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| - I don't play poker any more. It's been over a year. I had to stop when I had some numbers explained to me by a smarter man than myself. His explanation went a little something like this: It's sort of Hollywood with people talking about how they win at the game. The rake takes a bigger bite than most think. If you're sitting at a ten handed table where each player has $300, and they're doing 30 hands an hour at $4 house rake per hand, plus tips to the dealer, that's one player being literally eaten by the house every 2 hours. So if you put in an 8 hour session, 4 of those 10 starting players would be up in smoke, money completely gone to the house, by the end of that period. Money off the table not winnable by you. Yeah. Sucks eh? So even before you've started jousting with those highly refined table sharks hungrily eyeing your chips at popular poker joints like the MGM (note to 20 something alt punk: get a real job, even if it's making sandwiches, still better), you're sort of starting at a disadvantage, to all the money being sucked up by the black hole that is the house.
Your odds might even be better putting it all on red at that nice pretty roulette wheel over there. 47% versus a table full of sharks, and a hungry house? I'll take the almost coin flip, I'm no Michael Phelps and a lot of those sharks look fast.
I suppose my real point is that, as with the move from 2:3 blackjack to 5:6 and the increase in tight slots, I think the big casinos got a big greedy and have choked some of the life out of the game.
That said, I agree with these other posts that the MGM is a nice, modern, clean room with very professional dealers and floor personnel. Lots of tables, lots of action. The dealers are nicer than the Bellagio's, although the players are better. Since it's so close to Studio 54 there's lots of eye candy. There's lively games 24 7, which cannot be said of most poker rooms nowadays.
If you're just in town for the weekend from Socal or New York or Bahhston or Toronto or Norway or London and looking for that distinctly vicious and bloodcurdling thrill that only comes with aggressively bluffing two tight rocks out of a hand that you rightfully should have lost, you might as well be rearranging the deck chairs on this particularly modern, nicely furnished and hip sort of Titannic.
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