I was in Vegas Monday and stopped at the Horseshoe to play poker. The new
space is much more open, since the poker room has expanded into the area
where the deli was. The snackbar next to the poker room no longer has
counter seating and the menu has changed somewhat, but you can still sit and
eat at an area with high round tables and stools about five feet from the
snack bar counter.
Now that the Horseshoe poker room is nonsmoking, playing there is much more
pleasant. And miracle of miracles, each stack of chips is the same size and
they fit right into chip racks without having to count chips of varying
thickness. New chips...who'da ever thunk it?
They had one $10-$20 game going when I was there, and that was the biggest
game in the room. Two $1-$2 no-limit games were also spread. Each of the
N/L games had an unlimited buy-in, but if you sat down with $300 you had as
many chips as anyone else at the table. The N/L game I played in was very
tight. One small $10 raise usually folded any limpers and one decent sized
$25 reraise usually folded the initial raiser.
I played there about 45 minutes and then moved into the $10-$20 game --
there was an interest list for $15-$30 but it never got going while I was
there -- which had three very weak players in it who took turns going on
tilt and feeding the table.
Others have commented in earlier posts on the difference in the Horseshoe's
table games, but since I don't play table games, I have nothing to offer on
anything other than the poker room. Here's the bottom line on Horseshoe
poker: Making the poker area non-smoking and spreading things out a bit
makes it a nicer place to play.
The employees are, for the most part, long time Horseshoe staff, and I was
happy to see familiar faces. As to whether Harrah's will change the feel of
the room in the long run by imposing their corporate culture on the Shoe's
staff is anyone's guess, but for now it's a nicer place to play poker than
it was before.
Oh...before I forget, Gee Joon is now closed, but if that was your
favorite Horseshoe restaurant, don't dispair. Many of the Chinese items now
can be ordered in the Coffee Shop.
If you're gonna walk from the poker room to the coffee shop thru that little
tunnel-like passage way, there's now a sign stating that it is for
employee's only. I ignored it; it's still the quickest way from poker to
the coffee shop. And what are they gonna do if they stop you because you're
a non-employee using that passage way -- take your birthday away?
Across the street I was able to get a look at the Golden Nugget's new poker
room. It is adjacent to the Carson Street Cafe, in that big, light
two-story high tented area claiming some of what was once part of the pool
deck but is now an area used for concerts and special events.
The room is light, airy, with a lot of space between the 20 tables. Poker
will stay in this location until the end of summer, at which point the
Nugget will have to move it to some other location. I suppose that means
either displacing slots or table games, or else creating an area for poker
somewhere else. I suppose they could stick the poker room up on the second
floor convention area of the south tower, but that would really be out of
the way.
The current area is terrific, right off the main walkway leading from the
hotel rooms and some of the restaurants to the casino. The poker room opens
up April 21 (I think) and it looks to be a terrific room to play in. I'm
sure they'll capture scads of cash game play during the series, and I intend
to give it a shot when I'm up there.
BTW, each time I walked through the Nugget -- day and night -- the casino
was jammed. And that was on Sunday and Monday nights and Monday during the
day. So at least one property downtown looks to be thriving.
_____
Lou Krieger
Raise your game with Lou Krieger, author of "Internet Poker: How to Play and
Beat Online Poker Games"
Andy - Las Vegas
