Inside the Thursday deep-stack.
Our weekly tournament draws a mixed field of regulars and first-timers. Here's the structure, the crowd, and the three mistakes that end most debuts before level four.
By T. Okafor, poker room
How the night is built
Registration opens at 17:30, cards fly at 18:30. The buy-in is $180 with one optional re-entry until level six. Starting stacks run 30,000 — deep enough that level one is a feeling-out exercise, not a knife fight.
The field averages 60 players, swelling past 80 on holiday weeks. Roughly a third are regulars who know each other's games by heart; the rest are hotel guests and visitors who found the card at the concierge desk.
The players who bust before level four are almost always the ones who played like the tournament ended at nine.
Blinds climb every 25 minutes. A dinner break lands around 20:45, and the final table usually wraps by 01:00 — top three paid, winner taking the trophy and the board photo.
The three debut mistakes
First: playing too many hands early because the blinds feel cheap. Second: mistaking quiet tables for soft ones — the regulars are quiet because they're watching. Third: punting the stack on a bluff at level five, right before the money bubble.
The fix is boring and works: fold more in the first hour, watch who three-bets, and let the regulars eliminate each other. Position beats courage in a deep-stack.
Between rounds, the poker room serves coffee and the rail is friendly — half the regulars will happily talk through a hand you played wrong.
Before you buy in
Register early
Hotel guests get priority until two hours before start.
Eat first
The dinner break is 20 minutes — don't arrive hungry.
Set the number
Decide your total spend, buy-in and re-entry included, before you sit.
What winning looks like
First place typically runs $3,500 to $5,000 depending on the field, with the top three paid and the final table photographed for the wall.
More valuable than the cash, most regulars say, is the seat draw sheet — learn where the loose players sit and the whole night gets easier.
Good to know
T. Okafor, poker room
T. Okafor runs the poker room and deals the Thursday deep-stack most weeks.
Meet the whole teamSee it in person
Rooms, restaurants, the rooftop and the floor — all on Casino Drive, all walkable from the sand.