Mandalay Bay

Hours, Tables, Location
Open 24/7.

10 tables, nestled next to the sportsbook.

South end of the Las Vegas Strip, connected by free tram to Luxor and Excalibur.

Games and Info
Free poker lessons are offered at 2pm daily.

Limit hold 'em:
 * $2/4
 * $4/8 with a half kill and blinds of $1/$2 (see below)
 * $6/12 (on demand only; this runs irregularly)
 * $10/$20 with a half kill (also irregular)

No-limit hold 'em:
 * $200 buyin, $2/$4 blinds
 * $500 buyin, $5/$10 blinds

The rake is 0-10%, max rake is $4. Rake is taken in quarters as the pot grows, similar to the Excalibur.

Posting: New players do not need to post.

Shuffling: All tables have Shufflemaster machines.

The 4/8 game is odd in two ways:
 * The blinds are half what they would normally be in a $4/8 game, only $1 and $2, but the fixed-limit of $4 is in effect for the preflop betting round. If a player wants to raise the big blind, they do not "complete" it to $4, instead they "raise" it to $6 (4 more than the big blind of 2).  This results in a lot more players seeing the flop than would normally happen in a 4/8 game.
 * The half kill is handled oddly. The killer acts in turn, but they only need to post $3 on the kill button before the deal, not $6.  This is half of what would be expected, but essentially the game has shifted to $6/12 and the kill is acting as the big blind would in a 6/12 game here.

Unusual house rule: players are prohibited from chopping the blinds if nobody plays. The small blind must, instead, sacrifice their blind to the big blind.



Wait Time
Wait time varies; even with only 10 tables, it is usually not full, so there simply aren't that many games running. You can usually find a seat at one of them without waiting too long, though (10 minutes, maybe). Brush uses a paper clipboard for the board.

Tournaments and Jackpots

 * Mon-Fri 10am: $30 buyin, max 30 players.
 * Mon-Thu 6pm: $60 buyin, max 30 players.

The Mandalay Bay has an interesting high hand jackpot: it's progressive based on the hand. They maintain separate progressives for each of the possible high hands (they award them only for quads or better): quad deuces, for example, might win more of a jackpot than quad eights if there haven't been many quad deuces shown down lately. The Royal Flushes are progressive by suit; the straight flushes are progressive only by high card.

High hand jackpots ranged from $100 to $2000 when I was there in Mar 2006.



Atmosphere
A pleasant upscale poker room (well, poker "area", perhaps) in an upscale resort. It's a shame it's not more popular, or bigger, but that may be due to the fact that Mandalay Bay is sort of at the end of the Strip as opposed to the middle. Pleasant tables, good management and dealers, pleasant environment.

Smoking: Officially non-smoking, and its position sort of tucked away near the sportsbook means there isn't much drift of smoke from elsewhere either.

Tables and Chairs: Standard Vegas 10-player tables with a nice wooden "staging band" between the felt and padding. Cup holders in the padding. Nice new felt. Chairs are standard fixed-leg padded metal frame chairs with extra nice padding; extra cushions available.

Service and Comps
Not sure; didn't try it while I was here. The waitresses were very pretty, though, and came around often.

Links and Discussion Threads

 * Official Mandalay Bay Website
 * Mandalay Bay Poker Room - (2+2)

Visited by wiki authors
Visited by MarkT in Mar 2006.