Venetian

One of the largest and nicest poker rooms on the Strip, the Venetian opened its room in the spring of 2006. Home to the popular thrice-yearly Deep Stack Extravaganza tournament series, it is managed by Kathy Raymond, formerly of Foxwoods Resort Casino.

Games
Wait Time: Usually very low - plenty of tables means a short wait time, especially if you're not particularly picky about game or limits.

Game Character: One of the nicer room on the Strip caters to lower-limit players than the Bellagio across the street. Lots of serious players populate the tables, but there are a decent number of fish.

Posting: New players need not post.

Shuffling: All tables machine shuffled, even the separate tournament tables.

Rake: 0-10%, max rake is $4, plus $1 for jackpot.

Kills: Killer acts last.

Tournaments


One of the largest and most popular tournament series in Las Vegas: the Deep Stack Extravaganza runs thrice yearly. Started in 2006 as a counter-program to the World Series, it was so popular it now runs for more than a quarter of the year. A Deep Stack Extravaganza is a tournament series that runs 5-6 weeks and has tournaments covering most variants of poker and with buyins ranging from $300 to $1500. The tournaments all feature large starting stacks, long rounds, and typically offer a lot of "play" for the money. Most attract over 200 players, and some attract 500 or so.

Tournament entry fees now include a $10 voucher which can be used for tournament merchandise at the sign-in counter or at any restaurant in the Venetian.

When a Deep Stack Extravaganza is not running, daily tournaments at noon and 7pm each generally have 100-120 entrants and pay north of $2000 for first place. With twenty minute levels and starting stacks of 7500, these also offer a nice amount of play for the money.


 * Sun-Sat 12noon: 120 + 25 + 5 NLHE
 * Sun-Sat 7pm: 100 + 15 + 5 NLHE

Atmosphere
Rococo decor. 12 TVs on the walls. Relatively remote separate room, in a corner of the casino near the escalator to the parking garage. In-room cashier. Computerized board. Wandering masseuses offer massage at $2/minute.

In addition to the 38-table poker room itself, during Extravaganzas they usually take over a large portion of the nearby casino floor with temporary poker tables (all of which still offer machine shuffling). During the WSOP, the Venetian sets up 100 extra tables outside the room to handle all the extra poker traffic that comes to town. As their daily tournaments wind down, they often set up cash games on the exterior tables, attempting to engage passersby and get more games going.

Smoking: Smoking not allowed in the room, and not much drift occurs. The tournament tables outside get more drift, but it's not bad.

Tables and Chairs: 10-seat tables have milk-chocolate-brown vinyl armrests with inset cup holders, nice beige felt, clean commit line. Really cool swivel-and-roll adjustable comfortable chairs with no arms.

Parking: Tons of parking the attached parking garage. Can be a bit difficult to navigate, though - allow an extra five or ten minutes for getting into the garage and finding a space.

Service
Food and cocktail service. Full meals available. A food court is only a few yards away, where you can get slices of pizza or other quick fare.

Other Notes
Visited by MarkT in April 2009.

Discussion threads
Venetian opening a poker room (2+2)