I’ve been prowling poker rooms of casinos and standalone card clubs for 35 years now and never get tired of the journey. I mean, I have a worn blue $1 chip with the palm trees from the f*cking Mirage. Maybe you have one of those, too. But what about Binion’s Horseshoe, with a picture of Benny himself on the chip? The Desert Inn, the original Sahara, and even the legendary Gutshot Club on Clerkenwell Street in London. All gone, but none forgotten.
I’ve seen the best and worst of poker rooms, and by now have a fair idea of what makes a good one. To that point, after I wrote my trip report about the Lodge in Round Rock, Texas, Brad Willis said, “You may be onto something here. Poker room reviews are truly useful to people. Wanna write some more?”
You mean, visit poker rooms and tell the community what I think about them? Yeah, deal me in.
So prepare for a series of poker room reviews. I will go full Consumer Reports on these places – no advance warning, no, “Hi, I’m here from PokerOrg.”
Back in the day, a bunch of people might have recognized me. Now, I’m just the Old Man Coffee in the #4 seat who watches a lot while not seeing is a lot of flops.
I’ll pay attention to how the room is run, how active it is, and what the rules are. What are the buy-in caps, can you run it twice, and are there USB chargers in the tables/
If there’s a hotel associated with the property, I’ll review that too (e.g. “in-room safe?”) and restaurant options. In short, I hope to give y’all the information I’d want to know if I were considering throwing a place some rake.
I’ll be at some places I’ve been before, but watching with the eyes of a reviewer, not just a customer. And more importantly, I’ll get to visit some rooms whose $1 chip I don’t have in my collection. I’m damned excited about that.
I’d also like to enlist your help here. Specifically, tell me what you want to know about a poker room before you go. What should I be looking for? In fact, if there’s a poker room you think I need to visit, let me know that too.
In the meantime, let me go pack an overnight bag and get out to revisit the poker room landscape.
