Fantasy Springs and Morongo (Palm Springs Report)

[BigRedAce]

Fantasy Springs

I stopped at Fantasy Springs (Indio) on the way to Arizona last week. The hotel/casino has only been open for about 4 months. Got a room for $99 a night on Hotwire (Hotwire then hosed me on the return trip, but that's another story).

The room was very nice and the whole hotel is small but very nice. Quite European in feel.

Unfortunately the cardroom is a waste of time. Maybe 8 tables with only 3 games going on a Thursday night. Two $3/6 and one $4/8 Hold'em. No stud or Omaha was being dealt. Both games had a full kill.

Average age at my table ($3/6 since $4/8 was full) was about 93. OK, maybe it was 70. The woman next to me wa 82 and quite proud of her 52 year old boyfriend who was playing blackjack. Across from her sat an 87 year old guy who would reliably call anything. Other characters included a variety of aged locals. I don't think anyone was staying in the hotel.

The game was reasonably soft but the room so unforgettable that I doubt I would ever go back. When I walked through the room at 10AM the next morning all the tables were closed. I won $27 in 2 hours (it should have been $100 but I got rivered out on a big pot by Mr. Calling Station).

Morongo

On the way back we stopped in Morongo. Morongo is just west of Palm Springs off the I-10. It's hard to miss.

Morongo is a great casino/hotel. It's owned by the same group that owns the Palms in Vegas and you can tell. Very cool interior design throughout, including the rooms. Nice little water park in the back (but it was too cold for even my kids). Several trendy bars/restaurants.

More importantly, Morongo has a very decent poker room with nearly 40 tables. Games were going at $2/4, $3/6, $4/8 (off-on), $10/20 (off-on), $2/5NL and $5-10NL. Five card Omaha ("big O") was spread off and on. No stud, but there was an interest list for both stud and mixed games (neither happened).

I ended up playing $3/6 at first since I had about a 90 minute window to play in (kids wanted to watch American Idol in the room). I don't like playing higher limits for short periods because if you get stuck, you stay stuck.

Anyway, all the games at Morongo were heavily populated with big-talking, sunglass and iPod wearing kids from UC Riverside (or the like). Morongo sets their gambling age at 18 and it shows. Thankfully, most of these players suck, despite the fact that they were very friendly. I personally appreciate it when someone at the table likes to show you their hand while they are playing it (thanks for the free info, buddy, I'll use it when we go up against each other.) Easily picked up $50 in my 90 minute allowance. And I was basically card dead except for the last 15 minutes.

Well the TV was not working when I got back to the room, so we skipped American Idol and I headed back down. This time I got on a newly opened $4/8 table. This table was about 50% locals and 50% kids from UCR. Thankfully there were some VERY fishy players in this game and I cleaned up to the tune of about $200 in 3 hours. The table would alternate between playing like a $2/4 table to playing like a $20/40 table (usually the 20/40-like action was reserved for the few of us that knew how to play).

If it weren't for the family upstairs I could have played forever. I railbirded the NL tables for a while and saw some stunningly stupid play. Would have loved to have gotten in on it.

Morongo also holds a couple of tournaments a day. THe structure of the 7PM hold'em tournament looked a bit insane in terms of blinds doubling every 15 minutes (not going up, *doubling*), and only a 20BB starting stack. But it was only $20 to get in. THey had a NL Crazy Pineapple tournament going the day I left and I could not convince my wife to let me play. It is cool though, to see a room run something other than hold'em tournaments.

All-in-all, Morongo gets 2 thumbs up for games and action, Fantasy Springs gets 2 thumbs down (for poker anyway, it's a nice hotel).

[csuf_gambler]

lol dude it's not even close to 40 tables. more like 22, 25 max.

they also spread 6/12 and 8/16.

[BigRedAce]

[ QUOTE ]
lol dude it's not even close to 40 tables. more like 22, 25 max.

they also spread 6/12 and 8/16.

[/ QUOTE ]

Slipped a digit typing, but you don't need to be a jerkoff about it. Did I offend your hat, sunglasses, or iPod?

6/12 and 8/16 were not offered while I was there.