For years, the high rollers have flocked to the poker room at the Bellagio. All the best amateurs and top pros congregated at the high limit tables there, waiting for victims or those who would gladly pay a hefty price for sitting down with the best of the best. But that could soon change, thanks to the new Wynn Poker Room. Steve Wynn has made a bid for the high rollers and pros to change venues, and he is having some success - but that's just to be expected, with the kind of hype that surrounds the poker room Wynn Hotel offers.

Immense ceilings tower over twenty seven tables. Particular attention has been paid to spacing and lighting, in order to eradicate the cramped feeling that can be found in competing rooms. The table limits at the Wynn poker room are simple, familiar - $3/$6, $4/$8, $8/$16, all the way up to $40/$80, for limit Texas Hold 'em. The lower limits commandeer a large portion of the available tables, while larger limits can be made available upon request. No Limit Hold 'Em comes with familiar limits also: $1/2, $2/5, and $5/10. Available, too, is an Omaha 8 game of $6/12 with full kill and the fleeting $1/$4 Seven Card Stud games that occasionally make their way to the felt. Though it is a mainstay of many rooms across the city, Seven Card Stud is just not one of the more popular Wynn Las Vegas games, and thus is often ignored in favor of Hold 'Em, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when No Limit Tournaments are held throughout the morning and afternoon, the cheapest buy-in currently residing at the $80 level.

Higher limits, naturally, bring a higher grade of clientele. But what the Poker Room Wynn Casino strives for, however, is to cater to all levels of players, treating the guy buying in with $40 the same as the one who buys in with $1000. And while that is mostly true, it does not hold if one is hoping for comps. At the low limit tables, the comp rate is a stingy $1 an hour. So if you really want that breakfast buffet, you need to buckle down and play smart - throw away that J-8 that looks so enticing. It'll only lead to trouble. Despite its relative youth, the Wynn Poker Room is already gaining a reputation for its high level of play. Beginners should seek out friendly confines to learn the ropes of the most popular of the Wynn Las Vegas games - perhaps a cab ride to the $1/$3 tables at the Excalibur or even the Flamingo. Unless you are truly ready to pay for some hard earned lessons about what to do with an ace on the river, this is not the place to sit for the first time. If you decide to take your chances, however, you might quickly learn why the most popular of Wynn Las Vegas games can also be the cruelest.

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