Recession = Desperation for Vegas

You know things are getting bad when you have to turn to a sea of worthless college kids in hopes of scrounging up low-margin business.

Ad I just saw on Facebook:


If only Vegas had hostels...

I received an offer in the mail today for two free nights at the Venetian that I can use while I'm in town for their tournament. When Venetian is giving away rooms in this climate (as they should, it cost them virtually nothing to give away a room on a non-busy night) it makes me think bottom-tier Strip places like Flamingo are just completely screwed. I mean, who is ever going to stay there when there is almost certainly free rooms being given away at a nicer place?

Since these lower-tier places are certainly worth far more continuing to stay open for business, even if hardly generating any revenue at all, than they are being liquidated for scrap metal, they will probably continue to stay open. One thing is for sure, their land is of little value right now (who is buying up Strip property for new developments at a time like this?!). The two big companies who own most of these lower-tier properties (Caesars and MGM) might get to the point where they're desperate enough for cash that they're willing to sell off some of their properties of lesser importance at what will likely be heavily discounted prices. MGM has already done this with T.I.; I forget who bought it.

All of that in mind, prediction: in five years, the Vegas Strip will have a number of it's less-glamorous properties under independent control that were bought up by random people for a steal of a deal. The Casino Royale is another such present-day example. Vegas has started to swing back away from the direction of major corporations controlling all major properties.

I, for one, would love to be in a position to buy one of these places on the cheap. Make a little money (not to mention have a lot of fun!) running it, and then make a killing selling it to some big corporation who wants to bulldoze it and use the land for a mega-resort when another Vegas bubble begins to form in ten years. And then be like, "oh by the way, I'll run that new place for y'all when you're done building it." And then next thing you know you're like Steve Wynn taking less-than-ethical approaches to deciding whether or not the new cocktail waitress applicant gets a job. And I think that's all that needs to be said about that.

Is It February Yet?

In a previous post, I mentioned that I'd be playing in the WPT event in Mississippi. That event started three hours ago, and I am not in Mississippi. I don't think it's any surprise that I was going to need backing for that event (a $10,000 buy-in). Last week, said backer told me they'd be able to come up with the $10k as long as the stock of a particular Texas-area cafeteria chain didn't plummet the next day. Fair enough.

I woke up the next day and eagerly checked the stock: down 9%. NYET!

It's pretty frustrating to be sitting at home while five hours away one of the softest WPT events is running which several of your friends and acquaintances are participating in. But hey, it's a recession. These things happen, I suppose!

So basically January is the month of staying at home and being poor. The upside to this is that I've been able to give complete attention to running our various websites.

It looks like February will be a much more action-packed month:

February 2nd - WSOP-C Tunica ($5,000 Buy-In)

I expect this Mississippi event to be roughly equivalent to the New Orleans WSOP-C events I've played. In light of that, I'm really looking forward to this one.

February 11th - United States vs. Mexico World Cup Qualifier Match (Columbus, OH)

I was talking to one of my best poker friends, Ray "Exitonly" Coburn about how I wanted to make an effort to become a U.S. Soccer fanboy in time for next year's World Cup. He responded, "dude, you should come up and join Cris and I for the US vs. Mexico qualifier match." I didn't take the idea too seriously until I saw that I could get a roundtrip flight to Philly for $150. Ray lives in Jersey, so he's going to pick me up at the Philly airport on the drive over to Columbus. I'm really looking forward to this trip; we're sitting in the Sam's Army section where I guess everyone dresses in red, stands for the whole game, and sings and chants the whole time. Should be a fun experience as I've never been to a soccer game before! :)

February 15th - Oklahoma State Championships of Poker ($3,000 Buy-In)

Last year, I came close to being able to say that "I'm the Oklahoma State Champion of Poker". That has such a charmingly egotistical ring to it, that there's no way I can't go try again!

February 23rd - Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza Main Event ($2,500 Buy-In)

I'm visiting my sister in Phoenix the weekend before this event starts. It simply makes too much sense to take a detour to Vegas on the way home to play at one of the best venues in poker! :)

February 24th - Caesars Mega Stack Main event ($1,000 Buy-In)

I'll only play this if I wash out of the Venetian event on day one. I'm really looking forward to being back in Vegas. I haven't been to Vegas since... come to think of it, last year's WSOP I think. Wow... has it really been that long? Huh. Well anyway, I'm pretty hungry to spend some time back in Vegas!

Interesting Promotions and a Billionaire-Gone-Busto

Two quick things:

Interesting Online Poker Promotions

American readers need not bother with this section.

We've worked out some pretty cool deals with online poker rooms through the poker strategy site I run.

1. Lucky Ace is giving away $1,000 to the top 3 players (who created their account through our affiliate link) who earn the most comp points during January and February. This is like easy, easy money for any of you grinders out there since it appears only a small handful of players are vying for this free money.

2. Pacific Poker is holding a $1 buy-in tournament every Saturday for our readers. The top 2 finishers receive a seat to the $140 buy-in Deep Stack event the following day. That's a lot of free high-value seats every month!

3. We're working on some type of tournament-based promotion with Titan Poker. Those interested in this can keep an eye on our online poker promotions page since we always keep that updated with whatever deals we've got brewing with online poker rooms.

Okay that's enough about that. Just wanted to share that with the small handful of non-US readers I have who might be interested in those promotions.

From #3 to the Soup Kitchen

This is a pretty epic downfall. Basically, Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation (who most poker players would know best as the operators of the Venetian), went from being the world's third richest man to having to struggle to make the 2009 Forbes billionaire list.

Ouch!

What makes this epic-funny is that last year he began referring to himself as "Sheldon Adelson the 3rd" to honor his place as the world's third richest man (behind Gates and Buffett). Now that the Las Vegas casino bubble burst, they estimate his net worth at a paltry (yea right!) $1.1 billion, down drastically from the $28 billion of a year ago.

So basically this guy isn't even worth as much as Mark Zuckerberg anymore... lol. And on that note, Mark I'm still waiting to hear back about my idea to monetize Facebook. Let's get you out of those flip-flops!

Mississippi Dreamin'

Sorry in advance if this entry lacks in spirit. I'm feeling pretty under the weather but felt compelled to write something regardless.

By the next time I finally play poker, which will probably be on Sunday, it will have been the longest I've gone without playing a hand in a very long time. I don't think I've played since the WSOP-C event in New Orleans a few weeks ago. The past few Sundays, I've either been in Wisconsin, Aspen, or Indiana and unable to play online in each case. I'm looking forward to jumping back in the game. Things always seem clearer following an extended break.

Right now I'm enjoying some much needed time back in Houston. For New Year's Eve, I didn't even leave the house or have a drink. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I don't think I had more than one or two nights that involved being in Houston and doing nothing but staying in for the night.

I'm sure this low-key routine will get boring pretty quickly, but for now, laying around and playing Fifa '09 is a nice change of pace.

I've got my work cut out for me if 2009 is going to be a better year than 2008. I had just over $500k in gross cashes last year ($290k live, $210k online), which absolutely shattered the expectations I had coming into the year. Topping that will indeed be tough; obviously a lot can change in a few months, but I'd estimate that I'm only going to be able to play around $200k in buy-ins this year.

For starters, I'm (probably) going to the WPT event in Biloxi on January 14th. A few weeks after that it's back to Mississippi for a $5k WSOP-C event. I don't know what travels are in store beyond that. These are pretty lean times, so just going to have to take it event by event. I'm hoping that the EPT German Open is in the picture for March. I've never been to Germany and have a few friends there from PokerTips I wouldn't mind paying a visit.

Thanks for reading and may 2009 exceed your wildest expectations! :)