Christopher Coffin, the new manager at the Treasure Island poker room, is wasting no time in mixing things up to reinvigorate the room.
In addition to the room’s $1-$3 no-limit hold’em game, Coffin added a $1-$1 game. With the small and big blind at $1, the game has a $50 minimum buy-in and a $100 max.
Another new game is $3-$6 limit. To attract players, TI will have a 5 percent rake with a max of $3, taken in $1 increments at $20, $40 and $60. The tournament schedule has been revised, too. The popular 10 p.m. tournament, with a $1K guarantee for a $65 buy-in, now has 10K chips. And that same tournament, including the guarantee, will be offered daily at 2 p.m., too.
The $50 daily tournaments at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. are new and have an interesting twist. Coffin is calling these “Everyone Cashes” tournaments. They will end after seven 20-minute levels and everyone with chips left at that time will take a piece of the prize pool. The starting stack is 7K, so at the end, every increment of 2K in tournament chips is worth $10. Players are assured of an event that lasts no longer than 2.5 hours.
Because of construction elsewhere in the casino, the poker room was forced to share space with the sports book for a few months. Now, the sports book is ready to move into its new home, and it’s leaving behind all 16 TVs. That’s quite a few for the seven-table room, easily allowing players to keep up with all of the games as they enjoy the poker offerings.
Coffin has other promotions planned, including high-hand bonuses, a football promo for the upcoming season and more. Stay tuned for details.
CAESARS PALACE: The 2014 WSOP Warm Up event concluded May 4, with Joshua Suyat of Las Vegas taking home the $12K first-place prize. Almost 90 entrants paid $560 to compete, resulting in a $43K prize pool. Shinichiro Hatakeyama of California earned $8K for second and Hideki Azuma of Japan took home $6K for third. Soon after the event, Caesars’ poker room temporarily closed and it’s not holding a summer series concurrent with the WSOP this year. A new poker room is being built and is expected to open by the time this issue hits the stands. Expect to find details on the new room and the new promotions right here next issue.
WYNN: Arturo Hernandez earned $30,511 for his first-place finish in the $100K Spring Weekend guarantee event, which ended April 27. Majid Hashemi-Kohazad took second ($30,041). Pascal Huijnen was third ($25,447). All three hail from Nevada. More than 725 players paid $340 to enter for a nearly $212K prize pool.
VENETIAN: Through Aug. 31, the Venetian is offering a rake break on all mixed games and on limit hold’em games $10-$20 and higher. There will be no rake in those games between noon and 3 p.m. All other hours, these games will take half the normal rake.
Deep Stack Extravaganza 3.5 will run Sept. 11-28 and will feature $1 million in guarantees. All multi-starting flight NLHE events will have guarantees. In addition, there’s a HORSE tournament Sept. 19 with a $15K guarantee, as well as an Omaha/8 event Sept. 6 with a $20K guarantee and a PLO tournament Sept. 13 with a $15K guarantee. Those three events have $400 buy-ins. The $1,600 main event has three starting days beginning Sept. 26 and offers a $400K guarantee. The winner will also get a watch.
RED ROCK & TEXAS STATION: Forrest Caldwell has been named poker room manager at Red Rock. He takes over for Mike Doe, who retired after years of managing poker at the popular locals resort. Caldwell only recently took over as manager of the Texas Station poker room. Ken Franco moves over from Palace Station, where he was a shift supervisor for three years, to take over Caldwell’s responsibilities at Texas Station. Franco has been involved in Vegas poker for nearly 10 years.
MGM: Director of poker Rob Moore always looks to tweak and improve the promotions in his 14-table room. The Grand Cash Giveaway will now run 24-7 with six drawings a day every four hours. That’s not the only change. There will be at least two winners for each drawing, sometimes more. A poker room employee will choose the prize envelope first, before picking any names. The envelope will determine how many prizes will be given and for what amount. The least amount of cash given away each drawing will be $200, ($100 to two players). Other envelopes will give away $500 each to two players or $200 each to 10 players. Other combinations are possible, too. If a player has multiple tickets in the drawing, it’s possible for them to win more than one cash prize each drawing. Players earn tickets for having a flush or better, with only one card needed to qualify.
Moore has more promotions planned, as the high-hand bonuses have been eliminated.
— Email Rob Solomon at rob@allvegaspoker.com. Follow him on Twitter @Robvegaspoker and read his blog at robvegaspoker.blogspot.com.
