Local Poker News Flash

(Updated 01/28)

As I'm sitting here eating breakfast, I checked out the websites for the local poker rooms. I'll do this occasionally to see if anything changed on the site, or any new promotions. There usually isn't anything new.

I say "usually" because something happened this morning. The page for the Harrah's poker room couldn't be found. This could be something simple like Caesars making some changes to their websites.

But it wasn't. I clicked on the "Reno/Tahoe" link, which usually takes me to a page listing all three casinos: Harvey's, Harrah's Tahoe, and Harrah's Reno. However, it only listed the two in Tahoe, and not in Reno.

After digging through the Caesars site, I finally got to the Harrah's Reno site. Now for the news... All mention of the poker room has been removed from their site.

In my Harrah's Review page, I mentioned that the poker room was closed on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and that I wouldn't be surprised if they closed up by the end of 2012. It may have happened much sooner than I thought.

I'll have to investigate after work tonight.

UPDATE: (10pm)

Yep, the Harrah's Reno Poker Room is no more. There are no signs up, nor any info to be discovered. One of the Dealers who used to work here is now a Floor at the Atlantis, so I will ask him about it when I see him next.

Most of the stuff is still in the room, except the tables, so I'm assuming that this just happened. I would guess that this past weekend was the last hurrah for Harrah's.

Part of me is happy about this news. There are too many small casinos in this town, and many of them have even smaller poker rooms with two or three poker tables. When it comes to poker rooms, more is not better. A few larger rooms would be better, so the few good players could play with all the recreational players.

But part of me is sad about this news. Being part of Caesers, this room had a lot of potential if they would have tried and put a little effort in to it. They could have had some tournament series and maybe even the WSOP Circuit. It would make more sense to have in Reno rather than in Tahoe, especially since it's just a few minutes from the airport. Besides, it's not like Harvey's at Lake Tahoe is a good poker room.

But the key phrase is "tried and put a little effort in to it". The problem with most casinos is they opened up a poker room due to the poker boom, and just assumed that everyone would show up. But the poker boom is long behind us, and those room are still opening their doors, and hoping somebody shows up.

Here's a simple rule for all the small casinos with even smaller poker rooms: "Just because you have a casino, it doesn't mean that you need to have a poker room."

Update (Sun 01/28): I saw one of the Harrah's Dealers, who was just hired at the Peppermill. She said the poker room closed on Jan 2. I also found out that Circus Circus also closed their poker room this month. That means the next candidates to close their poker rooms are Sands Regency, Club Cal-Neva, and the electronic tables at Silver Legacy. When or if that happens is anyone's guess.