girl poker tour's blog

My 2 year poker tour of America is over; I played in 65 rooms and can't count how many I've walked through. I'm not sure that's something to brag about, it's kind of like drinking too much. Anyway, now that I'm stuck in Vegas for the next 11 months I need your help.

We've just added Canada to The Poker Atlas. There appears to be 39 poker rooms (if you know of one we're missing please help support the cause and let us know). So far we only have one Canadian poker room review by our dear friend Poker Shrink, so obviously we could use your help with reviews and even pictures.

Feel free to pretend I'm the hot Canuck if that helps motivate you.

Thanks. xo

About 2 hours west of Seattle is a small fishing town called Port Townsend. There, you'll find a 2 table card room in the Highway Twenty Road House. Open Sunday, Wednesday and Friday from 6p to 6a, the Road House has 2 tables and spreads a $4/8 limit game. It runs like a home game, everyone deals for themselves. The house takes $3 time every half hour with a suggested $1 tip for the girl running the show. Their rule is, if you win a pot you must first push the cards to the next dealer and then you can pull your (pink) chips.

** Chips are regularly left unattended by the bowl of chocolates on the podium.

I recently found 2 coastal poker treasures. I was turned on to the Village Club just south of San Diego after reading a review by "cracknaces." There are glitzier rooms in the area, but they're all pretty standard issue. The Village Club has atmosphere.

The other (pictured right) is in Ventura. Players Poker Club is a dive of a room with 5 tables (they plan to expand to 7) and packed with action - mostly $4/8 Limit and up to $5/10 NL. A handful of guys had boxes of strawberries on their table side trays. Totally cute.

LAS VEGAS, NV -- One of the highlights to my 5 weeks in Vegas was witnessing Dan Michalski get completely smashed and find neck-wear in a garbage can.

I also had a good time getting to know PokerBlog's own Poker Shrink.

As for the poker report...

I played 7 tournaments, placed in 2.

Lesson from the blogger tourney: Don't play cards if you're so tired you can barely speak.

When did the Venetian start smelling like the MGM?

The Sahara tournaments are still my favorite.

TEMECULA, CA -- Last week we stayed at the Pechanga RV Resort which is walking distance to their casino. The poker room is big and comfy and on weekends the drunks pour out of the nightclub itching to play cards.

We also checked out nearby Rincon and Pauma but only played Pechanga where we witnessed one player give another who had gone broke $100 to stick around.

BLYTHE, Calif.--I saw two special card rooms this past weekend. Pictured above is the advertising for the "holdum" game at Bruce's Bar and Casino in Blythe California (check out the entrance).

The other was The Back Room at Reflections in Phoenix Arizona.
They have volunteer dealers and they don't take a rake!

CYBERSPACE -- I have to share this with the poker world...Our state poker maps are live. We've logged 146 poker rooms in California. The map is interactive on our site...this is just a screen grab.

TUCSON, AZ -- I couldn't resist using this picture twice today. The Desert Diamond Casino in Tucson Arizona looks a little seedy on the outside, but inside it's packed with some serious poker. Tucson has one other poker room at Casino Del Sol which is a little more swank. Locals go between the two rooms, and the caliber of play is relatively high.

Shrink, I have a strategy question - flats or heels in a tournament?

MESCALERO, NM -- Minutes from Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs Horse Track is the Inn of the Mountain Gods. Inside you'll find a nice non-smoking 9 table poker room and local player David. David is there every day in his sports coat sitting next to the dealer in seat 1 or 10. He plays the $1/$2 No Limit game, talks incessantly and annoys most of the tourists. If you stick around long enough he starts to grow on you.

When David is on a club flush draw he starts yelling "popcorn" over and over (because he thinks clubs look like popcorn). When I was all in with the best hand on the flop and was rivered a flush, David turned to me shaking his head and sympathetically said "popcorn always comes."

ALBUQUERQUE, NM -- I assumed Sandia was going to be the best room in Albuquerque, however, you know what they say about assuming...

I love finding sleeper hit poker rooms - and the Route 66 Casino off of the I-40 in New Mexico was a nice suprise. It's truly a separate room from the rest of the casino, so there isn't any slot noise; it's non-smoking, comfortable, and attracts a lot of road warriors looking for action.

b/t/w - Local poker room managers are reporting that they are already noticing the effect of the online poker legislation and that they plan to hold more WSOP qualifiers than in years past.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM -- Thanks Dan for plugging The Poker Atlas. There is already a mini poker room loyalty war between the Cripple Creek card rooms. Very funny.

My most recent stop was Sandia Resort & Casino where they use all 15 of their tables for tournaments, squeeze 12 players to a table, and take an alternate list for the first round.

When there isn't a tournament, the list for their cash games can be quite long.

The room is non-smoking, they have table service and there are good players to be found. (Yay!)

Sandia feels more like a Vegas or Los Angeles area room than anything I've seen in awhile.

SANTA FE, NM-- Oh my god Cities of Gold is flush with poker gamblers. Most play any high card and some play ANY card.

EXAMPLE: I was the button and I raised 5x the big blind with pocket jacks. The big blind calls with 4/9 "it was suited" and flops a full house.

There is a silver lining - no limit cash games are legal in New Mexico. 4/9 proceeds to bust out of the tournament and lose $400 in 30 minutes in the cash game.

CRIPPLE CREEK, CO-- Last week I was in Cripple Creek where I played in all 3 of their poker rooms. Cripple Creek is an old gambling town located about 45 miles west of Colorado Springs. It is almost 10k feet, so I had a lot of trouble breathing and if I got into a hot hand then I really had trouble breathing.

In CC, the buy-in for tournaments occurs at a very specific time (in all of the card rooms) and generally closes 30 minutes before a tournament starts. So my first attempt to play failed because I arrived 20 minutes early - which was really 10 minutes late.

BLACK HAWK, CO--Heading south for warmer weather I stopped to check out the 7 poker rooms in Black Hawk/Central City. In Colorado the max bet is $5, so I mostly played tournaments.

The Gilpin is definitely my favorite room even though I lost money playing a ridiculous turbo tournament.

I got a little tilty at a Fortune Valley tournament when the tournament manager asked for social security cards before the players in the money busted out. They didn't mention it when I bought in and were they really going to not pay me if I didn't produce the actual card? With identity theft these days, who carries their ss card?! I complained so loud I think they paid me out to shut me up.

Anyway, I'm not going to rush back to Black Hawk, but for those jonsing for poker in the Denver area there is action to be found about an hour west in the Rockies.

DEADWOOD, SD--I just spent 3 weeks in one of my favorite poker places.

Deadwood South Dakota (made famous by the HBO series) is an old mining town tucked away in the Black Hills National Forest. The people here are extremely cool and the town is very much a poker town. Next month they're having a city-wide tournament called the Deadwood Shootout where all 5 card rooms are participating. They also keep tournament points across all 5 casinos, how can I not love it here?

Last night I was at the Silverado in Deadwood playing $3/6. In the few years I’ve played poker, for some reason, men feel the need to protect me at the table. Annie Duke wrote an article about this once…men telling women what they have and when to fold. It’s been 100% reliable up until last night.

I had J/10, the flop was 10/8/6. I bet, the guy next to me raises, callers all around - maybe 5 in the hand. The turn is garbage. The guy next to me whispers “I flopped it.” I check, he bets, callers all around, I fold. The river is a 10. He bets, some people call. He wins with a pair of 8’s.

After he swears that he asked if I flopped it - but whatever, it was just a dumb $3/6 game.

The Silverado attracts tourists to the tournaments and locals to the cash games. The night before last I played their unlimited re-buy tournament and oh my god I have never played with so many inexperienced players.