There are 50 poker rooms in Las Vegas, so we thought you might appreciate the assistance of fellow degenerates in narrowing down the possibilities of where to play when you come to town. The votes have been tallied … and four places stood out above the rest … In what may or may not become a recurring tradition around these parts, Pokeratizens say the Best Poker Rooms in Vegas are:

Gold Medal
The Venetian

Great regular tourneys, Deep Stack Extravaganzas, plenty of all-but-the-highest-stakes action, bottled Fiji water, and maybe the escalator that dumps off drunkenly clad party girls coming out of Tao right in front of The V’s poker room make it far and away the favorite of this website’s readers/players/dealers.

official site / TPA

The separate tournament room really is cool, if not the best in town, and the comfortable multi-tiered cash game area never seems short of action appealing to the masses of big little-stakes players. Great freerolls for regular cash players, too.

official site / TPA

Still home to the biggest games in Vegas (in terms of buy-ins), thereby drawing the most pros and the players who want to challenge/sit near them. Everything Bellagio is always luxe, of course, and their regular $500 and $1k tourneys makes the chance to play for baller money an in-town constant.

official site / TPA

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No, Hoyt, don’t do it! Hoyt Corkins sherpas Tuscaloosa Johnny to Red Rock Canyon for some fresh perspective and 2008 WSOP recovery.

Nearly driven mad from the land of poker, I had the opportunity on Sunday to get out of town. Since Hoyt Corkins busted out of the main event on Saturday he now had time to go for a hike.

I went to his house and we hopped in his jeep, fully equipped with four-wheel drive, roll bars and a winch with five-ton capacity that would surely get you out of a sticky situation. Starting too late to tackle Mt. Charleston, we instead headed to Red Rock Canyon to take the jeep trails into the Rainbow Wilderness area there.

It was no easy go up the rocky trails and I was surprised to see some drivers of Grand Cherokees try the climb. From the point in which we exited the main scenic drive through the canyon until we arrived at the trail to the North Peak probably took nearly an hour over the short, but rough terrain.

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Sorry if I’ve seemed a little non-posty since setting up shop in LV. I’ve been going to too many porn parties playing too much poker busy helping get a new web service off the ground: Thrillist Las Vegas.

Basically, Thrillist will be sending an easy-click email once a week to subscribers about some of the cooler shizznit going down in V-town … only I won’t be using phrases like “shizznit.” In the first edition, we talk about the VIP Suite at Red Rock Lanes (just in time for the PBA Tournament of Champions), the opening of a new restaurant, a more-than-beef-jerky jackpot, a fancy shoe store in the new Palazzo, and how swingers can tell when it’s time for a threesome. All very important to know, of course, whether you’re a local or a semi-regular visitor looking to indulge in ways most can’t find at home.

The premiere non-spam just showed up in subscribers’ inboxes early this AM … and their lives are presumably far better as a result. Did you get it? If not, sign up here.

NOT LAS VEGAS–News media is always on the lookout for the next Jessica-in-the-Well, and yesterday there looked to be a chance of something like it when three teenagers kids ages 8-10 supposedly were trapped on a ledge in Red Rock Canyon — the coolest bit of Nature just outside Vegas. Well it turns out those crafty children were pulling a hoax on the rescue cops.

Anyhow, I’m glad there are no dead kids, because when I first heard the news of the potential tragedy, I instantly thought … “Ooh, this will be a good way to segue into my leftover pictures of Red Rock!”

Click below to see a different side of Vegas … taken one night/morning after leaving the Rio around 6 am, and for whatever reason, instead of going home to bed, decided to keep driving into the mountains:

LAS VEGAS–Funny how being in Las Vegas has put me so out of touch with all the poker news. I think there are some big tournaments going on, online poker execs in the courts, business deals shaking down, but I’ve got little to report other than poker being played. Still, it’s been kinda interesting to see who you run into at the tables around this town:

The first notable I ran into was OREL HERSHEISER, who apparently just moved here to Las Vegas and sat to my left in a 1/2 NLH game at RED ROCK — fresh after being denied selection into the baseball HALL OF FAME. I tried to play the not-knowing-who-he-is thing — “You lost a vote? Were you running for city council or congress or something?” — but he would end up busting me out when I tried to run a little STOP-N-GO. As I pushed all-in, he asked, “How much money do you have?”

“Um, I’m all-in. About $140 more,” I said, pointing to my stacks.

“No, I mean other money. Because we can make a little side-bet away from the table,” he said, upon showing me THE NUTS.

Red Rock seems to be the OFF-STRIP place to be. On my second post-WSOP outing there, I ran into GARY THOMPSON — World Series of Poker media master and tournament overlord. He was wearing comfortable jeans, loafers, and a button-down shirt while playing 2/5 NLH. With about $800 in front of him, he said he was “down a couple hundred.” But it wouldn’t take long for him to grow his stacks, and a few hours later, he had moved up to the 5/10 game and had what looked to be about $2k.

On that same day, I saw A GUY I BUSTED at the Rio. He was a good player who went with the whole BLACK HOODIE and SUNGLASSES kinda thing, while saying almost nothing and acting with stoic (but angry) CHRIS FERGUSON-like motions. He was playing 1/2 NLH and nursing about $200.

Over at THE VENETIAN in the 2/5 game, I found myself up against a WSOP Dealer — SHAI the ISRAELI GUY. He was sick when I pushed all-in and convinced him to fold his top-pair-top-kicker that would turn into TOP BOAT … only to see the guy who took down the pot from me win with KING-HIGH. A couple hours later I was playing a goofy hand with K-6 offsuit in late position, the flop came K-7-K … he checks, I bet, he raises big, I call. Turn is a 6, he pushes all-in, I call … at which point he shows his POCKET 7s. The table cheers for a FOURTH SEVEN, but it doesn’t come and I send him to the ATM.

One table over, KARINA JETT’S MOTHER was playing — beyond her typical quiet game, she was practically falling asleep at the table (at 3 AM) while nursing about $400. She may not remember this, but she won a $15 PROP BET from me once over a RULES DISPUTE. (My bad … I thought I knew stuff.)

Back at RED ROCK a couple days later, I ran into ABRAHAM, and he really deserves his own post, because he tilted the table unlike anything I had ever seen — and even managed to invoke mockery from a cute young girl who wasn’t playing. Basically imagine the worst personality and poker characteristics of ME, TIM ROGERS and EON MARSHALL all wrapped up into an obnoxious kid who graduated from high school in 2003 and is well aware that he looks like STU UNGAR. Then give him a lot of chips. (His behavior and play was so table-altering it had me interrupting TOM SCHNEIDER’S vacation in ST. THOMAS for some emergency coaching … who advised me well until I played back without paying attention to a guy to my left who had pocket kings.)

I really wanted to KILL THIS KID, or at least make him cry. And so did everyone else — especially the old (presumably) gay man who he busted by calling a $260 raise pre-flop with 2-3 suited only to flop two threes. But he can’t be all that bad, because without provoking from me, he at one point shouted, “THE HAMMER!” with glee. Hey kid, if you are reading this, what I told you at the table after you “bluffed” me with pocket-5s and then taunted (it took me a good five minutes to lay down Ace-high) still applies: “I look forward to seeing you get your education.” Punk-ass. Like seriously, you had at least two of us at the table contemplating how one might go about rolling you in the parking lot.

One of the cool things about Red Rock is that when you need to shake off a bad beat or just step away from a dipshit the table to refocus, you can go BOWL A GAME 24 hours a day — for $3 +$3.50 for shoes. That seems like positive EV.

The picture above is from a day I didn’t actually play poker … but I did walk through the poker room just for funsies after bowling, and whom should I run into but NOLAN DALLA, longtime Dallas poker expat and WSOP media guru, legendary sports handicapper, and Stu Ungar biographer. He was wearing CARGO SHORTS, a frumpled shirt, and seemed pleasantly drinky while playing 5/10 NLH with a couple old friends from POKERSTARS.

“I’m stuck $800 but having a great time!” he screamed upon embracing me with a BEAR HUG. “Isn’t this a great casino!?! Hey everybody, it’s Dan from Pokerati!”

Murmur?

“Oh, right …” Nolan said. “Didn’t mean to blow your cover.”

I also ran into STEVE HALL one night at Red Rock, too. He was playing PENNY VIDEO SLOTS. He had a big hit of some sort of crazy picture combinations that won him about $60.

And then to top it all off, I went to CAESAR’S PALACE with DON JONES (of Rounder Club fame), LEIGH & BRIAN from the Poker Atlas , DOCTOR STEVE, and former Absolute Poker marketing chick JEN TIDWELL to play in their 50-player-max $65 tourney. We all had 10 percent of each other, which proved irrelevant as our top player would bubble.

I was the first to bust out (of the tournament) and would take a seat playing some 2/5. Of all the poker tables in Las Vegas … what are the chances that DAN BALLENGER (aka HONG KONG SUE, father of SON OF SUE) would get seated at my table? It would take more than a full orbit before he realized he was sitting with a fellow BATFACE. He bought in for $500 and cashed out a couple hours later for a little less than that. HKS got most of those chips from me … calling a $100 bluff with second-pair-no-kicker (what was I THINKING!?!) … and then bluffing me out of a $400+ pot on the river, getting me to lay down aces. He mucked at the time, but told me as he left that he pushed all-in for his remaining $135 with an underpair. Wish I hadn’t asked, because it had me semi-tilting for a good 30 minutes or more. I know he was just trying to be nice, but still …

Then JASON from JACKIE’S (in Dallas) and “RICKY ZILEM” showed up. They were just walking through checking out the action. Fancy running into these guys here. Chris/Ricky, said, “I did what nobody does when they first land in Vegas and took a nap.”

Ah, indeed.

Small world. Good times.

LAS VEGAS–A few interesting tidbits about the Red Rock Resort & Casino in Summerlin, as seen from the poker room:

• They use Copags.
• They charge $5 for Red Bull — makes no sense to me, as it would seem the casino would want you to be drinking Red Bull, especially when the guy ordering it is chasing it with Jager.
• You are allowed to expose your hand while making a decision heads-up.
• They have a Salt Lick Barbecue inside — as in the same Salt Lick as the one in Davenport, TX!
• Their $1 chips are gray. They call them “blues.”
• This establisment has nothing to do with Sammy Hagar.

LAS VEGAS–Door-to-door the trip took 24 hours. That includes a nap in New Mexico, a snail’s crawl across the Hoover Dam, and briefly getting lost in Summerlin. By the time I showed up at Rounder Club West (home to Dr. Steve and The Don, oft-frequented by one or more Dulys, and where I’ll be staying my first two weeks in Vegas) I was tired and stinky … and itchin’ to play. After exchanging some pleasantries and getting my internet hooked up, I eventually made way to the new Red Rock Casino, where I sat down for some $1/$2 NL action.

Nice place. Comfy poker room — 20 tables … and let me just say, I bet Doyle Brunson, even two or three years ago, never coulda imagined a day where low-stakes players would be crowding around tables with marble racetracks. Anyhow, on the first hand I get pocket 5s in late position. I limp, no-set no-bet, and eventually I have to fold. Two hands later I get them again. This time I raise, get a couple callers … the flop = check, check, check … I bet on the turn and take it down. Cool. Straight-forward poker, pretty much, until I get them for the third time.

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