Why I like the Hilton poker room (non-grumpy content)

I've mentioned the Hilton poker room a bunch of times in my posts, and even said that it's my favorite poker hangout. It's not exactly the most common/popular place for a reasonably serious poker player to frequent, compared to the Bellagio, Venetian, Wynn, Caesars Palace, Mirage, etc. And, frankly, it tends to get more negative reviews than positive ones from visitors, at least as judged by postings at http://www.allvegaspoker.com/ (which is, incidentally, a really useful site for deciding where in the city to play). So I've been thinking that I should, at some point, explain why I like it there. And now seems as good a time as any. Yeah, I realize that it will seem like sucking up because they just had me on their little radio show, but I would have said the same things a long time ago.

First, and by far most importantly, once a year there is a huge Star Trek convention at the Hilton, so you have the opportunity to play poker with Vulcans, Klingons, and Romulans, in full regalia, at the table. Can ANY other poker room in Vegas make that claim? I think not.

OK, so maybe that's not really the most important factor. (It's the one I was prepared to give if the radio show hosts had asked why I like the Hilton. But they didn't, so I didn't get to use it, and I hate to waste my few scraps of comic material.)

These really aren't in any particular order, except as they occur to me:

It's an unusually friendly place. On only my second trip there, roughly a year ago, employees remembered me and were calling me by name. Very impressive.

I make money playing there. This is a must--there are rooms in which, after four or five visits, I haven't had a single winning session, for whatever reason, and I don't keep going back. When somebody posted an opinion at the above-mentioned web site that it was virtually impossible to make money at the Hilton because it is frequented by so many tight players, I poked through my records to come up with this data in response: "In April and May (just to pick the most recent time frame), I've played 23 cash-game sessions at the Hilton, totalling 104.75 hours. Of those, 14 have been winning sessions and 9 losing. My net profit has been $2587, or $24.70/hour. So when people who have played there for a few hours once or twice post here and make generalizations about not being able to make money playing there, I have to scratch my head and say, "Huh?" Now, maybe $25/hour is a pittance to some, not worth the investment of time. But that's about my average everywhere I play, so I consider it perfectly acceptable."

It's true that occasionally I run into a table of people playing so tight that the only way to make money is to literally pick up the table and shake the chips off of it into my pocket. But fortunately, the Hilton is one of the few rooms that will allow you to do this. (If I have to append "Just kidding" here to prevent readers from even remotely thinking that I'm serious about this, then I have truly failed in my attempts at humor herein.)

Actually, one of the things I value most is that most of the time I encounter a great mix of locals and tourists/conventioneers. I consider it ideal to have 2-3 players at the table whose style of play and habits I already know pretty well. It reduces the work of figuring out where the soft spots at the table are, what weaknesses I can see and exploit in opponents, etc.

The monthly freeroll is a great bonus. Do the math: they give away $20,000 every month, divided among roughly 60 players who show up for the freeroll tournament. Assuming you're of average skill, your expected value is about $333. It takes only 40 hours of play to qualify, which means that you're getting about $8/hour returned to you. Yeah, I realize that it's money that was taken out of pots, so it could well be that I'd do just as well if they didn't take it out in the first place. But as long as it's coming out, you might as well do what you can to get some of it back.

The place is one of the more effectively smoke-free rooms in town. It's not quite as good as facilities in which the poker room is truly isolated from the smoking areas of the casino (like Harrah's or Caesars Palace), but it's close. I never leave there reeking of cigarette smoke (and if I did, I wouldn't keep coming back frequently).

It has one of the best parking/walking factors in the city. I can almost always park within 200 feet of the door, and the poker room is probably only 100 feet inside the door. Compare that with, say, the MGM, or Planet Hollywood, where the hike is such a marathon that you could solicit donations for charity by the miles you have to walk.

I like small rooms. Maybe it's some sort of Freudian remnant of being in the womb, but big poker rooms make me feel kind of lost. I like easily being able to know, at least partially, what's going on at all the tables, who's coming and going, etc. Probably in correlation with this size factor, the room is sufficiently quiet that one can engage in conversation in normal, even quite soft, voices. I'm a quiet guy. I like quiet places. It's not like a library or funeral home or anything, but it's incredibly easy on the ears, by comparison with places like Bally's, or the old Aladdin, or MGM.

The staff is competent. Sure, there are a couple of dealers who I think don't pay enough attention and, consequently, make too many mistakes, but they're a distinct minority. Very few of my rants about problems with dealers have been Hilton stories. Moreover, I have never--not even once--seen a Hilton floor person make an incorrect or unreasonable decision when called over to address a problem.

It's one of the closest places to drive to from where I live--no freeways needed to get there. Your mileage may vary (literally). And because it's off the Strip, I don't have to wrangle with Strip traffic, either.

Their tolerance for rude/abusive conduct by players is pretty low. It's not as low as I would personally like, because my threshold for such antics is, like, absolute zero. But the dealers and supervisors will intervene more quickly and reliably when there's a problem than at most other poker rooms that I have experienced. (Maybe some day I'll write a post about the first time I tried the Tropicana, and took unbelievable verbal abuse from a jerk, without a single dealer doing anything about it.)

Comps are readily given and easy to use (though, admittedly, it would be nice if they were redeemable at a wider range of the facilities the Hilton offers).

The weekly Saturday tournament may be the best structure of any in town in its price range. And it's small enough that you have a decent chance of cashing. I'm happier with smaller, more frequent payoffs than larger but rarer ones.

There's a bunch of little things, too: autoshufflers to keep the games moving fast, good service from chip runners and cocktail waitresses, cup holders in the rail, decently comfortable chairs, Kem cards, table sizes that Goldilocks would say are "just right" (not too big and not too small), zillions of televisions, no obnoxious talking on cell phones allowed, free doughnuts (if you're there before they're gone, anyway).

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment. Hey, Hilton guys--can I get my payment for this advertisement now?