Our game with the goal of providing a fun alternative to dry Vegas NL poker culture continues.
September 2026 Update:
We run the 2/3 deepstack Wednesdays and Sundays at 7:30 pm.
Sundays is GVR.
Wednesdays are now at MGM Grand.
We no longer play at Caesars – thanks to James T. and the crew there, it was a no-fault situation.
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We play 2/3 with a 200 bb min buy in. No max.
Straddles are unlimited in number and amount. UTG preference. If a straddle happens in the field, action starts UTG.
SB bounty is always on. Five dollars per player. A one-dollar marker helps show if you’ve paid.
Show one card rule is always on.
Run it as many times as you want.
Bomb pots for time are $18, which includes $6 for time plus $2 for a pre tip at MGM; GVR 5$ time and no pre tip for a total of $15 per down. Dealer’s choice: any big bet game. Dramaha and PLO variants are popular; “All Aboard,” both regular and progressive, is a Cucaracha-type game. Various Pineapples get chosen. Players do not have to play the bomb pot, they can pay time and tip instead. Have your choice ready.
SOMETIMES we run the nit game (or other bounties), but the more public nature of the current version of our game means more problems with random players, so I avoid it overall. Lobby for these types of games if you want it!
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Other fun things naturally happen.
Sign up for a seat here. Read on for more background if you like. The game began in January 2020 at Sahara.
This game was, incidentally, a little confusing to some, who, when I first announced the game, pointed out to me that they have some deep games at their local joint. Fair enough, I certainly never claimed to invent deep stack poker. Nor is Vegas a city in Texas, where the boys really are gambling these days. So, thanks guys, but this is ideed Vegas, and card rooms are shutting down: we’ve lost I think four rooms to Covid since I arrived, and more to just the slowdown of the poker market. The regs here are sometimes nitty, and worse, often seeking out every game edge, including doing a lot of short-stacking and rat-holing and trading in general poker misanthropy. They wile away the days and nights, scrounging out casino points and promotions, taking unwitting part in one of the most disturbing aspects of American society: the casino industry as unnamed partner in elder care.
Our game won’t be much of a part of that stuff, and I even mean that quite literally: we have a sweet $5 time rake and no drop for any promotions. This game is about the game. The minimum 200 bb buy-in always scares off the worst nits and rat-holers. And hey, this is taking place in a beautiful room, the new Sahara. Strip-mall card clubs are cool, but they just won’t fly in the city of Aria, Bellagio, and Wynn poker. The Sahara, while small, can compete because it has many winning qualities. The seats are perfect, the tables clean and new. The Sahara’s Covid plexiglass apparati are far more discrete than the clunky teller booths some of the other casinos are using. The sports screens are nicely arranged, and there is even a slightly secluded Table 1, where we’ll be playing. The poker operations head, Steven Pique, has experience in the local scene and in poker content production, so he knows what he is doing, but his task in carving out a place in today’s Vegas poker market is a daunting one. I wish him luck and will do what I can to help. (Getting more players on Poker Atlas and their mobile app would be a big step forward for the Sahara and many other rooms looking to grow.)
The big picture, however, is that short-stacked games are simply not as interesting as they once were. One way forward is to make for more interesting in-game decisions. So you change games or mix up the games. Maybe you add a third blind (or more). These are fair adjustments, but they ultimately change the game you liked so much originally. The simplest answer has actually been hidden in plain sight all along: why the hell was 50 or 100 bbs the stack size they gave us to play? Do we get to use the deck and the streets of play very fully in this game? Do we really get to cold call much, never mind in in three bet pots? Where is there room for the most novel lines and plays?
It’s not at 100 bbs, generally. Even in solves, as we get deeper, things get a little funkier. We need to split our actions and cover the board more. We need to check more yet bomb it more later. We can have dozens of sizing opportunities in a single hand, and our opponent has just as many tools. This is complexity, and that can wake up the jaded poker player. Further, since no range really wants to be all-in pre at 500 bbs, you can imagine the consequences of that: post-flop can’t be dodged, yet you can still reraise preflop as much as you can handle. Pretty sweet.
Of course, nothing is simple. There are no solutions, only tradeoffs, as the Sowell quotation goes. The problem with depth is risk. And that’s the answer to why they like us playing short. When we do blow our load we can get right back in the game.
So, to counter that, I think we should play deeper but smaller and allow more stack differentials. Not staring at an Ignition screen against five opponents with the same profile and same chips, but a panoply of problems to face. What do you open or three bet when every stack behind you is different and one covers you for infinite bbs? What happens when the BU flats your reraise and now UTG comes along and you’re squeezed into the middle with 400 bbs of betting in front of you? Can you win?
I know, I know: there’s solutions and principles for all these things. There are no pure fixes for poker, but there’s something to be said for getting back to our roots and away from all the static thoughts and plays that the online and casino structure regime has forced on us. We want, at heart, for our games to be like that home game or wacky television game that got us addicted originally.
Get a seat locked up and help us organize by contacting me.
