi Action Poker is out @AriaPoker (like we knew it would be) but Phil Ivey is in — making a not-so-regular stop to play behind his namesake glass walls. Meanwhile, as Nevadans, we begin to think about playing online again, starting with some online satellite freerolls at GoldenNuggetPoker.com … while Dave enjoys a free room at Bally’s — a nice perk for a man hoping to hit it with a bad beat jackpot!

Over @CLVPoker, Hoops and Hold’em is underway; Andrew laments that the one tournament he won has been discontinued. While there may or may not be an upside to being forcibly undefeated, seriously, how-TF do you remove a heads-up bracket tourney from a seasonal series created around March Madness?

Semi-related … can you believe it’s almost pool season?

All that and more in another jam-packed, rip-roarin’ episode of every Vegas local’s favoritisimo new podcast …

Vegas Grinders 1.6

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All I want is for you to love me like a Facebook friend.

We’re not just a 1-2 or 1-3-trick pony at Vegas Grinders … and to prove it we invite anti-Howard Lederer petitioner and middleweight grinder thug Nick diVella to report from the 5/10 and 10/20 NL tables at Aria, Bellagio, Wynn, and (sometimes) Venetian … just as we get word that the DOJ has launched a website to facilitate the repatriation of Full Tilt bankrolls.

Also … the Caesars Megabeat Jackpot hits at Planet Hollywood for $672k, paying off not just quad Queens < Queen-high straight flush, but also spreading a cool $2k around to 219 players in eight different poker rooms across Nevada. (Woot! It’s a casino party!) … But (sigh) what’s the point, really, when even Jerry Yang’s WSOP bracelet can end up on the auction block in an effort to pay off the IRS? With Dave boldly (and wrongly) folding pocket kings, good thing at least one of us finally took down a tournament FTW. Sure, it was just a little $45 tourney at the Stratosphere, but hey, don’t tell that to the 50 semi-grizzled players I bettered!

Vegas Grinders 1.5

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Here’s some video the new Multi Action Poker game Dave is talking about at Aria in action. While one player at the other end of the table is telling the creator of the game how it should be played, our @RandomPoker reporter in the field is seen quietly taking down a pot.

Props to @ProPoker for capturing the rare moment of Dave winning a hand! (Or was that just half a hand?)

One player per hand!? Dave’s multi-stacks at the debut spread-limit hold’em multi-action game @AriaPoker.

Aria Poker launched Multi Action Poker yesterday, a game designed to woo those tired of playing just one hand at a time in a live setting, and perhaps those who miss the concept of multi-tabling online.

In forums and at the tables, players questioned whether the game would succeed. Even some Aria dealers said they knew little about how it would be played. But the game’s inventor, Timothy Frazin, is counting on a hit. He said he’s conducted several trial runs and worked out many of the concerns.

Though a table with two dealer cutouts and wooden slats protruding from the rail might look confusing, the game is simple at its core. Each player is dealt two separate hands, placed over a red spot and a blue spot, separated by a wooden slat, for the respective hole cards and chip stacks.

There are nine players, two dealers facing each other in the center of the table, four decks (two being shuffled, two in play), and ideally two differently colored chip stacks.

“It’s like a football field,” observed one player checking out the new table for the Multi-Action game.

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Fully Tilted? Nick DiVella is still waiting for his roll from a player sometimes seen in the Ivey Room at Aria.

Howard Lederer might be re-emerging in the nosebleed cash games of Las Vegas, but some players are so upset about the former Full Tilt leader’s return to the felt that they began circulating a petition to get him banned from live poker.

“We believe the casino has a moral and ethical obligation to bar Howard Lederer from playing in the poker room and should Aria casino fail to take immediate action we, the poker playing community, will be forced to boycott the poker room,” the petition reads.

Local pro Nick Divella, 24, crafted this plea to fellow players at Aria, asking them to boycott the room if Lederer was allowed to play there again.

Aria management, however, had “a long talk” with him explaining why they had to remain neutral and couldn’t allow him, or anyone for that matter, to solicit signatures on their property.

DiVella, a regular in the 5/10NL and 10/20NL games, said he had talked to upwards of 50 players who already had agreed to sign it, and has since taken his cause online.

Read the petition here.

“It tilts me to no end,” explained DiVella, who says he loves playing at Aria but but doesn’t want to see the disgraced Full Tilt empresario sitting behind big stacks in his favorite poker room, as it would almost certainly have a negative impact on his own non-Ivey Room play.

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Ah, the Las Vegas fall. It’s that time of year when the high temperatures finally drop into the 90s, pool season ends, barbecues begin and we enjoy a brief respite from the melting cars.

But the live poker scene around Las Vegas is starting to heat up again, after the summer break from the WSOP. Three of the big four rooms — Venetian, Bellagio, Caesars — are hosting fall tournaments. And the WSOP Main Event final table returns to the Rio later this month.

Even Howard Lederer made a ballyhooed return to high stakes cash games at Aria and Bellagio this week. He played in Bobby’s Room on Monday, the Ivey Room on Tuesday, and found his way back to Bellagio on Wednesday with a nosebleed crew that included Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, Chau Giang, and Nick Schulman. Lederer’s given no indication where he’s headed next, but I imagine he’s a little more than a DOJ seizure away from the .50/$1 game at Bill’s.

I wanted to snap a picture of Lederer when I saw him at Aria, but security threatened to ban anyone who did, and Dan’s not paying me enough to risk arrest or deportation, so … this twitpic posted to 2+2 will have to be good enough.

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Let’s hope it’s an omen. I picked up pocket Aces on my first hand in the new-and-improved Venetian poker room. My good friend and fellow Pokeratier Andrew raised into me, then called my three-bet “just in case” before check-folding the flop.

$10 Million Rebuy: The Venetian poker room has expanded to add 50 percent more tables and hopefully 50 percent more donkey tourists.

The new digs reopened at 5 am Wednesday; I arrived around 4:30 pm, or what Vegas grinders call morning. I wanted to see what a month-long renovation and supposedly $10 million could do for a major poker room. And I can tell you, this is now the fanciest poker joint in Vegas — if only for the giant, shimmering chandeliers hanging under a Renaissance ceiling mural at the front of the room.

Here’s some of what I couldn’t help but notice upon re-entering this previously familiar poker space:

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Dan Bilzerian tweeted this picture of $9.4 million in chips with the caption: “Our poker game is officially fucking huge.”

Flags were flying around Las Vegas — and it had more to do with the WSOP than the 4th of July.

Sure, you can always expect to see more $5,000 chips in play on Vegas felts during the WSOP, but the super-high-stakes action that requires them really picked up this summer — more so than usual, it seems, particularly in the days leading up to Big One for One Drop, the biggest buy-in tournament in history.

Pots in the hundreds of thousands of dollars practically became the norm in The Ivey Room at Aria, where a bunch of billionaires and Hollywood socialites were playing $2k/$4k NL for more than a week. At the same time, a $1k/$2k PLO game was going on in the Pavillion Room at the WSOP, and Doyle Brunson was logging super-long sessions at his home room in Bellagio.

Poker room supervisors say Vegas hasn’t seen this level of action since billionaire banker Andy Beal took on “the Corporation” at the Wynn in 2004. ($15k/$30k and $30k/$60k heads-up limit hold’em was their game.) There’s some chatter among Vegas regs about how different poker rooms go about bringing in certain players while keeping others out — lest the biggest casino whales get devoured too quickly by certain poker sharks.

Here is a 2012 guide to the who/what/when/where/why of the really big games around Las Vegas:

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The WSOP isn’t just about the WSOP … you have tournament options of notable field sizes and different game varieties all across town. While Aria has opened an entire new section for dailies, Bellagio cleared a section for tournaments and TV cameras and Binions made way for more tables, too. There’s a summer “classic” at Wynn and the Deep Stacks Extravaganza is back at Venetian, while Golden Nugget and Caesars Palace gear up for the Grand Poker and Mega Stack series’ respectively.

Need help deciding what, when, and where to play throughout the summer? This handy spreadsheet breaks down all the big tournament action — with details on buy-in, blind structures, and rake so you can choose the best brick-and-mortar MTT.

I guess I’ve been somewhat slacking in the blog department. However, I’ve been fully engaged in grind mode ever since my last downswing and plan on writing an update in the very near future. In keeping with the grinding and writing theme, I’ve been trying out this new pokerchiptracker.com tool that allows me to log my day at the office. It’s pretty cool, in my opinion, because I like taking photos, I like writing, and I (sometimes) like playing poker. This thing lets me do all three at once. It also allows the user/writer to really bring the reader into the poker room with them, as well as provide for some creative opportunities.

Here’s a recent session that took me from Aria to the Palms.

Buy In @ 4:15 PM Amount: $300 Starting a sesh at the fabulous, luxurious and unrivaled Aria Resort Casino Hotel and Spa Destination Location Sensation. Gl me.

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Nearly every casino with a poker room offers a daily tournament. The buy-ins range from $45 to more than $500, depending on the day of the week.

I want to explore the level of competition, how much play I can get for my money and whether the payouts are worth the grind.

I’m going to play at least a week of dailies around Las Vegas. Mostly, I plan to play on the Strip. But I also want to hit at least one event downtown and check out the action at an off-strip casino or two. I’ll avoid the WSOP-circuit events in town and Venetian’s Deepstack Extravaganza Series, as to stay out of the path of sharks.

If I happen to get knocked out early, I’ll do some follow-up reporting on the pay structure.

My first event started at 7 p.m. Wednesday, a $125 buy-in at Aria. The blinds opened at 25/50, with 30 minute levels.

Folks in town told me it’s one of the better events for the money.

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This is Pokerati’s new Las Vegas poker room column, and I’m the hired hack on the beat.

As a journalist who recently emigrated from the other side of the Mississippi River to divide his time writing and grinding in Las Vegas, the poker capital of the world, I hear a lot of buzz around town. Much of it is just noise, sometimes it’s early rumblings of actual news, and occasionally it’s just really good FYI for Vegas live-poker-room regs.

We hope to have a little bit of everything here for you. Some of the topics I’m looking to explore:

* Just about every casino has a daily tournament — some just a short-handed sit-n-go while others play like a mini-multitable bracelet event. Where can you get the most play for your buy-in? And what’s really going on with the juice?

* Different rooms have different rules. Some, like Tropicana’s Jamie Gold Room, are throwing many of the standards out the window. Which rooms have the strictest rules? Aria, for instance, has a rule against talking to gain information in a heads-up pot. Why?

* More and more casinos are offering rakeback-type promotions. The “get paid to play” trend sweeping through town varies from place to place. What rooms have the best deals? Is it possible to be a live rakeback grinder? What kind of players do these promos attract? What are the upcoming promotions to look out for?

* How should you go about finding the best action, or any action? Is it Venetian’s updated online list of cash games or Bellagio’s Twitter feed? What should you do to get a seat at the juiciest table in the house? Where should you be playing on a Friday night? Can you find a good game on a Monday?

Whether you play every day or visit Vegas once a year, I’m here to keep you informed about what’s happening in the games around town. Whether you’re a tournament grinder, cash game specialist, or maybe even just a live-poker bonus whore, we’ll scope out the action. We’re at the table right beside floor managers, dealers, locals and tourists, and we can’t help chatting it up.

Las Vegas is a 24-7 poker hot spot like no other — what happens here sets standards around the world —  and we want to help you maximize your time on the felt.

Bookmark Dave’s column here; and you can Twit-follow his ramble along the Vegas Strip @RandomPoker.

It’s November, and the online poker political buzz seems ready to kick into high gear … we’ve got the Senate Indian Affairs Committee taking on the issue today (with Al D’Amato testifying on behalf of poker players from the MoneyMaker-Duhamel era) … and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade revisiting the issue tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, the New York Post is reporting that “the smart money is betting Washington will legalize online poker” … with the suggestion that Harry Reid has his own version of the Barton Bill forthcoming. That’s hardly a surprise around here … but what could be something of a WTF, if it turns out to be true, are reportable rumors that Jon Kyl (R-AZ) will likely be a co-sponsor.

Kyl, of course, is one of the original architects of the UIGEA who will be retiring at the end of the current Congressional session. Ahh, it’s all starting to make a little sense now … can you see the path through Congress starting to emerge?

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