New Mexico

In an interesting twist, the state of New Mexico gave out a poker tournament seat as the Grand Prize in one of its lottery scratch-off ticket games. The lucky winner got to choose a prize package that includes airfare, $1,000 expense money and a $10,000 seat in either the World Poker Open in Tunica, Mississippi or the Bay 101 Shooting Star in San Jose, California.

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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.