About Aliante Station's poker room

Last night at the premiere of the Excalibur's new electronic poker tables (about which more shortly), I ran into an acquaintance who, I had heard, had been named as the poker room manager for Aliante Station, the new Stations property set to open in North Las Vegas November 11. He confirmed that indeed that is his new position. He told me that the place is gorgeous enough to make Red Rock look like a dump--and he is not a man who is prone to either idle exaggeration or vain shilling on behalf of his employer.

Of more immediate interest to me, though, was the persistent rumor that Aliante's poker room was going to use electronic tables from the get-go. Another version of the rumor has it that it will be half and half, both traditional tables and electronic. That version, I am now told, is definitely not true. It will be either one or the other. The odd thing, though, is that this has not yet been decided. One would think that this would have been settled long ago, with the opening a mere 80 days away, but apparently not. A final decision is expected next week.

If they go electronic, it will not be with the PokerPro tables that Excalibur has, but the very similar competition product from Lightning Gaming. (Well, at least the tables look very similar to me. Maybe there's something profoundly different about them that isn't apparent from the web site.)