2025 Las Vegas Summer Series - non-WSOP

To be fair, most WSOP events used to be freeze outs and now hardly any are. I can see how someone who doesn’t pay close attention might think all WSOP events are re-entry nowadays.

As to your other comment, I think in our mechanized/digitized world, many people have gotten accustomed to the expectation that things should run perfectly. This almost never happens in reality because at some point in every process, whether it’s an engineer or a computer designer or a cashier, etc., there is a fallible human involved. This will be true until such time as processes are entirely controlled by machines. Of course, such a world of perfection may not bode well for the human race, so I’m not sure it’s something to look forward to.

She was furious because some sort of technical and/or human error on the part of the WSOP cost her $10k. Luckily for everyone, she didn’t cash. That would have been a huge scandal as opposed to just a curious story depicting the reality that running these huge series without these kinds of errors is probably not possible.

As to the $100 issue at the MGM, again, it’s hard to say what exactly went wrong. Maybe the cashier thought it was a different event, even for just a few seconds. Maybe they just had a brain fart. Who knows? Shouldn’t have happened, but it was caught and fixed.

Last year, at the WSOP they had the $600 Deepstack Championship on the same day as something they called the $600 Daily Deepstack. Imagine the chaos that could have caused. I, for one, was caught up in it when I went to my seat on the morning of the DC and found someone else sitting in it. Turns out I was registered for the wrong event. Never happened before, so I have never gotten into the habit of checking my buy-in receipts. Even if I looked, I’m not sure I would have caught this. Anyhow, it wasn’t too smart of the WSOP to hold two events with the same buy-in and nearly the same name on the same day. I haven’t looked closely at this year’s schedule, but hopefully the WSOP doesn’t have a similar scenario. Even the WSOP makes mistakes and hopefully learns from them.

That’s the other thing about these venues running series. They tend to try new things and expose themselves to errors. MGM is a relatively new series without any history of having a noteworthy poker operation. Frankly I would be amazed if they did anything perfectly. People should have lower expectations. It’s like, you can’t take your car to get an oil change at your neighbor’s house because he has a set of tools instead of going to a licensed mechanic and then complain about the fact that he botched the job. It sort of comes with the territory. In the world of poker tournament series, MGM is the guy who just has a set of tools.

If a venue is sincerely trying to create a good product (as opposed to just shoveling crap in a WSOP timeframe table scraps cash grab), then I think players should be a little more understanding, and look to help them get better as opposed to beating them up for all their shortcomings. In the end, the MGM series will either improve and thrive, or lose out to someone else who comes along and does things better.

Anyone have any news on GN release date? That’s the one I’m most looking forward to being released.

I too think this is why they are so late.

Their Vegas poker room's Twitter account announced release in May.

Again, I was understanding. I did try to help them. I was one of the few that was patient and assisted the incompetent dealers in the mixed events, knowing they were inexperienced at mixed games. Nothing excuses poor customer service across the board, imo- when your attempts to kindly help are met with things like backlash, defensive arguments, etc that are only retracted when floors and/or Tony come over and agree they were wrong. Multiple times. Multiple dealers. They could’ve just accepted their lack of experience and we were just trying to help. Sure, we could’ve just called floor over every single time they messed up- we just wanted to play.

At any rate, we’ll see what happens this year with a whole new staff.

From Aria Poker twitter:

Join @rok300 and @TDPaulCampbell on Thursday, April 17th at 2pm PST for a Spaces discussion on the 2025 ARIA Poker Classic Schedule release.

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Thank you Tony. The schedule is out.

I'm a little floored by the price points here. Aria is a premium destination, so it makes sense to align their brand with a premium price point.

That being said, the price surge over the past few years has been crazy. Their most common price points by year were:

2022 - $400
2023 - $600
2024 - $800
2025 - $1100

So nearly 3x the typical entry fee of just three years ago. It's gone from being a venue I could comfortably play to one where I'm effectively priced out.

Maybe part of the logic was creating more separation between their premium Aria series and budget MGM series.

I may fire a satellite at something, but overall this is probably a complete fade for me.

Not a single carnival game, not one!?!

I remember playing a PLO8 for $400 there. And PLO8 isn't even a carnival game. It was in the last 3-7 years though...

Yes, those price points are too high for those sheepish guarantees...

Yeah it's basically just a 1100 NLH every day. Pass.

Didn’t see anything that I’m adding either. Sticking to WSOP, Venetian and Wynn

sucks orleans is taking out like 25% prizepool but they have a GREAT chance at cornering the 200-400$ market this summer since everyone has surged upwards

they can really get a good following if they continue wit their 200-300$ tourneys. they will be taking a lot out tho, i heard 200$ fee they were looking at taking out 40-55$ unfourtantely but its hte cost of that low entry i guess?

Last year RWLV had phenomenal rake in their events. I played a $400 that took out $50, which is the same as what the WSOP takes out of their $250. I don't know if the rake will be the same this year, but if rake is a big factor for you then RW is a venue to look at in the lower price range.

I've been a big cheerleader for them because I think they had the best <$400 events on the strip last year.

Suspect structure. High price points. It’s like they took a look at the Wynn and said, yeah, that’s our model.

Anyhow, like so many things in the world nowadays, huge margins and relatively low volume are the preferred product placement strategy.

Extremely disappointing. $600 was my personal sweet spot $800 was fine but the 30 minute levels made for a so so at best structure. But 30 minute levels with 30K starting stack for $1,100 even with the large guarantees just doesn't make it worth the trouble. I MIGHT have played the Senior but its scheduled a couple days before I arrive so that's out and last year it was only a 73 S rating anyway. Probably a decently low rake around 12.5% but still I guess I scratch them off my Event lists for 2025 and it's a shame because I really like ARIA - Darn it -

Well I hope the Golden Nugget and The Orleans stick near their historic buy in levels for the majority of their events so I have options to choose from. I happen to just Like going downtown and the GN staff has always been top notch and player friendly at least to me and dealers well above average.

Based on what so far Non WSOP schedule has been released, I am staying minimum 14 days on my first trip , will be playing 100 % WSOP events and WSOP dailies .

i just liked Orleans mixed events for cheap. i think the high rake will make good players stay away so its a + for me since its a rec.

but man those 200$ mixed events hit like crack fo rme, love them hope they do them for their summer series. they said they would post this week but i dont think they ever did

I like the $600-$800 sweet spot too and prefer their past schedules… but I kind of get why Aria is doing what they’re doing. They collaborate with the high roller PGT. They have the best staff. The hotel is really nice and chic. Plus, their space is limited and their wait lists were pretty absurd sometimes.

I think:
- Orleans/GN makes sense for $400 and under.
- Venetian and MGM kind of makes sense for $600-$1100.
- Aria and Wynn makes sense for $800-$1600.

Do they still charge for parking?

Not sure what their official policy is but they upgrade all poker players cards to the one that has free parking

I think I’d much rather play a great structure for $1600 at the V than a lousy one for that much, or more at Aria/Wynn. But everyone has their own preferences.

More and more, the poker community has wanted one day events. They want to be in and out of events that can fill in between WSOP. At least the ones that are in the TD ears. Same with the earlier starts, no dinner breaks and not playing as many hours in a day.

I agree players are looking for tournaments to be shorter. Franky, most WSOP events are too long, IMO. But it is what it is. The WSOP is special. But traveling to Vegas is not as cheap as it used to be. So events that go long cost more to play.

But as for single day events, I’m not sure the increased numbers represent player preferences, as opposed to logistics. Multi-day large field events require careful planning for day-2 fields. And there aren’t nearly as many “holes” in the WSOP schedule as there used to be, never mind all the other series going on. For a room which has a lot of demand for cash poker, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made more money running a single-day event with 400 players than a 2-day with 800 players.

$1k 30/30's? No thanks. I expect 30/30's to be in the $300-$600 range.

Orleans full schedule is out. Looks good, something to suit all bankrolls with a variety of games.

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That's the trend in the summer. 1K wsops are mix of 30s. Wynn and venetians 1K are also mostly 30/30s too. Have to play in the off summer time or higher buyins for better structures nowadays.