Thursday, April 1, 2010

POKER ROOM - ARIA

Aria's Poker Room is located on the far left side of the casino, very close to the self-parking garage, and hugs the wall near to the Sports Book and is just beyond the Union Restaurant. If you're entering the casino from the main door - walk southward (which is the direction where Monte Carlo is located).
The Poker Room supposedly has 24 tables. I wouldn't know because I wasn't counting tables, cards, chips, heads or even my pocket change. I was mainly just impressed by how comfortable the room looked and also wondering how my rinky-dink camera was going to capture my hand-held photos at 1/2 second and longer using a film speed of 80. Nevermind. It's just a 'photo-thing' that most people with a camera bought anytime after 2002 don't have to worry about.
Anyway. The man I asked said that they have 18 tables in front, and 6 somewhere else and a VIP poker area in back, hidden behind some curtains. If you're a poker player, this place seems as good as any and probably better than most. It at least has lots of plush atmosphere and doesn't have that Orleans' Casino's convention-hall look or square flourescent lighting fixtures overhead.
It's a nice looking room, all-in-all, and has plenty of TV screens to watch if you're tired and bored of looking at other player's faces. As for 'reading tells', why even waste your time. Most of the players are likely faking their tells anyway. There's no need to turn the poker room into a psych-lab by wasting your time trying to read clues, intents, motivations, truths or lies in other players' dead-pan, poker-faces. Watch TV or look at the pretty cocktail waitresses instead and have some fun. It's a multi-billion dollar casino. Enjoy the amenities and the surroundings. Good luck will carry you thru regardless.
The Poker Room is walled-off by a knee-high rail and partitioned by huge, metallic looking playing cards. They almost seem like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland to me. It's a very Mad-Hatter type of look and I personally liked the comedic aspect of the design.
One thing I did notice was that the location of the poker room is close to most everything else you might need. The Roasted Bean coffe stand is just a few yards away and so is the Skybox-To-Go food take-out stand and the Sports Book Restaurant. If you plan to sit-out a few hands there are plenty of other things to do nearby.

Aria's Poker Room has a unique look to it. I like it a lot and I'm not even interested in things like poker rooms. But I did notice that this room has more personality than most every other one I've seen. By the way. The Roasted Bean stand can be seen in the distant left of this photo.
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