Excalibur



Next to the Luxor and across the street from the Tropicana. The Excalibur used to be famous as a great place for beginners to learn to play. While still one of the better places for a beginner, it's no longer a must-see poker room and has been downgraded to "run of the mill".

Games & Limits
Limit hold 'em: $2/4. They will spread $3/6 if they can get enough interest, and they usually are taking names on their board; likely to happen on weekends and/or evenings.

Spread-limit hold 'em: $2-6 spread with a single $2 blind.

No-limit hold 'em: $100-$200 buyin, $1/$3 blinds. $200-$500 buyin $2/$5 blinds.

The rake is 0-10%, but max rake is $4. Separate jackpot drop of 0.50 or 1.00 depending on pot size. The spread games are raked in increments of $0.25, making them some of the few known games where part of a pot is usually in US quarters!

Posting: New players need not post.

Shuffling: Mostly shuffled by hand, but some tables have Shufflemaster machines.



Wait Time: There's rarely much of a wait, though it can be hard to hear the brush, so stay nearby if your name is on the list. Brush uses a paper clipboard for the board.

Tournaments
Every day at 9am, a $25+10 NLHE tournament with no rebuy or addon. Limited to 70 players. Signups start at 7am. Generally fills up by 8:00am on weekends, but doesn't fill on weekdays.

Same tournament runs again every day at 11am (signups at 9am).

Jackpots
A number of jackpots, including a progressive bad beat jackpot and a royal flush bonus. Also, a unique extra jackpot: players get to "spin a wheel" of prize amounts (ranging from $20 to $100) whenever they:
 * have pocket aces cracked in hold 'em, or
 * end up with quads or better (need not be shown at showdown, but must be shown)



Atmosphere
Once one of the friendliest rooms for poker novices on the Strip, the Excalibur was known for their "kitchen table" rules and friendly atmosphere for beginners. They offered free daily lessons at 11:00am, and followed the lessons with a 1-3 spread limit game.

In 2006, though, they turned their poker room into a large sports book operation and moved their poker operations out onto the main casino floor. While still spreading only low-limit games and attempting to aim at beginners, it's not as pleasant a place to play as it once was - surrounded by the general din of the casino it's now harder to hear other players and to see your cards. And the entry-level 1-3 spread game has disappeared; only 2-6 spread and 2/4 limit and 1/3 no-limit run at all regularly.

There are no TV's; the poker tables are separated from the main casino floor only by a half-height glass wall. While it tries to encourage passersby to watch and join, it only partially works that way.

Smoking: Despite being part of the main casino floor, and being nominally non-smoking, not too much smoke drifts into the "room" from outside, so it's not too bad.

Tables and Chairs: Somewhat worn Vegas 10-player tables with a wooden "staging band" between the felt and padding. Cup holders in the padding for most tables. Rollup cup-holder tables for other tables. Chairs are standard fixed-leg padded metal frame chairs.

Service and Comps
Standard Vegas service, though it can be fairly slow. Drinks, including sodas, are very small physically.

They offer a $4 food coupon for 4 hours of play, good at any restaurant in the Excalibur. You have to ask about it at the desk, and check in and out in order to get it, though.

They also offer a poker room rate for 5 hours of play per day that works out to about $5/hour room credit.

They do not accrue points on the MGM/Mirage Players Club casino card which is the players club for Excalibur. They do their separate food and room credits instead.

If you're playing poker in the room on the morning you want to check out and want to nab a free "extended checkout", just ask the brush around 10am (an hour before checkout time) and he'll call the front desk and have your checkout extended to 3pm for free (normally a $30 charge or so).

Links

 * Official Excalibur Website

Visited by wiki authors
Visited by MarkT in Mar 2006 and Mar 2007.