This Week in Vegas: Excellent Value in an Extravaganza

Summer has given way to fall, but value is on the rise in Las Vegas this week, as tournament poker continues to thrive in Sin City. While many summer festivals have ended, one Vegas venue is ramping up guarantees and offering great opportunities for local players to win big. 

I’ll bring you what’s hot and what’s not in Vegas this week while offering you something else to do if you bust early and want to explore the gambling capital of the world away from the poker felt. 

From the best value tournaments in town to events that cost more than they’re worth, I’ll break down where you should play this week and where you may want to think twice before pulling up a chair.

Playing The Board: The Venetian Returns to Center Stage

The Venetian rarely allows much downtime between festival series, and September kicks off by proving that point. The Venetian’s DeepStack Extravaganza began this week and immediately gives players one of the best-value schedules anywhere in Las Vegas. 

The outstanding tournament over the coming days is the $400-entry No Limit Hold’em event, which has a huge $100,000 guarantee. 

Multiple starting flights run from September 4^th to 7^th, and given how low the buy-in is and how big the rewards for winning are, they should fill up. Two big winners this week (Gregory Crysel (left) and Raj Singh (right) in the featured photo) won events in the last few days worth $16,236 and $14,004, respectively. That should convince you to take a stroll down the Strip. 

For players looking to build a bankroll rather than fire bigger bullets, these mid-stakes Venetian events often provide a softer field than some of the larger headline tournaments elsewhere in town. If you’re looking for my pick of the week, this is it. Take a shot, and it could transform a modest bankroll in just a few days’ play.

Around the Rooms: H.O.R.S.E. Running at the Bellagio, Last Chance at the Wynn

If you’ve been waiting for the Bellagio to put on a good value, big guarantee event, then this week is for you. I’m not a mixed game player, but I know loads of friends who are, and the One-Day H.O.R.S.E. event represents great value to them. Kicking off at 12 noon on Sunday 6^th September, the $25,000 guaranteed event costs just $600 to play, and although only $510 of that goes into the prize pool ($50 to the house, $40 to staff gratuity), the tournament is still a must-play for mixed game players. 

The Wynn Signature Series concludes this weekend, and there’s one tournament that stands head and shoulders above the rest. The $1,100 No Limit Hold’em event features a $400,000 guarantee and runs through to Sunday, making it the largest guaranteed prize pool available in Las Vegas over the coming week. Players receive 40,000 starting chips and play 40-minute levels throughout the event.

While Wynn doesn’t officially label it a Main Event, it effectively serves as the headline attraction for the series’ closing stages. Expect a strong turnout from players looking to squeeze one final score from the festival before attention shifts elsewhere next week. 

Meanwhile, The Orleans continues to quietly offer some of the most attractive lower buy-in tournaments in the city. The regular $200 events remain a viable alternative for players unwilling to battle through the larger fields at Wynn and Venetian, and the same applies to South Point, who have reduced its lowest tournament buy-in to just $100. 

One to Swerve: Golden Nugget Are All Promo

After moving to the Rush Tower, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas has decided to press ahead with a promotional blitz of offers. From the Full House Pyramid to the Progressive Royal Flushes that might take an abdication to claim, most of them either miss the mark or fall some way short of other casinos’ offerings. 

Paying out $50 for four of a kind is about as generous as offering doubles at the bar, only for the small print to reveal it refers to ice cubes. It’s not that ‘GNLV’ shouldn’t have come back with the odd high hand promotion or progressive jackpot-style offers to draw in new players, but a complete schedule published across the website and social media, along with some specifics about poker tournaments, would go down a lot better with Vegas players. 

After all, virtually every other cardroom in Sin City already offers that.  

Off the Felt: Seven Magic Mountains

Not every break from poker needs to involve another casino. About 20 minutes south of the Strip sits Seven Magic Mountains, the colorful public art installation that has become one of Nevada’s most photographed attractions. They may not be stacked in piles of 20, but the towering stacks of brightly painted boulders provide a complete contrast to the poker room environment and make for an easy excursion between tournament days. 

Better yet, the trip won’t leave you exhausted before your next session. Best of all, it is completely free. Sitting in the Ivanpah Valley about 20 to 30 minutes south on I-15, the installation has no admission fee and an on-site parking lot, so if you have a car, it costs you nothing but the drive. Tour operators run trips out there for around $40 to $50 if you would rather not rent one, though the artists behind the installation warn against anyone trying to charge you a parking or entrance fee on arrival. There is no such fee.

Over the next seven days, I’d make The Venetian my primary destination, adding in the last event of the Wynn Signature Series or the Bellagio’s $600, depending on whether I have experience on a H.O.R.S.E. or would fall off the ride. 

Summer might be gone, but the value in Vegas is still here.