Mark’s Las Vegas Blog - Your Source for Vegas Info

After several months of construction the new nightclub Wasted Space opened inside the Hard Rock Hotel this week. It’s a joint venture by motocross star Carey Hart, brothers Joel and Benji Madden of the rock band Good Charlotte and NY Yankee Jason Giambi.

They’re billing it as the “anti-club” which I can only assume means that it’s the opposite of the high end clubs like Pure and LAX. They’re gonna have live bands and DJ’s nightly. It looks like it’ll be a cool place to hang out and seeing as I’m at the HRH a lot I’ll get to check it out soon.

It’s past of the $800 million expansion of the Hard Rock, which was sorely in need of some revamps. It was once the place to be for the “in crowd” but has fallen out of favor with all the expansion of the nightlife scene in the last few years. With a new tower going up, the new club, a new poker room/nightclub opening soon and improvement all around the HRH will be on top once again.

The long partnership between the Star Trek: The Experience and the Las Vegas Hilton has come to an end. Rumors had been around for a while that negotiatons to keep the exhibit at the Hilton were not going well and it was officially announced that ST will be closing September 1.

While not a Trekkie myself, I have gone on the ride a couple of times. (Well more like dragged on it!) It’s actually a pretty cool exhibit. It’s pretty spacious with the rides, a restaurant and bar, several giftshops and a casino section done up in a space theme. They even offer Star Trek themed weddings and of course it’s a highlight of the yearly Star Trek convention held at the Hilton.

No word yet on where the STE will relocate to or what will take over the space in the Hilton. Rumors are it’s gonna be turned into space for Michael Jackson’s long talked-about show but nothing’s being said yet. Like tons of other things here we’ll see what happens.

It’s too bad honestly. Even though the Hilton is a nice place, it’s a bit off the strip and there’s really not any sort of theme to draw people in and the STE was one of its most unique attractions. Hopefully they find a new home soon.  

The final table for the 2008 WSOP Main Event is set. After the final 27 participants were set the other day they played down to the final nine last night.

Here’s the final nine and their chip counts:

1 Dennis Phillips 26,295,0000
2 Ivan Demidov 24,400,0000
3 Scott Montgomery 19,690,0000
4 Peter Eastgate 18,375,0000
5 Ylon Schwartz 12,525,0000
6 Darus Suharto 12,520,0000
7 David Rheem 10,230,0000
8 Craig Marquis 10,210,0000
9 Kelly Kim 2,620,000

There’s no “name” players at the final table this year. The highest finishing big name was Mike “The Mouth” Matusow who busted out in 30th place. The highest finishing female this year was Tiffany Michele who finished in 17th place.

Each player is guaranteed at least $900,670 in prize money with the winner getting $9,119,338 and the coveted bracelet.

As previously discussed the final table will he held on November 9. The ESPN coverage of the other tournaments will begin July 22 and lead up untill the final table, which will be on a 2 hour tape delay of the heads-up finale.  

The latest gourmet burger restaurant opened up inside the Mirage. It’s called BLT Burger and it located just inside the south entrance. It’s located where the tiger habitat used to be. They closed it last year in order to make room for the new restaurant.

It was a bit of a controversial move as the tiger habitat was one of the longest running and best known free exhibits in Las Vegas. But after 4 years since the Siegfried and Roy show closed due to injuries suffered by Roy its relevance was lessened. The tigers were moved to the back inside the Secret Garden so they didn’t totally disappear.

I haven’t had a chance to go check the place out yet but it seems similar to the Burger Bar in concept. High end hamburgers made to your liking. If it’s anything like the Burger Bar it’s gonna be good!

They also re-did the entryway leading into the entrance. For some reason they did away with the moving sidewalk and put in a paved walkway. It’s not concrete though it’s more of a terrazo like you have around pools. Weird choice if you ask me. But it looks nice.

In more Mirage updates work continues on the revamp of the volcano. It’s still under construction as are the waterfalls and ponds that surround it. They’re still saying late 2008 to reopen. I’ll let you know when they have a set date.

For some reason I’ve yet to understand the famous statue of casino mogul and Las Vegas pioneer Benny Binion has been moved from it’s 20 year home at the corner of Casino Center Blvd and Ogden Ave. in downtown to a spot inside the South Point casino outside the equestrian center.

The only connection I can see is that that South Point owner Michael Gaughan is the son of Jackie Gaughan, long time cohort and friend of Benny and former owner of the El Cortez in downtown.  I’m not sure whose idea the move was, only that the new owner of Binion’s, Terry Claudill , who owns the Four Queens downtown also, approved the move and Jack Binion, son of Benny and former president of the Horseshoe said it would be more appropriate at the new location and “it was a classy thing to do.”

 I’m kind of sad about this actually. Anyone whose only discovered Las Vegas in the last few years only knows Binion’s as just another old casino downtown. They really don’t know all that Benny Binion has done for this town and the casino business in general. Many of the things we take for granted were started by him. He was the first to offer free drinks for gamblers, the first to offer limo rided to and from the airport for high rollers. Hell the Horseshoe was the first downtown casino to have carpet! He also had the highest gaming limits of any casino at the time. He once said he would take any bet, and lived up to his word.

But perhaps his greatest legacy is the World Series of Poker. Started in 1970 as just a game between some of poker’s top names it’s become the premier poker event on the planet. The first year only 7 people played and the winner was chosen by a vote! A far cry from the thousands that are in the tournamant these days.

The statue is just on display at the South Point now, with no plaque or signage or anything to pay tribute to the man that was such a huge part of the history of Las Vegas. Kind of sad really.

Today’s the big day! The $10,000 buy-in World Championship No Limit Hold’em tournament starts today. It’s also more well known as the main event. I’m really not sure how many people will be in this year, although I’m thinking it’s gonna be less than the 6,358 that entered last year and awarded $8.25 million to the winner. As I previously wrote about here, they’re gonna delay the final table till November. Hopefully I’ll get down to the rio and check out some of the action!

It’s pretty much the biggest prize you can have in poker. The main event winner is more or less considered the king of poker. With the explosion in online poker the last few years what’s been called the “Moneymaker effect” the numbers of entries has skyrocketed! So named for Chris Moneymaker, who was the first main event winner to win his entry online back in 2003, the effect really kicked the popularity of poker into the stratosphere!

Although the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 pretty much took a lot of the wind out of the sails of online poker from the US players. It really didn’t make the act of playing illegal, it just doesn’t allow the transfer of money from a US-based bank account or credit card. I played mostly for fun online (I have about as much luck online as in the brick and mortal casinos, which is either none or less than none depending on the day) so it didn’t affect me very much but it really put a damper on millions. Plus they also made it against the rules to directly transfer your tournament buy-in from your online account which thousands of online players had been doing.  

It’s might seem weird to newer fans of poker but the crowds weren’t always this big, but realize the year Phil Hellmuth won in 1989 there was only 178 people in the main event! I remember the last year they held the whole thing at Binions, when it was still the Horseshoe, in 2004 and you couldn’t even move in there! They had poker tables jammed in every corner you could imagine! The whole thing almost got shut down by the fire marshalls too. Now they have the tournaments in one of the convention center rooms in the Rio.

Ok that’s enough rambling about the WSOP for now. I’ll update when the final table is set in a few days.

The “Prince of poker” Scotty Nguyen won the $50,000 HORSE world champion event the other day at this year’s World Series of Poker. It marks the first time a former Main Event winner has also won this prestigious event as well. (Scotty won the main event back in 1998)

He beat out some of the top names in poker to win his fifth WSOP bracelet and nearly $2 million! This year was the first in which the winner also received a trophy named the David ‘Chip’ Reese Award, in honor of the late poker star who was the first to win this event back in 2006.

I did get over to the Rio and checked out a little of the final table action. There was a ton of people there and many of poker’s top names were also in the audience. I did have the pleasure of dealing with Scotty at my former job and let me tell ya, what you see is what you get. He’s just like he is on TV, smiling and joking. And always with his signature “baby” catch phrase.

It was a sort of redemption for him after his meltdown in last year’s main event where he was a lock to make the final table only to go on tilt and bust out in three hands.

All that’s left is to see whose gonna make the final table at the delayed main event telecast and that’s about it for the WSOP highlights.