Wednesday, May 05, 2010

New poker room at Imperial Palace coming










I was at Imperial Palace tonight. I saw the about-to-be-opened new poker room there, to which I had previously been tipped off by some of my http://www.allvegaspoker.com/ and Twitter friends.

It is said to be opening Friday this week. The location is just west of the current room, i.e., in the southwest corner of the casino floor, right next to the Strip-side entrance.

It looks like there will be a lot more room between tables, which is nice. The noise and smoke might be slightly less, since they will mainly be coming from one side, rather than having the room surrounded, as is now the case.

These tables look to me like ones they set up in other rooms when holding a special tournament. However, the felt has been cut to allow installation of Shufflemaster machines, which suggests that these are going to be the new permanent tables. That would mean, finally, an end to the largest poker tables in Vegas, which has long been one of the IP's minor points of either pride or annoyance (depending on whom you ask).

I have a vague memory that the first time I ever played at IP (late 2006) the room was in what will be this new spot, and later got moved to where it is now, so that this upcoming move is a return of sorts. (Maybe you can go home again after all.) But that was only one trip, and everything was new and disorienting to me then, so it's all kind of a jumble in my brain.

I plan to head back there this weekend and see how the new joint looks and feels--and how it sounds and smells, too.

3 comments:

Local Rock said...

The special purpose the tables were previously used for was the WSOP, or so I was told by some of the IP staff.

gadzooks64 said...

I played 2/4 limit poker in the old room the night before they moved it to where it is now. Hard to believe it has been four years!

That was my first Vegas palooza adventure - ah, good times.

At the time I couldn't understand why they would want to move the room from where it was - that seemed to be an excellent location for it. I will have to pay a visit to the IP when I am there in June!

Michael said...

Glad they are moving it back there, beats the current spot and the old upstairs location. Who knew a high limit lounge wouldn't work at the IP?

Just wish the same could be said for PH and they'd move it back up front to that great area they had.