Imperial Palace Card Room Review

Aquaman H20 · Tweet this Post! #1 03-06-2008, 12:58 PM

Imperial Palace (Las Vegas) Review
Location: 3535 Las Vegas Blvd. So.
Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
https://www.harrahs.com/casinos/impe...-overview.html

Games offered: Hold-em only
Number of tables: 8, 4 tables normally running cash games, other 4 for tournaments.

This is review is based on my trip almost exactly a year ago. I will update it if needed after my next trip in a few months.

The Imperial Palace is an older, lower end hotel/casino that has a great location on the strip and offers some of the cheaper gambling options on the strip, if you can stand the smell.

Imperial palace at night.

Pros

Soft Competition
Good Comp rate
Fast Drink Service
Cheap tournaments
Larger than average tables

Cons

Loud: lots of casino noise
A bit run down
Not the highest quality dealers
Bathroom far away and not very pleasant

Games/stakes available

2-4 limit and 1-2 NL Hold-em mostly. Occasionally 3-6 or 4-8 limit and 2-5 NL.

Two daily tournaments 7 days a week: (Times of tournaments change without notice.)

Noon: $60 NL HE
8:00 $80 pm NL HE

Decor and atmosphere

The poker room is located directly to the left of the main doors of the Hotel/Casino. It is "walled off" from the main casino by a waist high wall. This means it is a very noisy room as you can hear all of the slot-machines located 10 feet away in the Casino.

Sign up is simply talk to the floor person. There are no monitors or even a white board. However there never seemed to be many people waiting for a table. In my 4 visits to this room the longest wait I had was 20 min.

Like the rest of the Imperial Palace this room is not exactly high class. Some of the tables had ads printed on them others had a side bet game called Flop-a-Lock on them (more on this later.) However the tables are VERY large. 10 people comfortably fit around these tables. The dealers really have to stretch to collect bets. While not in horrible conditions some of the felts were a bit worn looking.

View of the poker room taken from the Casino floor.

Quality of opponents

The softest game by far I found while in Vegas. Except for the few regular old timers milking this soft game, most of the people playing were horrible and many were drunk.

Some tables offer Flop-a-Lock a table bet (A HUGE sucker bet. you can bet up to $3 and get paid on a the 3 card hand the flop makes. 1-1 for a pair, 3-1 for a flush, 6-1 for a straight, 30-1 for 3 of a kind, and 40-1 for a straight flush.) If you ever want to find the sucker at a table, find the one betting the flop lock! At one table I was at 4 of the 9 players were betting this bet. (When I talked about this in my blog the owner of the Flop-a-Lock game had read it and though it was funny so sent me free swag.)

While this side game is useful for quickly identifying fish, it does slow the game down and can lead to misdeals as the all the extra action may confuse the dealer. (A turn card that gave me a straight had to be buried since the dealer after paying the side game forgot to have a round of betting for the flop.)

Chips

Hot stamped clays (maybe Paulsons). I was there before I found chiptalk.net, so wasn't too into chips then. I know shame on me.

Cash game $1 chip

Additional perks

There is a bar right in the poker room, and the wait-staff was very attentive so drink service was VERY fast. This led to a very social table (a plus in my book) and a lot of drunken play (another plus in my book).

Poker comps were $2 /hr among the highest in Vegas. I do not know if this is still the case as The Imperial Palace player club is now just part of Harrah's general reward cards.

Reviewers Comments

As a low stakes player, I really enjoyed playing in the Imperial Palace's room. The soft play and fast drink service made up for the shabbiness of the room.

Myself (in the white shirt) at the table.

STANK1000 · Tweet this Post! #2 04-25-2008, 07:03 AM

very accurate review! fine job. you are right, the chips are paulson. you missed the biggest PRO about the IP though...the HOT cocktail waitresses (especially my girl AJ)! Most of the time, we stay at the IP. we dont mind the noise, smell, or boring rooms. But it really is a FUN casino...especially on the weekend. seems to be more of a party crowd than most others. Comps are great too. The Carnival Court bar outside between the IP and Harrah's is alot of fun too.

there is a good bit of soft players in the poker room like aquaman said. i've played in 4 tournies there (usually between 40 -60 players) and finished 3rd in one and 4th in another. in the one i finished 3rd, the lady that finished 2nd was actually forced all-in on the blind from the time we made it to the final table, until there were about 4 left!

always fun times there!

larryflew · Tweet this Post! #3 05-28-2008, 09:32 AM

The review posted in March of 08 is a bit outdated already. Currently new table tops and no flop a lock. Poker room has moved so it is no longer near the door, but still has short walls and is now located even closer to the noise. Same games offered but now have electronic board and some decent extra pots. Comp rate is lowered to a buck with the new Harrahs rewards. Still a great game. I go to LV for 13 days every March and have yet to find a better place to make a few bucks in low limit games. Lucked out in the noon tourney this year - played 4 days and placed 2,2,2,4th. Usually no more than 64 players and most are not typically tourney players so you do need to play tight and aggressive. Dealers have remained almost the same over the past 3 years.

Should mention the overall comps are the pits. in 07 when comps where still IP I had 3 free nights, 6 free meals and $300 left to spend in the gift shop. Nearly identical play (1/2 BJ 1/2 poker) I had zero nights, one hamburger and $75 for the gift shop. IMO Harrah's has just gotten too big to care about the typical player.

Still a great single deck deep blackjack game but have now gone to a 6 to 5 payout on blackjacks.

Overall, will still play there because of the soft players but need to make enough to cover the comps no longer offered.