It really is amazing what the people of Texas have built in Oklahoma. Not only is WinStar now the third-largest casino in the world*, but also Choctaw (the “other” casino for Dallas people) is undergoing an expansion that will make it the 17th largest in the world.

* Third is my number, btw, based on Business Week data, despite WinStar’s claim that they are just 5th.

At 110,000 square feet, the Choctaw Casino in Durant, Okla., will have the same amount of gaming space as Wynn Las Vegas, and slightly more than Wynn Macao.

Check it out:

“Texas hold’em / Ain’t nobody foldin’!” Rockin’!

We all know where that came from, of course:

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The poker room at the Wynn offers up two daily tournaments at 2:00 PM & 7:00 PM.  The 2:00 PM tournament has a $120 buy-in ($100+20) for 4,000 chips and 30 minutes blind rounds. There is an optional $100/4,000 chip re-buy during the first three levels. The 7:00 PM daily event is a $160 buy-in ($140+20), no re-buys, no add-on, with 10,000 starting chips and 30 minute blind levels. For more information contact the Wynn Poker Room at 702-770-7654.

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The Wynn Las Vegas Poker Room is hosting $50,000 worth of Free-Roll Tournaments coming up in April.   To gain entry to one of the four weekly $12,500 Free-Roll Tournaments players must log at least 12 hours of live poker during the qualifying periods.  You can earn extra starting chips by playing more hours in the poker room, 12 to 16 hours of Live play start with 4,000 in chips, 16 to 20 hours get 5,000 in chips and 20 hours or more start with a 6,000 chip stack. For more information call the Wynn Poker Room at 702-770-7654 or visit wynnpoker.com.

Tournament Dates & Qualifying Periods

Monday, April 6th at 12:00pm – Qualify between March 30 – April 5
Monday, April 13th at 12:00pm – Qualify between April 6 – April 12
Monday, April 20th at 12:00pm – Qualify between April 13 – April 19
Monday, April 27 at 12:00pm – Qualify between April 20 – April 26

April Free-Roll Payout Structure:

1st Place: $5,000
2nd Place: $2,000
3rd Place: $1,2 00
4th Place: $1,000
5th Place: $800
6th Place: $600
7th Place: $500
8th Place: $400
9th Place: $300
10th Place: $200
11th – 15th Place: $100

Sure, this is a cheap hedline we really could run daily — at least until it’s no longer true — but there were some very specific rumors circulating around the internet and the Wynn that Paul ‘Eskimo’ Clark had been robbed and killed. While death is never seldom a laughing matter, at least one cold, heartless journo may or may not have gotten juiced up about the conspiracy theory possibilities It had to be Vinnie Vinh! Or Russ Hamilton! Where’s Layne Flack!?! and abandoned a night at the tables before it really even started to investigate.

We found little … other than that he is still alive and kickin’ hustlin’ for backers in Reno.

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I hadn’t played at the Wynn in nearly a year … but did so last night, and much to my delight they got rid of their confusing $3 chips in the $1/$3 NL game. They now use the more standard $1 and $5 denominations.

Not sure when the change happened — presumably in 2008 — but I’ll be staying there for the next couple days, and not having to brush up on my base-3 mathematics makes the game that much more enjoyable.

(Played last night there for 2.5 hours … buy-in: $200, cash out: $268. Not bad, but I left a couple orbits too late, as my stacks were over $500 when I got that leaving feeling.)

That’s about all we know. No pics yet or anything, but supposedly the Wynn Macau (pictured) will be opening its new poker room on Nov. 6. It will have eight tables … all No-Limit Hold’em. Apparently NLH is the only game in town, mostly because it is the only poker game that’s legal in Macau.

No word on whether or not they plan to use confusing 元3 (three yuan) chips.

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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Jade in Las Vegas writes in to let us know there’s also good summertime action at the Wynn:

Hi Dan:

I’m the PR Manager overseeing our poker outreach. We currently have some exciting things going on in our poker room…..

• $100K Free Roll tournament on July 1-2. To qualify for this tournament all you need is 50 hours of live play and the last 10 seats at the final table get $10K
• Daily (Monday-Friday) No Limit Hold’Em Tournaments- beginning at 2p. $100/$20 buy-in and one optional $100 re-buy before Level 4
• Through July 16 we are offering a great room deal for poker players-$199 (Sunday through Thursday) and $239 (Friday-Saturday)

This is more of a rooms thing but it pertains to poker but…we display our wait list on a channel in the guest rooms so a guest can phone the poker room to sign up and watch the list from their room and come down when it is their turn to play. Pretty cool, right?

Please let me know if you would like more information on any of the above points.

Thanks!
Jade

Thanks for the info Jade. I’m sure some of our readers will take you up on the offer(s). And indeed — being able to see the wait list in your room is pretty cool. I’ve stayed at the Wynn once before, and you guys had the most comfortable bed ever. Like literally. It kept me away from the WSOP for two days because I didn’t want to leave it. Of course I did, once, to play some poker. But that didn’t go so well for me because, you know I played like garbage those $3 chips were so friggin’ confusing!

Just clicked over to the WPT website to see if there was any word yet about the Season 7 sked (there isn’t) and what tourneys if any have been axed/rescheduled.

However, I did notice one interesting thing — that Abraham Gray is the leader for “Highest Cash Percentage” [WPT profile]… finishing in the WPT money 57.14 percent of the time. Nice job. You may recall, however, that Not-So-Honest Abe was the dude reportedly arrested in October 2006 by the Nevada Gaming Commission at the Wynn poker tables for allegedly marking cards.

I use all those disclaimers because I don’t know whatever became of his case, and haven’t yet figured out how to check the status of NGC-wrought charges. But still …

Fantastic final table at the Wynn, featuring 4 multi-bracelet winners and last year’s Cardplayer player of the year (oh, and the questionably talented Ted Lawson, who finished 2nd)… and they finish 5-9. Go figure. Perhaps more alarming is the person who came in 10th. Guess he got over his fear of flying.

Just back from Vegas where there were and still are some big tournaments going on at the moment. The Heads Up Championship, The Wynn Classic & The Venetian. To everyone’s surprise, I was not invited to The Heads Up tournament at Caesars, so I was left to decide between the other two.

The Venetian has 40 minute levels (not sure of the blinds) and a deep stack to start. The Wynn also provides heavy chips, however, the blinds move up so quickly there were at least three pros complaining that it was a crap shoot.

Nonetheless, I had a great time playing at The Wynn Classic. I played with Brandon Cantu, Rene Angelil, Burt Boutin and took advice on the side from David Levi, Steve Wong & Marcel Luske (who was there for a short business trip).

I was eliminated by (the amazing) James Van Alstyne one hand after his nut straight crippled my stack; however, shortly thereafter he was hit by some bad beats as well. I was happy to see David Levi and Brandon Cantu make the final table. David has been playing fewer tournaments and focusing more on his cash games, so this was a nice tournament return with a first place finish. Brandon added another line to his resume taking down ninth place. One more notable was David Plastik who made seventh place in Event 5, no surprise there as he is a solid tournament player.

Before heading back to The Great State of Texas, I made it over to the cash tables. I was growing a nice chip stack when I flopped a set against pocket aces…an “Ace on the River” gave my opponent a bigger set. With just two hours left before my flight I managed to win back most of my money and a little bit of pride.

I need to stop letting you know when I play a major tournament because it seems I only have a bust to report lately. This time 25 spots from the money. I ended up short stacked with KJs under the gun and had to move in with an M of 3. Pocket Aces called, flopped a set and that ended me.

Despite my sob story…The Wynn is running a nice tournament with a $20 comp to any restaurant (much better different from the Rio Poker Kitchen). There are not a lot of pros here yet but I’m sure they are coming. Today’s sitings included Marcel Luske, Steve Wong (Happy Birthday, Steve!), TJ Cloutier & David Plastik (playing the final table from Tuesday’s event).

I’ve been up for 20 hours now so I should probably get some rest but yet…the sounds, the lights, the energy…I love Las Vegas.