Poker Ambassador
Nothing beats a good grand opening
By Randall Rapp

Two casinos in Northern California have opened new poker rooms recently, and in both cases they have plenty to feel grand about. It’s not that they didn’t have poker rooms before, it’s just that the new ones are bigger and better than their previous digs.

But first, to other business….

Lucky Chances Casino
Colma

If it seems like you just read about Lucky Chances in this space, you’re right. Your humble Ambassador finds himself in the unenviable position of crying mea culpa, begging pardon, calling out “my bad” and asking for a Mulligan. Somehow, after visiting Lucky Chances I had the impression that they did not offer no-limit games and said so in this space. Oops.

Still unsure of where the erroneous information came from, the only relevant issue at this point is making sure the error gets corrected, so here goes: At the Lucky Chances Casino they have plenty of no-limit action, and have been doing so for over a year.

You have your choice of three different no-limit Hold’em games with blinds of $3/5 ($100-$500 buy-in), $5/10 ($200-$1,000) and $10/10/20 ($1,000-no max).

They also offer no-limit Hold’em tournaments every week from Sunday through Thursday.

Recently they added pot-limit Omaha to their schedule, spreading the game every Sunday at noon. The game has $2/5 blinds and a $200-$500 buy-in.

When given the opportunity to com­ment, general manager Art Van Loon had this to say: “At Lucky Chances Casino, we offer 27 poker tables with a variety of no-limit and limit games.  We also recently added pot-limit Omaha which is taking off quite well.  Lucky Chances Casino is Northern California’s largest cardroom with 60 tables.  We offer a wide variety of poker games and the most Vegas-style games of any cardroom in our area.”

River Rock Casino
Geyserville

At River Rock they held a huge grand opening Sept. 11 to Sept. 13 for their new poker room. Located in what had previously been a restaurant, this poker room sports its own large balcony with a sweeping view of the Alexander Valley. Between the view, the room itself, and the plans of poker manager Dan Higginbotham, big things should be in store for poker players at River Rock.

In addition to offering free food all weekend—chicken wings, Swedish meatballs, sweet and sour chicken, mozzarella sticks, and potato wedges—the big draw for the Grand Opening was the tournament that began on Friday night. It was set up as a shootout, with flights on Friday night, all day Saturday, and two more Sunday morning. The final two at each table would make the semifinals on Sunday, followed by the finals that evening.

As if that weren’t enough fun, the initial flights all had one player with a bounty on their head (ranging from $25 to $100)— you just didn’t know who or for how much until they were knocked out. Did I mention that River Rock put up an added $10,000 for this event? Between the bounties and the added money there was no shortage of interest in the outcome at each table, but a whole lot of fun was had, too.

Not surprisingly, Dan put the bounty on my head when I sat down to play. Fortunately, neither I nor my opponents was aware of it. I hung in there for a while, but with what amounted to a turbo structure (every two hours they started another flight) I didn’t have a lot of room for finesse. When a good chunk of my chips got whittled away I had to go all-in with A-6 suited, but came up against the pocket 10s of Robert S. Harkavy of Healdsburg, a longtime poker player at River Rock. When his 10s held up Robert had not only eliminated your faithful Ambassador but also collected a $100 bounty as well.

Not one to give up so easily, I entered again when the next flight started, and this time I made it to the semifinals on Sunday. I felt so good that I proceeded to sit down in their no-limit game and did just fine that evening. I was ready to tear them up again when the semifinal started on Sunday, but I never could get any traction and when I got pocket 10s they looked like aces. Wouldn’t you know it, my neighbor had pocket jacks and I was done. Congratulations to Dan and all the staff at River Rock for putting on a great event and having an excellent grand opening.

Black Oak Casino
Tuolumne

While Black Oak may not have held an official grand opening for their new poker room, I decided I’d better go check it out while the shine was on the apple. Along with our traveling buddies, Mrs. A and I made the trip to Black Oak on a recent Sunday with our eye on their afternoon deep stack tournament.

First though, we made a quick stop in Sonora at the Mt. Brow Winery to taste their excellent selection of wines. It was well worth the visit and I would highly recommend it to any wine lovers on their way to Black Oak.

We got to the casino just in time to enter the tournament that starts at 2:00 p.m. With 10,000 in chips and half hour rounds there was plenty of play for your $110 entry. Despite this, I was surprised to see several players go out before the first round was even over. With that many chips, why would you want to get yourself all-in that early with anything less than the nuts?

While the tournament was going on I took a few moments to take in their new poker room. Previously, the “poker room” was really just an area on the casino floor that they had sectioned off for poker. Now they have a beautiful room dedicated to poker in the new gaming area they created between the old casino floor and their new parking garage. With a lovely décor and plenty of flatscreen TVs all around, it has everything you would want in a poker room.

Meanwhile, the action was pretty furious for a deep stack tournament, but there was still plenty of time to pick your spots before putting your money in. I was up and down a bit, but holding pretty steady for the first several rounds. Then a couple of almost hands cut away at my stack and I found myself looking at 6-7 suited in late position and called a standard raise from late position. I was thrilled to see a flop of 8-9-10 rainbow and raised when the big blind opened. When I got re-raised I knew I had to either go all-in or fold. There was only one hand I had to worry about and decided the chances of him having it were small and the pot was way too big, so I pushed hoping to be up against something like top pair with a big kicker or even a set. Sure enough, he had the J-Q and I was drawing dead and out of the tournament.

Once again, Mrs. A had outlasted me in a tournament. She went on to make the final table and would have cashed too if it hadn’t been for two bad beats in a row when she got her money in good.

The good news was I got most of my entry fee back playing in their $1/1 and then $2/2 no-limit cash games. They have the Poker Pro tables at Black Oak, and I don’t mind them a bit for cash games, even though I think where they really excel is for tournaments.