[Onaflag]

Not much has been written about Jackson Rancheria in Northern California, so, here goes.......

Christmas day. Everyone's bored. Four inlaws, my wife and I pile into a minivan and off we go. Raining like crazy, but that's another story. When we arrived, I was immediately impressed with the size of the place. They drop me off in the poker room and slot bound they go. Cool. Alone at last.

I guess its a new location inside the casino for the poker room. That's what the talkative guy to my left says, anyway. Whoops, let me back up a second. We'll get back to "talkative guy" later.

The waiting list is in a notebook. Not notebook as in laptop, I mean a real notebook. The kind you buy in the school supply section of Walmart. I was unimpressed and the kid doing the name taking was like, "can I help you?", and I'm like, "Yes." and he's like, "if these 850 people I just called don't show up in the next 2 seconds, I'll seat you."

Cool. I got seated right away. 3/6 was the only choice. There may have been an O8 game going, I dunno. There were 8 tables and all were filled, yet the board only showed two 3/6 games. I later found out there was at least one NL table but no one could tell me the blinds and I didn't pursue it.

The casino: smoking allowed just outside the poker room which is the entrance to the restaurant. Great. No alcohol served. 18 and up.

The poker room: loud as all Hell with some crappy retro music blaring from some unknown multi-mega watt sound system that probably disturbs neighboring states. 8 tables. Waitresses come by often for drink orders. Pretty good ice mochas, but a Corona about half way through sure would have been nice. No big deal, the fact that 18 year olds are allowed made up for that little inconvenience. (I hope I didn't just offend 98% of 2+2, but really, the kids are terrible)

10 players to a table which is the first time I've seen that in California. Had I not been at the table, it would have been 10 players to the flop every hand for 2 hours. Instead, there were only 9 players to every flop. I'm sure that surprised the dealers. I was up very nicely in 2 hours.

Then weird stuff started happening. Our table would get short and right when I was about to ask for a table change, it'd fill up. This kept happening. Crap. Just when you get in a groove, everything changes. Whatever. No telling when the wife would show up broke, so I didn't let it bother me.

Rake: sucks. $4 and there is no jackpot. I hate JPs, but come on. This alone will keep me from making the hour drive there. What is wrong with a normal $3 rake if there is no JP? The loose/passive table made up for that nonsense, so I'll probably return.

Dealers: never saw the same one twice which got me thinking either I stumbled into a shift change or they were rotating them in from the Asian games. Must have been shift change because I've never heard of whatever it is I just said. They were okay. One misdeal and two or three pots shoved the wrong direction which someone always corrected right away, usually the winner who's chips were travelling away from him/her. The shuffling machines in the tables worked nicely, but it was funny when one dealer was forced to shuffle by hand because the floor was goofing with the machine. It was freakin hilarious! Like watching a drunk guy juggle. I'm not a dealer, but could have shuffled much more elegantly. Sheesh.

All in all, nice joint. Loose passive people at small stakes. I would have preferred 4/8 or maybe 6/12, but had to play what they had available. After 4 hours of play, I was up about what I'd expect to be. The swings, however, could be enourmous with just the right/wrong cards.

Oh yeah, the guy next to me. Apparently a regular. Up at least 4 racks. Playing every hand at least to the flop. Telling me everything he had and what he would have had had he not folded. I'm surprised the dealer never piped in but it was so damn loud no one probably heard him whispering what he had during the hand. I didn't want to be a nit my first time there so I just kept nodding and grunting something acceptable. Until........he cracked my aces with 62o. I clammed up and ignored him because now his stupidness cost me a big pot. Whatever. You have to expect that now and then, but when its the talkative guy to your left who criticizes everone else's play, it has a different meaning............

That is all. Sorry for the long rant, but for some reason, this casino gets no press here, and now I might know why. If you're in the Bay area, stay there. Only make the trip if you have a slot junky that you can drop off downstairs, make your escape, and still get brownie points for taking her there.

Onaflag.............