1st time B&M, Spirit Mount in Oregon

A friend and I decided to head to Spirit Mountain for a day of poker. I've never been to a B&M and he'd only been once. We played 3/6 (which is my normal online amount). I thought about playing higher limits, but figured I'd just hang out and try something that might be relatively easy. Table waits were also a concern. We got there about 11:30am and had a 60 minute wait. By 1pm, the wait was probably 3 hours.

Play was mind bogglingly passive. I watched a table for about 20 minutes and never saw a preflop raise. Many pots were checked down, even with the near nuts. Players were either near 100% to the flop or very tight. Not many people seemed to play in between.

Bluffing is non-existant. Value bet things to death, but you won't push some of them off even ace-high.

So, pluses:
- Loose, passive tables
- Non smoking. Can't even begin to say how important that is to me. There's smoke in the casino in general (just not in the poker room or slots just outside of it), so there's a waft of it, but it's pretty tolerable.
- Comfy chairs, noise level is tolerable, all around decent place.

Cons:
- Slow. Maybe 20-25 hands an hour.
- The drive (about 70 minutes for me)
- The rake. It's unbeatable at low levels. It's 10% with a $3 cap, plus $1 goes into a jackpot every hand. You just can't beat that in the long run. Nearly 3x the effective rake I pay online. If I tripled my online rake I'd be a massive loser instead of a 3BB/100 winner.
- Did I mention slow?

It was fun as an experience, but it's hard to imagine playing to actually win money unless you're playing 10/20 or more. At those levels the rake would be beatable. But even if you're were a 4BB/100 winner, you're talking about $20/hour at best.

[SoCalRugger]

Nice report. What day did you go? I'm in Corvallis and was thinking about heading up there some weekend for a change of pace from internet play, but there's no way in hell I'm going to wait three hours for a seat. If it's that bad on weekends, I'll just wait 'til I hit Vegas in a month.

[ccgreg]

Saturdays before noon (or maybe until 3:00) is usually no problem unless a tournament is scheduled for that day (none scheduled for this Saturday the 10th). Sundays, however, they have a $500 high hand every hour 9:00 am - midnight. By noon all 17 tables are usually filled. It's a good time to play because everyone is playing any suited connector trying to hit a straight flush. I get there before 7:00 am on Sundays and join a $1/$2 NL game in progress from the previous night.

[WhiskyRiver]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice report. What day did you go? I'm in Corvallis and was thinking about heading up there some weekend for a change of pace from internet play, but there's no way in hell I'm going to wait three hours for a seat. If it's that bad on weekends, I'll just wait 'til I hit Vegas in a month.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been to spirit mountain four times, twice on a friday evening, once on a saturday, and once on a sunday, and the longest wait was 15 minutes. I might have hit it right, but I would think the three hours is an exception. As an addition to the above, the 1/2 NL has always been pretty soft everytime I've been there....