As the Duke of Fremont gets ready for trial, Andrew and Dan are among a field of 200 playing $135 No-Limit Hold’em in the Golden Nugget’s $25,000 guaranteed weekender event. Dave meanwhile hooks it to Planet Hollywood in chase of the Caesars Megabeat (which pays better on a Wednesday afternoon) and damn, that’s a pretty good promo when coupled with their new 20 for 20 freeroll.

At Mandalay Bay this weekend it’s the $10,000 Tiger Jam, and is Wikipedia racist for thinking Phil Ivey = Tiger Woods? The WSOP lays out their summer plan with their annual media conference call. And we check in with David Clark, aka DC n La, from New Orleans, where the WSOP-NOLA circuit event is happening and the WSOP Circuit national championship takes place next week. And when a showdown reveals Dan’s 5c8c < 4s6s … he’s left asking Andrew if it was just an unfortunate river in the midst of sneaky button play or really, against a fellow Texan, just a late-position cliche …

Vegas Grinders 1.14: Going Continental
[audio: https://pokerati.com/podcast/VegasGrinders/VG1point14.mp3]

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Super Bowl Sunday is arguably one of the best days of the year for a Vegas grinder. In this town, the game is one big gamble, as evidenced by the pages and pages of prop bets offered exclusively on the NFL championship.

Super Bowl gamblers often spill into the poker rooms, and it’s hard to go wrong picking a place to play. But if you’re looking to pad your stack or you lost a bundle on your coin flip bet, there are a few places in town offering special promotions during the big game. (Kickoff is set for 3:30p PT.)

If you’re playing at Mirage, you’ll be hoping that there’s as much action on the felt as inside the Superdome. They’ll draw a seat number after just about every big play. An interception is worth $50, a fumble is worth $75, a play of 76 yards or more is worth $100. Field goals are worth $25-$100, depending on the distance and touchdowns are worth $100. There are also four pre-game drawings for the four hours before kickoff: $125, $100, $75 and $50.

Players at Excalibur earn can earn raffle tickets before and during the game. They’re paying $50 for field goals, $100 for touchdowns, and $400 for safeties, along with a drawing for $100 at the end of the first three quarters, and another for $200 at the end of the fourth quarter.

The Monte Carlo promo could end up costing you money if you play favorites. They’re giving away raffle tickets for full houses, and players must place their tickets in either a 49ers bin or a Ravens bin. When either team scores, they’ll pull a ticket for $50 for field goals, $100 for touchdowns and $200 for safeties.

The Luxor is giving out raffle tickets every hour for the first four hours before the game and every quarter during the game. Then there’s a drawing after each field goal for $25 and after each touchdown for $50.

At Mandalay Bay, they plan to give away $500 for the high hand of each quarter. The minimum qualifying hand is 10s full, and if no one hits, the prize jumps $250 more for the next quarter.

The oft-overlooked Circus Circus (because they rarely have much more than a 3/6 limit game) is offering $100 to the high hand every quarter, and $100 for the high hand of the hour from  8 p.m. to midnight.

Instead of cash, the Flamingo will splash pots with hats, T-shirts, hoodies, and polo shirts after each score and after each quarter.

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

Silver Medal
Caesar’s Palace

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

Bronze Medal
Bellagio

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

More…

Charles in Fort Worth writes in wanting to know how to donk off his bankroll without chasing straights and flushes:

Hi Dan,

I have an idea for a sports bet and since you are my connection to the world of gambling I thought you could give me some help on who and how to place it.

I want to place a $500 bet on Tiger Woods breaking the record for the most majors won. He currently has 13 and needs 6 more to break the record. I want to bet $500 on him breaking the record within the next 8 and 10 majors. Who could I contact to get the odds and place the bet with. Please let me know what you can find out or where I can go to make the bet. Thanks

GoodChuck

More…

North Texas fireworks kingpin Ran Nelson brought his tight-aggressive Dallas game recently to the Mandalay Bay.

Though I haven’t been writing much about anything it, I have been hitting the tables here in Vegas. Have sampled a handful of rooms and action … spreading the lore of the Hammer and the Sang all along the way, of course, as I seek to replace the competitive camaraderie of the Batface home game perhaps with something akin to Jackie’s back in the (Dallas underground hey)day.

That came easier than usual this week, when TBR-bro-in-law Patrick came to town. He was staying at the Luxor, so we met up at Cathouse for a drink. (Cathouse is basically like the Lodge without the nipples, and Celeb-chef Kerry Simon in place of Jose Luis.) A couple Lagavulins later, we walked over to Mandalay Bay, where we took two seats together at a $2/$4 no-limit table. This was bigger stakes than either of us had been playing, but hey, we were feelin’ half-drinky good, and it seemed a better option than waiting, as the room was totally full and festive on a Thursday night. A familiar face was seated with us – Ran Nelson, a very good Dallas player whom I hadn’t seen since the days of Jackie’s – what a delight. He had a new cardmarker, a square block of acrylic with his little Stuey guy inside of it, surrounded by chips from the various important poker rooms to Ran, including WinStar in Oklahoma and the old Sixth Street in Dallas.

I was playing great – more-than-doubled up in about an hour by trapping a well-stacked opponent in classic Dan-style … but then was back to square 1 a few hands later when I got unlucky on the turn … and back to square 0 when I don’t remember what I did but I am pretty sure it was stupid, starting with playing the likes of [cards]qs 4s[/cards].

Mandalay Bay
$2/$4 NLH
Buy-in: $300
Cash out: $0
Food: starved
Drinks: $28
Net: -$328

More…

The World Poker Tour will be announcing its Season 7 schedule next week, and according to some recent banter around the high-stakes tournament tables, at least two (not-so?) major events will be, er, disappeared — the WPT Mandalay Bay Poker Championship and the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown.

A company spokeswoman could neither confirm nor deny, but did say that WPT Enterprises has “really looked at the market and listened closely to feedback from players.” So I suppose we’ll see next week when the official press release comes out.

In the meantime, here’s Pokerati’s super-undercover investigative reporter Tom Schneider with the report:

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