Poker? Do you mean that card game played on TV, or the one played online? Actually, right now we mean the one played in real life.
Poker rooms are to poker as live music halls are to songs: it is where they started to capture an audience, and it’s where they continue to fuel the energy. In this series of 30 brief articles, we’ll look at the top poker rooms in the U.S.
The Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, known colloquially as The Bike, is one of the largest card casinos on the planet. Its 130,000 square feet, hosting more than 150 tables, is 15 miles from downtown Los Angeles. As with anything that prominent in the City of Angels, it attracts its fair share of celebrities: James Woods, Ben Affleck and Tobey Maguire, among others, have tried their card skills in the No Limit Hold ‘em tournaments featured here, as part of the televised “World Poker Tour.”
Open 24 hours, The Bike’s marble, brass, and cream- and green-colored interior design is a world-class facility. In addition to the massive number of concurrent card games, The Bike features several restaurants, bars, a catering and banquet facility, even a beauty salon. There are a wide variety of poker games, including Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold‘em (which are $100, $200 and $500 buy-ins), Crazy Pineapple, Omaha HiLo, Stud, Stud Hi-Lo and Mexican Poker, with tournaments held most days-- sometimes two per day. There are also small buy-in tournaments, such as the Nooner Days and Nights tournaments, held when other tournaments are not scheduled. And there are the large, annual tournaments, including the ever-popular Legends of Poker, as well as Ho Ho Hold’em, Stars and Stripes and Winnin' O the Green.
Of course, if you don’t want to actually go to The Bike, you can still vicariously enjoy it: the Live at the Bike show is webcast five nights a week.
