Seattle area rooms

[Brain]

I'm thinking about heading to Seattle in May to catch a Mariners game or two and maybe some cards. I was looking and the closest room (that I noticed) was Diamond Lil's in Renton and the Muckleshoot is further away from downtown than I expected. How is Lil's and how inconvenient would it be to get to the Muck (not sure where I'd stay yet, possible Bellevue)? Thanks for any and all info.

Brian

[slavic]

Bellevue is going to be a bit of a drive for most of the rooms. The distance isn't all that far, but traffic sucks if you head out at the wrong time. Getting to the Mariners game though would be fairly easy as 90 is one of the better highways.

The Muck is out in Auburn and will be a bit of a drive but it's the largest room around and the only place to play higher than 10/20.

Lil's will have games all the way to 12/24 and they cram 10 or so tables into a fairly small space. The games are just about everything you could ever want in a low limit experience.

The Tualip is the only non-smoking room and it's located north of town. They spread a $200 NL game with a $500max bet.

[Brain]

How busy are these rooms? Will I have a crazy wait list?

[nolanfan34]

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How busy are these rooms? Will I have a crazy wait list?

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What levels are you planning on playing? And what days are you going to play, weekends or weeknights?

My 2 cents. If it doesn't matter where you stay, I'd look at either staying in Renton, or Sea-Tac area. I don't know how familiar you are with WA, but those locations are both basically South of Safeco Field and Seattle, and closer to both Lils and The Muck than Bellevue.

The other advantage is that you can park south of Safeco for free, and there's easy access to the freeway after the game.

Anyway, if you're playing low limit stuff, you can expect it to be busy on the weekends, but I can't imagine that you'll have to wait too long most of the time.

[Siegmund]

The good news is that the traffic is mostly going the opposite direction you are: people live in the suburbs and work in the city, while you may have a hotel in or close to the city and be "commuting" to a cardroom outside town.

In my opinion, you basically are either within walking distance of a casino or you aren't. When I am overnight near the airport without a rental car I might play at the Silver Dollar between 188th and 200th on International because it's there (small place, two tables.) But there's little difference between driving from Bellevue to Renton and Bellevue to Auburn - yes, one is farther, but 15 minutes and half an hour on the highway don't feel all that much different to me.

If you arrive at the Muck in the early afternoon, the waitlists do get sizable but they will open new tables as soon as they have enough players to do so. It's not unusual to be fifth on the list when you arrive, then be third or fourth of eleven on the list 45 minutes later and have a new table start. If you see more than 8 names on any of the lists, ask the girl at the board when they plan to start.

Most the cardrooms have televisions and they always show the Seattle teams when they play... so you could catch that Mariners game while you play cards and save yourself a hundred bucks *laughs*