Tuscany Poker Room Reviewed
Tuscany Poker Room.
The Tuscany Suites and Casino located just off the Las Vegas Strip on Flamingo receives high marks on the list of Las Vegas Poker Rooms. The recently opened poker room at the Tuscany offers players unique options to make their visit the best it can be.

Locals have long known that the Tuscany is a hidden gem offering outstanding accommodations, great food, a modern full service casino and old Vegas service. The 24/7 coffee shop offers all the standard Las Vegas diner fare along with a great oriental menu. A Mexican restaurant provides the more adventurous hungry guests a full menu of dishes straight out of the desert southwest. Casual, elegant dinning straight out of Tuscany can be had at the Tuscany Gardens; where diners are afforded a menu filled with Italian specialties. The intimate Tuscany Gardens dining room has a view of the tropical gardens surrounding the hotel's inner open-air atrium.

The Tuscany Poker Room is currently spreading Hold'em games with $2/4, $4/8 and $6/12 limits. No-limit Hold'em is offered in two varieties: $1-$2 blinds and a $40-$200 buy-in plus a higher limit $2-$5 blinds with a $100-$400 buy-in. In addition to the Hold'em games the room offers an Omaha Hi/Lo game. A daily high hand promotion pays a bonus to players for high hands and two bad beat promos are currently running in the room. The Jackpot bad beat and the House bad beat pay players for losing with specific hands. Details of the high-hand and bad beat jackpots are available in the room.
The Tuscany Poker Room has a daily Hold'em tournament at noon appropriately called 'Nooners at the Tuscany.' Entrance into a monthly $2,500 Freeroll Tournament can be had by players for fifteen hours of play during one of the qualifying periods.
The Tuscany poker room comp policy is typical of today's Las Vegas poker rooms offering players $1 for every hour of play. The comp credits can be used almost everywhere in the Tuscany including the restaurants, hotel and the gift shop. Bob Sanders, Manager of the Tuscany poker room, can be reached by e-mail at: bsanders@tuscanylasvegas.com. The direct telephone line into the poker room is 702.595.0959. Hotel reservations are available at 702.893.8933.
Tuscany Poker Room's free bar.



The first hour brings the $1,000 No-limit Hold'em match with $1,000 re-buys. A record (unofficial) number of re-buys (28) was made by Daniel Negreanu in this event in 2004. He had $29,000 invested in the prize pool of $1,261,700. Daniel then outlasted all but two of the 538 players to finish third and receive $100,940, giving him a net gain of just over $71,000, not bad pay if you can do it. Maybe that is why we watch and Daniel plays. Tonight's 2005 edition of the same WSOP re-buy tournament doesn't break Daniel's record of re-buys; but, it did set another record, 826 players showed up making it the largest re-buy tournament in the history of the World Series of Poker. The following list namers the players making the final table, with their seat assignment and chip count going into tonight's show:
You can be there for much more of the final table action than tonight's hour broadcast by clicking over to
To be there for all of the final table action beyond the hour of TV, go to


The decor was old English country manor and the atmosphere was plush, professional and comfortable. The cavernous Hilton sports book was the perfect backdrop for the room. The card room management insisted on a set of house rules that left little room for interpretation so rules were applied fairly and consistently, a rare thing for the day. The first royal flush I ever had in a live game was at the Hilton, in hearts in a $5-$10 seven card stud game.



The Heavyweight Championship of Poker was officially announced today in the latest copy, Vol. 9 Number 5, of Poker Player. The tournament is the brain child of Northern California professional poker player, Jerry Reed, whom tried for six years to organize the event into reality. Jerry finally realized he needed a channel to this market and brought his idea to Poker Player's publisher and founder, Stanley R. Sludikoff. Stanley immediately recognized the potential of such a tournament venue, partnered with Jerry and started implementing the necessary steps that would turn the idea into a Holiday Tournament.
The Imperial Palace sits on 18.5 acres between Harrah's and the Flamingo, both owned by Harrah's Entertainment. The purchase price for the aging Imperial Palace was basically a vacant land deal amounting to $20 million an acre, the going price for center strip frontage. Harrah's now controls more than 270 acres of Las Vegas strip frontage real estate, more than enough to allow Harrah's to design many future projects. The recently announced MGM Mirage project, City Center, being built on 66 acres of west side strip frontage may now have some serious competition from Harrah's. Harrah's now has the land and location to design and build an even bigger project on the east side of the strip. Harrah's also owns the property directly across the strip from Harrah's/Imperial Palace/Flamingo, Caesar's Palace Resort, which was acquired from Caesar's Entertainment in June of this year in a $9 billion deal. Just down the strip they have ownership of another major parcel with Bally's and the Paris casinos. Of course, as everyone in the poker world knows, Harrah's owns the off-strip Rio Hotel and Casino, home to the World Series of Poker, also owned by Harrah's.
Harrah's officials issued a press release announcing the sale and a time table for the completion of the transfer was listed as the end of the year. The Imperial Palace hotel has 2640 rooms and was built by transplanted North Dakotan, Ralph Engelstad. Engelstad purchased the old Flamingo Capri property and built the Imperial Palace. Engelstad and the IP gained international notoriety in the late 1980's when he was fined a record $1.5 million and his gaming license was placed in probation after the Nevada Gaming Commission found that he had damaged the reputation and image of the states gaming industry due to some rather bizarre behavior. Ralph held parties at the Imperial Palace every April 20th celebrating the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Additionally, he had amassed a large collection of Nazi war memorabilia which was housed in a large private room in the IP Auto Collection area.
A lifesize painting of Hitler giving a speech showed Ralph Engelstad in a Nazi uniform standing along side the infamous figure. Apparently Engelstad enjoyed hosting parties at the hotel. He held birthday parties for his dogs with mandatory attendance of selected IP employees. Generally, the party goers left with a nice gift.
The No-Limit Hold'em event features the result of three days of play. A record 2,305 players were seated for the tournament, the second largest crowd (at that time) to do so, right behind the 2004 WSOP main event that attracted 2,576 players. Early into the first day tournament officials realized the event could not be completed in the two days allotted and
Allen Cunningham (4), Marina del Rey, California, $728,000
The second hour of 2005 WSOP action tonight will be the final table of the $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit event #3. Another record crowd of 1071 players began play on the first day. The event collected a prize pool of $1,477,980 paying out $369,545 for first place plus another of the coveted gold WSOP champion bracelets. The final table nine complete with seat assignments and chip counts follows:
Its rumored that Steve Lipscomb, founder and CEO of the WPT, has been trying to work out an agreement that will make the players and the Travel Channel happy. The travel Channel has been adamant in their refusal to allow televised final tables to show any logos, whither worn by players or stenciled on the table, they are not allowed. The players blame this problem on the WPT for not negotiating with the network to allow them to wear sponsor logos. Apparently, Mr. Lipscomb has been negotiating with the network to find a compromise that pleases both sides.













