The newest poker room in Vegas

I just got back from playing at the newest poker room in the city: Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon (formerly known as the Barbary Coast). How new? Well, when I arrived at about 8:00 p.m., they had been open for about three hours. This was their first day. I had read about the opening here and here, and made a point of playing there the first day. Does any other poker blogger bring you a report mere hours after a room first opens? No!

When I arrived, one of the two tables was in use, but one of three players was just leaving. I joined, and we played three-handed for about 15 minutes, until I busted one player, leaving us with two. We played heads-up for a few minutes, then got joined by a third. Then two friends joined and we were up to five. By the peak, we were at eight, and stayed there for quite a while. But as players busted out, the numbers dwindled again. I busted one of four remaining, then played just one orbit three-handed before calling it a night at about 11:00 p.m., which broke the game.

The game was no-limit hold'em, but with an odd structure: just a single $1 blind. The minimum buy-in was $20, maximum $200. Especially this unusually low minimum will not please hard-core pokeristas, but it served a useful purpose. It was clear that nearly every player was somebody not planning to play poker, and didn't even know that there was a poker room there, but just wandered by. They had two people aggressively approaching onlookers and inviting them into the game, and it was surprisingly effective. Several bought in for just $20 or $40, and I doubt that they would have played at all were the minimum at, say, $100, which is more typical of no-limit games. The short stacks kept rebuying when they went broke, so it didn't bother me. Heck, better to have the seat filled with a bad player with $20 that's easy to win than a skilled one with $500 that it's going to be difficult to extract from him.

Did I mention bad players? Wow. I am not kidding. One guy had to ask the dealer if an ace could play as the low end of a straight as well as the high end. Another, holding A-2, and no draw, put in a raise, then called two players (one of whom was the only other one at the table that I would rate as very good) going all-in when the board showed A-8-8. It was perfectly obvious that one or both of these two had an 8, but this guy really thought his A-2 might be good. Uh, no.

I had a good night, uptick $416 in three hours. About half of that came from the maniac who was the guy I played with one-on-one for a while. He played as if he were an Indy car driver, with his foot mashed on the accelerator the whole time. I've compared playing against such people to bronco riding, and it feels that way. You're compelled to gamble more with weaker hands than usual, or just get flattened under their aggression. And my gambles paid off: I busted him once when my nut flush draw hit on the river, then he re-bought, and I busted him a second time an hour or so later when my Broadway straight hit on the turn--in both cases, after all of the money was in. He was not happy.

As you can see from the photos, the room is just a roped-off area in a corner of the casino main floor. As I snapped the bottom picture, my back was to the outside door, which was left wide open: from the side of the table facing the dealer, you can watch people walking by on the Las Vegas Boulevard sidewalk, and you can see one of the entrances to the Flamingo just to the north. Noise and smoke were predictably heavy, as people are smoking at slot machines just a few feet outside the ropes. I've added it to my "category 5" list here. There was decent '70s pop/rock music on the overhead speakers.

The place was surprising well run for being its first day. Staff comes over from the Imperial Palace, so all of the dealers were experienced. I saw zero errors, and they handled highly inexperienced players very well, gently prompting and correcting them as needed.

The felt on the tables looked brand new. I was surprised to see a big ad for Party Poker in the middle, rather than the name of the casino, which is the usual thing occupying that space. There was no foot-rest bar under the table, though. There was a very bright light shining directly in my eyes in the seat I initially occupied--I moved to get away from it after a while. The guy in charge heard my comment about it, and, in a manner that struck me as completely sincere, said that they would get that taken care of. Overall, the staff was extremely courteous and solicitous toward the players.

It was one of the most fun sessions I've had in a while. Nearly every player was happy, relaxed, there to have a good time, sociable, friendly, laughing, taking wins and losses in stride. I like that--makes the time pass much more easily.

I doubt that this will be anything like a mainstay place for me. It would be nice for profit, because the room relying heavily on people making an impulse decision to play poker means that the average quality of play is way low. But I predict that they will have difficulty keeping games going on a regular basis. Still, if I play at the Flamingo or Caesars Palace or Bally's, so that Bill's is immediately adjacent, I'll probably stop in again and play if there is something going, and hope that the money flows as easily as it did tonight.