Trip report: Jackson Rancheria Casino

[I.Rowboat]

JRC is an Indian casino in Jackson, CA, in the Sierra foothills. I was in the area to do some fishing earlier this week and was pleased to hear the casino had recently added a small (7 table) poker room, so i decided to check it out.

The room: The room itself is really just a poorly lit open area above the main casino floor, next to the buffet room. The tables are somewhat close together. Although the poker area is non-smoking, the area beyond the rail isn't, which kinda sucks.

The games: The room offered $3-$6 and $100 buy-in NL. I played the NL, and a few orbits of limit while waiting for a NL seat.

The limit play was s-l-o-w, and painful in the way that low limit poker often is. Nothing remarkable here...

The NL action was pretty good. Because JRC is an Indian casino, the games had a large representation of 18-22 year olds. It was nice playing against so many fresh faces -- friendlier than the mopes I'm used to seeing in card rooms. The quality of play ranged from very tight to abyssmal; I didn't see a lot of creative play, so it was pretty much a wait-for-cards experience. The action was decent, with the best action coming from the older players. Overall, I booked a small profit, which would have been a nice profit except for a couple of tough beats (AA cracked by ATo was the worst...but I digress).

The staff: I played two nights, fairly long sessions, and was generally impressed with the dealers: they were professional and (mostly) kept the games moving. I experienced one *horrible* dealer on the first night -- she had probably never dealt a NL game and was completely overwhelmed. It was a very painful down.

The floor staff was pretty mediocre. The brushes didn't move through the lists as quickly as they could have, and in general, they seemed a bit disinterested in running the room.

The food: JRC has a food court, like you might find at the mall, It wasn't bad, but it wasn't fine dining either. Their buffet looked nice, but I didn't try it.

JRC may be the only game in town, but I had a good time, and I'm sure the room will only get better with time. If you are in the area and are looking for a game, I recommend checking it out.

[PITTM]

what is the structure of the nl game? thanks.

rj

[I.Rowboat]

$100 max buy-in, $1/$2 blinds, 10% rake capped at $4. The rake is steep (and all pots bigger than $10 are raked, even those w/out a flop).

One interesting rule: If you change from one NL table to another, you can bring whatever chips you have w/you to the new table.

Also, the room bans all personal electronic gear other than cell phones -- no mp3/cd players, no headphones, etc.