2025 Las Vegas Summer Series - non-WSOP

NLHE at orleans - Sunday special got 500+ yesterday, 11am weekdays should be 175-250+, 11am Fri-Sat will be 250+ 6pm is probably 100+, 4pm are usually their mixed games / non holdem.

BigJayPoker I played flight 1G of the $250k on Saturday, you guys did a great job. Well run event, all of my dealers were on point, no issues, which after playing at the WSOP was a nice change of pace.

Will be in Vegas in a few days, looking forward to fire some of the Nugget-tourneys 😀 Can you tell me at what time registration opens for the various tournaments? (1 hour before start? 2 hours? Earlier?).

That is great to hear Jay! I played in flight 1B and can attest that every dealer was very friendly and on top of everything. You’re running a great operation and I hope that you and your team continue to crush it this summer. Thanks again for being a stand up dude.

typically 1-2 hours before the event starts. I'd air on the side of it being 1 hour, but occasionally for bigger events (Seniors) it'll definitely be 2

Thank You. Sincerely appreciate the kind words both for our team and myself.

This has been a tricky summer for sure already, but we're plugging away trying to put out the best product we can.

As poker players, all we care about is that someone in the casino actually cares. I appreciate that you're trying your best to stay on top of it and doing the best you can. Its all you can do

BigJay,

I played the last flight of the 250k and the 8 game mix. Things seemed to go fine. There were a couple if hiccups in the 8 game but it seemed to go well. The only thing I would say was an issue was level changes in the 8 game not being announced.

Could just be me—everything’s relative during WSOP—but the events at the Nugget felt noticeably tougher than usual. I typically come during the first week, and this year the fields seemed sharper across the board. Even the cash games at the Nugget were tougher than I remember. I'm used to seeing a good number of casual recs from the Grand series mixing in, but a lot of those faces seemed absent this time around.

Shoutout to the new Venetian poker room—it’s a big upgrade. I didn’t think I’d like the new spot in the Grand Canal Shops, but honestly, it grew on me. That said, even at Venetian, where I’m used to aggressive players getting it in light, the fields seemed tougher than usual.

My takeaway? A lot of the softer recreational players are probably sitting out this year, likely tightening their wallets. That would track with the Nugget missing guarantees and having to tweak their structures to avoid overlays.

That was my week in Vegas—just Nugget and Venetian for me. Never made it over to the Horseshoe.

Fair critique, thank you.

We need to be better at some things, and balancing the load and keeping on top of level changes is definitely an area I'm tracking currently. It's strictly a load management issue, which we're working on correcting. Our crews are much more lean than typical floor crews, and we're all sort of adjusting to that and figuring out how to keep on top of things with less people. Sometimes the most basic of things (announcing level changes) slip through the cracks as we're tending to more pressing matters in the moment.

It's a totally new crew that has never worked the floor with each other before, both on day and night shift so we've been getting a feel for each other as the first week has progressed. I'm supremely confident that we're going to continue to improve as the series continues.

In years past we had Free Poker Network in the first week, which brought tons of free poker type of players 😂. This year we didn't have them during the first week so it was more actual poker players playing. Next week all bets are off as we bring the Bar Poker Open in. You're gonna get all the "but it was suited" crowd coming to play 😛

Anyone played at MGM yet? How are they doing?

Your activity on this forum is really appreciated. You were hustling your ass off during both events I played and it didn't go unnoticed. I meant to thank you in person but didn't get to it. I watched you handle a number of situations including one spot at my table where you had two guys fully covering up their face. You are strict but fair and seem to want to run a tight ship. You are doing a great job!

Just looking at bravo, lots of overlays

prolly played a role, but don't sleep on the scheduling. every year they get released later and later making it harder and harder to plan a trip. Selling the fam on a weekend with the boys for some poker and food isn't that hard tbh, but telling my wife "you know what, don't plan anything the entire month of June so I can wait for the powers that be to release poker schedules" doesn't really fly. I ended picking a weekend before schedules were released and now that they have been releases its a bad weekend. For the first time I am not even really looking forward to the poker......granted some other factors played a role, but if you want recs to show up then release the schedules sooner so they can make plans.

I agree.

I also agree. Unfortunately the house folks don't. It'll be a tug of war next year trying to get it out earlier.

Frankly the proof seems to be in the pudding. We put out last, and we're struggling (albeit others are too). Also the constant changes being forced on us from higher ups are killing us. Next year we need to come out of the gate WAY more conservatively with the guarantees in my opinion.

I feel like players would rather play an event with smaller, more stable guarantees than bigger, constantly changing guarantees. Why would anyone plan to play somewhere that they don't know if the event they planned for will be the same event when they show up weeks later?

Consistency is important, and we haven't had that this year. Too aggressive, too early. Will improve.

Thank you.

Those 2 fellas were getting pretty ridiculous in the face coverings 😂. I'm happy to let folks hide SOME stuff, but not like they were doing!

Rule of thumb, if you're tying your jacket laces up behind your head over the hood, it's probably not ok! 😂

To be quite frank, your weekend multiflight schedule could be improved. Day 2 is the same as many of the WSOP marquee events.

People aren't going to sacrifice a wsop day 2 to play yours for the most part unless the price point is drastically different. Day 2 should be a different day 2 than WSOP marquee if you are trying to capitalize.

Will note this in our AAR, and definitely consider this moving forward. Genuinely appreciate the feedback.

**The massive overlay in the $250k gtd had been so predictable for weeks…**
I said it on ClubPoker (a French poker forum) as soon as I saw the structures. I mentioned that I wouldn’t be going to the Golden Nugget this year, even though I really like that poker room and have great memories there.

Up until last year, you could still find tournaments with decent structures, and despite having one of the worst rakes of the entire summer series, there were still a few good reasons to head downtown and play some events.

This year, you released the schedule *way* too late, while a lot of players needed it early to make their plans. We European players plan our trips months in advance—we analyze all the schedules, and we spend a lot of money to come to Vegas, which has become ridiculously expensive. If your schedule still isn’t out just weeks before the trip, we just skip the GN.

So, what would motivate me to go downtown to the Nugget, with high buy-ins, high rake, and a location far from everything? Nothing. Especially now that even the few decent structures from last year have become awful—and the buy-ins went up too.

Do you realize how competitive the summer poker landscape is now, and how easy it is to compare schedules and structures with tools like [this one](https://www.rainbowspuppiessunshine.com/... Why would I drive 20km to play a shallower, more expensive tournament with higher rake when I can find better options in every respect elsewhere?

Sure, the poker room is beautiful and iconic—but that’s not enough.

With my long experience analyzing Vegas poker schedules (I publish detailed breakdowns on a very popular French forum—don’t be surprised if you don’t see many French players at the Nugget this year, I was pretty harsh in my review), I can give you a few suggestions if you hope to turn things around for next year. And I really hope you do, because I truly love the Nugget.

**1. Release the schedule much earlier.**
You already know there’ll be a series in late May 2026, so why not start working on it in August 2025? Once the WSOP drops their dates, just adjust accordingly. There’s no reason you can’t have a full schedule published by March.

**2. Release the structures early too.**
Same thing—no need to wait until April to get started. Use available comparison tools and build better structures. Look at what the Orleans offers in their 11 a.m. tournaments—much better setups.

**3. Don’t overhype guarantees—most recreational players don’t care.**
Instead, focus on the Golden Nugget’s legendary status, the atmosphere, and offering deep, affordable tournaments. Otherwise, people will just go play a \$300 at the Orleans or the WSOP Colossus instead.

**4. Make sure the rake is competitive.**
If your rake is higher than everyone else’s, the word spreads fast: “You’re playing the \$300 at the GN? It’s not bad, but the rake’s a joke—they’re taking advantage of players.”

Bottom line: if you want to reverse this trend, you really need to focus on these issues. Otherwise, people won’t even bother checking your schedule anymore.

Good luck—I genuinely hope to find reasons to return to the Nugget next year.

This post above is spot on. As far as lower buy ins that attract the recs to vegas, seems like GN and MGM lost their NLHE business to wsop dailies and Orleans, and def lost the mix game business to Orleans as well. Some things GN cant control such as location, ease of parking, and that may have just been enough to cause this attendance. It also doesn’t help having 5 live games during the day on sat/sund for people that busted.

I agree re: aggressiveness. If you guys offer good quality events, players will come irrespective of big guarantees. Maybe the numbers wouldn’t be quite as high without them, but in most cases, it probably isn’t worth the risk. I understand how folks who run poker rooms have a ton of pressure from the higher-ups. But with some good management, there really is no reasons why any poker room which runs a summer series can’t have its best 6 weeks of the year.

I disagree with the folks here who pressure all rooms to release their schedules early. Of course, I understand the desire on the part of players to make their plans as early as possible. I find myself in that position each year. But what is most critical is for the “satellite” series to be complimentary to the WSOP and to each other. And also to release a well-thought out schedule without changes. You probably know your customers better than me, but I’m pretty sure the majority of players in an any non-WSOP series are not coming to Vegas in the middle of the Summer for the purpose of playing outside of the WSOP. They are coming for the WSOP and are looking to fill out their schedule, in one way or another, elsewhere. To that end, I think quality single day events and 2-day events which have day 2 on weekdays should work well, in general.

I pretty much agree with all of this. The way I plan my summer schedule, is that I look at the main WSOP events that I want to play, which are all multi day events with multiple day 1 flights, and then build my schedule around those. I first assume I'm not making any day 2s for the WSOP events, so I then build the rest of my schedule around those casinos that I like best and have the most desirable events to play. I then assume I'm going to make day 2 of those WSOP events that I'm playing, so I have to find good one day tourneys to fill the days where I'm not playing the other day one flights of the WSOP events.

So I'm doing exactly what akashenk suggests above, I fill out my schedule around the WSOP with casinos that I think run good tournaments, have good dealers, etc. I always come out during the Seniors WSOP tournaments, and getting schedules super early doesn't really matter to me, as I assume the Seniors tourneys are usually around the same time of the year and I book my plans accordingly, usually in November or December. But I can see how some people need to plan time off work, make travel plans, whatever... so they may want or need schedules earlier. For me, I can deal with schedules coming out a couple of week ahead of time.