Summary of Bay Area cardrooms?

[Chazbot2000]

I'm in the SF area for the summer and am looking forward to touring some of the local cardrooms. I'd appreciate anyone's take on the various cardrooms in the area

I played Oaks last Friday. Did $3/$6 to be conservative. It felt like $0.50/$1.00 Party, which meant I could drink the whole time and still win $. Planning on stepping up to $6/$12 next time at the Oaks. Oaks was kind of skeezy though and if there's another card room that's even softer, bring it on. I'd appreciated people's opinions of:

- Lucky Chances
- Bay 101
- Any other one I'm missing

Would like to know about the quality of the space and the difficulty of the competition at mid stakes (4-8 through 10-20). I did an archive search and couldn't find anything significant on either.

Thanks in advance.

[PITTM]

this is my hometown club and it is really up there. It is better than casino poker pits, slightly below commerce and the likes, but not too far. there are probably close to 50 tables and there are tons of juicy game, loosest players possible. I play 3/6 and the rake is a bit high at 3/per hand paid by the button, but still, the bad players more than make up for it. the staff is friendly, the food is good and the dealers seem competant enough, highly reccomended. I'm going tomorrow if you wanna go 2+2 vs. 2+2, haha.

rj

[memphis_aces]

Have they got any tables with stakes below 3/6 up at Bay 101? I'm going to be visiting SF with my brother and he likely won't have a sufficient roll (or skill level) to hold on for long at 3/6....

Any 2/4 at Bay 101 or elsewhere? Also..what's the story on tourneys?

Thanks in advance...

[haakee]

I think the Oaks is the scummiest. Games are pretty similar everywhere. Bay 101 is the nicest. Garden City, Lucky Chances, Oaks, Bay 101 and Artichoke Joe's all have 3-6 and 6-12. Garden City and Bay 101 also have 8-16. Lucky Chances has a 9-18 game.

[PITTM]

they have about 3 2/4 tables, 3 or 4 3/6 tables and i believe they have ran 100/200 games before, lots of different tables. 2/4 is the lowest though.

rj

[MtnDave]

I have played at all of the above rooms many times.

I used to play at the Oaks all the time when I lived in Berkeley. Never felt scared there at all. The scummiest and scariest place (e.g. when walking to/from you car) for me is the Palace Club in Hayward.

You forgot Casino San Pablo and the California Grand in Pacheco in the East Bay. There are also some small clubs in Livermore.

All of these places have low limit holdem. Many have weekly tournaments. You can have a lot of fun driving around and trying them all out.

The last Card Player magazine that I have has ads for most of these places. Get one and give them a call for details.
Have fun!
Dave

[loose passive]

Bay 101 tournament schedule

http://www.bay101.com/cgi-bin/calendar/form.cgi

Tournaments everyday except Monday and Friday. They also just this week started night tournamnets that start at 11:45 pm. First two had very good crowds. I made it into the money in the last one on tuesday night.

[Phantom]

I've played at Artichokes and Lucky Chances quite a few times. Very loose games at both places, a lot of preflop raising and a lot of people seeing the flop and beyond.

Of the two casinos, the Artichokes 3-6 and 6-12 games are the most insane. You won't believe the number of people that stay in beyond the flop, to the river sometimes, just chasing. If the pots are big enough, which they often are, these guys will chase with anything. Lots of pots capped preflop (and I've seen guys cap preflop with some awful hands- so you don't need to respect it until youve seen the person play for a while).

[haakee]

Yeah, the AJ's 3-6 and 6-12 games can get wild. Everybody wants to win the jackpot. I saw the biggest pot ever in the 6-12 at AJ's one time.

[Nightwish]

[ QUOTE ]
they have about 3 2/4 tables, 3 or 4 3/6 tables and i believe they have ran 100/200 games before, lots of different tables. 2/4 is the lowest though.


[/ QUOTE ]
I haven't been there in over a year, but in the evenings and on most weekends, they used to have 1 or 2 2/4 tables and 6 3/6 tables. The wait list for 2/4 was horrendous, sometimes they couldn't even fit all the names on the board. But it may be different now.