Sunday, April 16, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.
Steve Wynn is breaking ground on his $1.7 billion Encore resort on April 28, but the Strip developer says his streak of timing major events for that date - wife Elaine's birthday and the day in 2000 that Wynn bought the Desert Inn - will end with the Encore event.
Wynn opened Wynn Las Vegas on the same day in 2005, but told me Friday that plans call for Encore to open in December 2007.
"That's the best time to open," Wynn said of the traditionally slow month. "That way you start the year fresh, with New Year's, Chinese New Year and the Super Bowl ahead."
Wynn continues to work on plans for the rest of the Desert Inn property that now serves as Wynn Las Vegas' high-priced golf course.
The toughest part of closing the golf course and building on the site - aside from persuading Elaine to accept the temporary loss of their pastoral views from the Wynn Las Vegas villa they live in - will be the impact on the east side of the resort. The villas, a restaurant and a couple of meeting spaces now overlook the golf course's 18th hole.
"That's going to be the tricky part," Wynn said of the stage between the closure of the golf course and the introduction of a new landscape, one that will have a large lake, a feature that will eventually be surrounded by additional hotels.
"I'm still going to bed dreaming about the golf course, making it a park, a town - making it beautiful," he said.
He soon plans to acquire the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce building that now occupies the southeast corner of the former Desert Inn block; Wynn Resorts workers already are occupying about half the building's space.
Wynn also plans a mid-rise office building on land Wynn Resorts owns on the south side of Sands Avenue, at the intersection of Manhattan Street. Wynn Design and Development will take the bottom few floors of the building and he'll lease the top floors.
Wynn was in Macau at the start of the month and is returning to the Chinese enclave again this week. He said construction and hiring at the $1.1 billion Wynn Macau is on pace and that the resort is still slated to open Sept. 5.
Almost everyone who's anyone in the poker world was at the Palms Thursday evening to check out a new concept in televised gaming competition.
Surprisingly, the game is blackjack, not poker.
Dozens of poker players invested in the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, created by former poker world champion Russ Hamilton, and many were on hand as the UBT screened one of its ready-for-television episodes for investors, casino executives and the news media.
The UBT blackjack concept is loosely modeled on the success of the World Poker Tour, with quality production values, knowledgeable commentators and pretty women spicing up the card-based competition.
Hamilton's concept marks a big improvement over past attempts to televise blackjack, adding elements like eliminating players, secret bets and showing viewers the dealer's hole card.
But televised blackjack is just not as captivating as poker. Poker competition is much more complex, with everyone at the table competing against everyone else, instead of a group of players squaring off individually against the dealer. While I'm confident that the UBT will sign a television deal, I just don't see the concept capturing as many viewers as the best poker shows.
The WPT has created an awesome product with its red, white and blue set and great tournaments. So has the World Series of Poker, with simpler production values and more emphasis on player rivalries and back stories.
I don't think the UBT can compete with either of the top two poker tours. But one thing is certain: It can't help but be better than the worst gambling show ever, Spike TV's "King of Vegas," which mercifully just concluded its first - and let's hope last - season.
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