Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas Electronic Poker Should Fold

I get that we're living in the electronic age when it comes to poker. I understand that hotels like the Excalibur in Las Vegas want to usher in the electronic era and welcome new technology. I get it that poker players at the Excalibur in Las Vegas may be predominantly beginners. This is no excuse for the poker room at the Excalibur in Las Vegas to have gone completely electronic. I tried it. I really don't get it.

You play poker to make money. No question about it. However, a big part of the experience is watching your opponents. You watch how they handle their cards and their chips. You watch their reactions to the dealer and how the cards are laid out. You study how they interact with the dealer when things go well and when they don't. Perhaps you just enjoy interacting with a dealer. You use the interplay to see if you can affect the others to do as you please. Maybe, you just enjoy the company.

At the poker room of the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas, all of the above are gone. You become one of the mindless, sitting at another video terminal that could basically be anything. You have no connection to the cards or the chips. You never really know much of anything because the program owns you from the moment you check in. This is what online poker is all about and I don't go to Las Vegas to play online poker.

When I go to play poker in a casino, I want to know that everything is as I see it. I don't want to be a part of a computer program, which is what we all become when we play online. I want to see the dealer. I want to know that he or she is a real person. I want to see that deck of cards. I want to see the cards come off one at a time and skim across the felt. I want to see how the chips go in. Every bet is a little different from the last but each will tell me something. The poker room at the Excalibur hotel in Las Vegas wants to take that away from me. I won't have it.

It is a real shame because I always enjoyed visiting the Excalibur hotel in Vegas. It was one of the first ones I ever stayed at and I love the way it is connected to the Luxor, Mandalay Bay and New York New York. I can only hope that this electronic trend for the world of poker will not catch on with the rest of Las Vegas. I could hardly imagine the Belaggio poker room ever going electronic. If that sad sorry day ever happens, I guess I'll be spending a lot more time in Atlantic City.