heard a rumor about how gracious Tuncia, MS is...

[whiskeytown]

so I'm talking to a guy, and he's telling me that since I get 4 days off a week....

I should be hoping on a plane to Tunica on Fri. night, calling a casino down there and asking for a comp. room since I will be playing poker there for 4 days...catch a cheap fare (like $270 from Minneapolis to Memphis round trip) - and spend 4 days playing great games, getting comp'd for food and hotel, and making mega bucks on the 8/16 or higher games.

Is it really THAT friendly for poker players down there? - Cause if so, I'm gonna be making a few field trips this winter [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

RB

[whiskeytown]

bump!!!

rb

[microlimitaddict]

reluctant to reply because i don't really have a whole lot of outside-Tunica experience to compare it to but I'm down there enough where I can offer an opinion or three.

1. the flight to memphis gets you most of the way there...but the Memphis airport is still a good 30-40 minutes away from Tunica so you'll need to take a shuttle or cab or something. i see shuttles pulling in and out all the time of the casinos but can't tell you what arrangements you'll need to make.
2. the out of town players i talk with seem to really enjoy their time in Tunica. there are plenty of rooms available. if you call and say you'll be playing for 4 straight days/nights at that level i suspect you'll be able to get a comped room. i'm pretty sure most places offer $19-$29 rooms for 4 or 5 hours (as listed in the local Mississippi Gambling magazine or whatever they call it) of play so you should be able to land a free room at higher level of play. even if you can't get the room over the phone don't let that stop you....have talked with several out-of-towners who couldn't get anywhere with the hotel front desk but had little difficulty getting a room once they got there and started playing. they got the room even though they were told on the phone that the hotels were supposedly sold out.
3. horseshoe is famous for handing out their food comps pretty liberally.
4. the horseshoe usually has 4-8, 5-10 and 10-20 games going. not sure about the 8-16 level because i always play the lowest limits so i never check. most other places are 3-6 and 6-12 i think.
5. the gold-strike poker tables are smoke-free (which I enjoy) but you can stand a little away from the table and puff away if necessary. the gold strike also has a hotel that is 25-30 stories tall i think and would be the most likely to have additional rooms in my estimation. the Grand has two big hotels and I would suspect also has liberal room-comps during the times when they don't fill them all up.
6. you should have come down this weekend for the big Binion Mid-Summer Open. lots of action at the Shoe including a few 20-40 tables going on. they take out one of the Blackjack sections and set up about 20 additional poker tables for the tourney action (as well as ring-game action up to the 20-40 level once the tourney field shrinks). there have been Chris Moneymaker and Phil Ivey sightings this week. Moneymaker was spotted playing at the Grand so I guess that means they also spread decent sized games. but there are always higher limit games available during horseshoe's tournaments (the biggest one is in January and the final that month is a WPT event).
i'm heading down today to catch some of the action of the final $2000 buy-in event which started about an hour ago.
saw some of the $500 buy-in tourney action Friday night. 210 entrants. Ivey and Moneymaker either decided to skip this one...or they didn't make it to the Top 45 (didn't arrive until late).
7. Sam's Town's hotel looks pretty big....but I don't know much about the games there. Haven't heard too much positive there. I'd stay away from Hollywood but maybe they're better on weekends. Grand, Gold Strike and Horseshoe are the major poker players.
8. Also worth noting that the Horseshoe and Gold Strike are next door to each other and easy walking distance. The Grand is about a 5 minute drive to the north. And Sam's Town and Hollywood are about a 5 minute drive the opposite direction.

hope some of this stuff helps at least a little bit.
i'll try to pick up a copy of their little mississippi casino and poker mews-rag which should contain some mildly-dated info of what limits are spread where (and how many hotel rooms and poker tables are at each place) so check back later tonight if you like.

[Dentist]

hey micro, how accurate are these web reports on the poker?

http://www.tunica-ms.com/poker_in_tunica.htm
http://www.tunicaslots.com/tunica_poker_play.htm

[microlimitaddict]

as far as i know it's reasonably accurate stuff.
i've only been playing live for a few months but....
I've never seen 3-6 at the Horseshoe, but have seen it mentioned in magazines and websites. I only see 4-8 there as the lowest limit. But they will spread up to 20-40 when demaad calls for it. I am guessing they had 3-6 at one time but they don't anymore.
Yesterday I saw two guys playing 200/400 low-ball there. Both had a big wad of Ben Franklin's in front of them (why don't they play black chips??). The managers tried to get others to join them on the table but had no takers.

The others are primarily 3-6 hang-outs. I've seen magazine ads somewhere for 2-4 at the Gold Strike but I have not seen it myself...only 3-6 or 6-12.

The info on the number of tables in each room is accurate. The Grand may have more tables but the Horseshoe clearly does the most business. The Shoe actually opened several more tables last week to accomodate the tourney stuff (and that meant extra ring games as players got knocked out) but should go back to normal now.
They kept opening 10-20 and 20-40 tables.
The Hollywood has 6 whopping tables and should tell you all you need to know about that place. But there is no small blind at the 3-6 game if saving $1 each orbit is important to you.. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If it's the tourney info you're looking to confirm it looks pretty accurate to me. The Grand has some sort of tourney every day but Sunday (usually at 10 a.m. or noon) I think and the Gold Strike runs a lot of tourneys throughout the week as well including thei late Sunday night and Monday night limit-hold-em's at 2:30 am that draw around 20 players or so.
The Grand tourneys range from $15 to $50 buy-in with various add-ons and re-buys. Usually draws 50 or more competitors.

Most of the ads I saw advertised hotel rates at 25-35 (weekdays/weekends) with 5 hours of play. The Gold Strike was 19-29 with 5 hours of play (bigger hotel at the Strike). Remember, this was their advertised rate for poker players....you can likely do better by just asking.

Again, I am just a casual and occasional small-stakes player so I don't really keep an eye on all games and usually on the weekdays. I would guess the wait isn't that bad at most places on the weekends though.

I'll be heading to the poker rooms more frequently in the coming weeks and will keep a more watchful eye on what other limts are spread while also adding some stuff on where the fish are.
The Horseshoe probably gets more of the casual player/drinking crowd but it also has it's fair share of regulars that aren't too terrible.
My first session there I was at a 4-8 table with a whole lot of chopping going on. Game eventually broke up and I got moved to a table with a bunch of drunken maniacs...7-9 players in every hand frequently capping the betting pre-flop. One guy had swings of +$500 to -$500 throughout the night.

Any Tunica players with more experience than yours truly (that should include almost anybody) may feel free to chime in and offer their corrections.