This page is simply a collection of my own experiences at every poker room I have visited. I cannot guarantee my experience is typical, but hope this information will be helpful to you in choosing where to spend your gambling dollars.
B&M rooms are listed in alphabetical order.
Last visit: 17 May 2008
One of the few rooms on my "never going back" list. The room itself is non-smoking, but is immediately adjacent to the main casino floor. Indian casinos in Oregon still allow smoking, and it drifts into the poker room. Badly. The service is non-existent: a free soda and coffee machine, self serve, next to the waiting list. (Supposedly you can get service, but it takes so much longer than getting your own, I didn't see anyone do it.) When you sit down, you are sent to buy your own rack from the cage. The dealers were adequate, but only adequate. The floormen were too busy arguing with each other about why they would have given different rulings to the same situation they were discussing to do much else.
As for the games themselves, they were very very loose passive 3/6 and 4/8, along with several tables of 1/2NL. I did make money, but I sure didn't have much fun doing it. I attribute the quality of both staff and players to the fact they have a monopoly.
Last visit: 19 May 2008
Three cramped tables squeezed onto the floor of the casino. Before it went nonsmoking it was very smoky, poor ventilation. 3/6 kill and sometimes 4/8 kill were being spread. Three years ago I didn't stay to play, and went across the street to the Last Frontier instead. I did the same again this year, after I looked around.
About ten tables, spreading $4/8, $6/12, $12/24 and $20/40 most nights, and occasionally an Omaha game. Like everywhere else near Seattle their jackpot drop has just gone up to $2. On the up side this is the closest of the 'big' rooms to Sea-Tac, and playing there until 2 in the morning if you have to be at the airport at 4 for a 6AM flight is a nice alternative to an overpriced hotel room. On the down side, there isn't much of a discount on the food (and very small portions!), and the dealers let people get away with badgering their opponents and exposing hole cards to their friends in the next seat way too much. Parking is very limited. Probably a very comfortable room before the poker boom hit, but now very cramped.
Last visit: 19 October 2008
Five tables, all the way in the back on the right-hand side as you walk in (bar and restaurant on the left, table games on the front right.) Spreading 4/8 with a half kill regularly, three or four NL tournaments a week, and occasionally an 8/16 game following a big tournament. High-hand bonuses paid out for quads and straight flushes, in addition to the standard bad beat jackpot, so at least they give back something from the $2 jackpot drop. The quad monte carlos can get big enough to actually affect the way you play some of your pocket pair hands.
Dealers were all skilled and friendly. Primarily Asian. Half-price food from the adjoining restaurant while you are seated. Very loose (and often agressive) players on each of my visits to the room. Not unusual to have three people at the same table who all see every flop. Be ready for some wild swings.
Last visit: 22 May 2008
Seven tables. There is usually 3/6 kill, 4/8 kill, and 15/30 every day. Sometimes a 10/20 game. Unlike the Seattle-area rooms, the jackpot drop is still $1. The bad beat is a fixed $10,000, a $313 high hand monte carlo given away every two hours. ($313 is an odd amount, so I think it may fluctuate over time according to how long since the bad beat has been hit.)
Table games are in the same room, but no slot machines so the noise is not intolerable. The on-site restaurant serves good food. Still full price if you eat at the table, but if you get a players club card, you earn the equivalent of a free meal every 14 hours at the table.
Dealers and floormen were all competent and friendly. Service was outstanding. I had two different waitresses remember the next day what I had been drinking the previous afternoon, and offer me a glass of the same as soon as I walked in.
Many regular players, and the games were a bit tighter than at the other low-limit B&M games. By the regulars are mostly friendly, and, on the plus side, nice views of Mt. St. Helens on the drive to the casino. I was delighted to spend May 18th, the anniversary of the big eruption, playing cards within sight of the mountain!
Last visit: 26 February 2005
About four tables. When I visited the only game going was a 4/8 kill game but the signage indicated they also spread 2/4 and no-limit. The tables are in one corner of the casino area but not separated from the floor by a wall, so a little bit noisy.
They get credit for having been a non-smoking cardroom before state law required it. Recent Internet reports are that they spread a no-limit game Thursday to Sunday nights.
Last visit:22 August 2005
One of the two big Seattle-area card rooms. The old poker room was eighteen poker tables, spreading Holdem in limits from 3/6 up to 50/100. The new room that opened since my last visit is even larger at 31 tables. In 2005, most evenings there were two or three 3/6 games, five or more of 4/8, one or two of 10/20, one table of 20/40 or 30/60. Also usually two tables of seven-card stud.
All the dealers I had were competent, some were excellent. Bad beat jackpot requires losing with quads; variable size, ranging from $30,000 up to $55,000 when I have been there. Every full house or better entitles you to a ticket to enter a drawing for a money giveaway but the value of the tickets is negligible. The bonuses seem small compared to the amount they collect in the jackpot drop.
Well ventilated enough that it was bearable for a non-smoker when they still allowed smoking. Orders from the on-site restaurant are half price if served to you at the table. All the usual table games and slots available elsewhere in the casino (but no bargains - unfavorable blackjack rules, and the video poker machines are all "8 and 5" for instance.)
Several local hotels will offer you a special rate if you tell them you are in town to play at the casino. See the Muckleshoot's website for details.
Last visit: 22 May 2008
Next door to the Last Frontier, under the same management. They run spread-limit hold'em at the New Phoenix and fixed-limit at the Last Frontier. If you're on the waiting list at one casino while playing at the other, they'll phone to tell you your seat is ready. Small and rather dark - 2 tables, adjacent to the table games.
A sign proclaimed they would be spreading Omaha starting June 2008.
Small three-table room, tacked into the far back corner of an Indian casino. Lots of slot machine noise spills into the cardroom. Only game going when I was there was $4/8. One tournament a day, and, so I am told, an Omaha 8 game one night a week (I think they said Thursdays). You can phone ahead to put your name on the list. $1 jackpot drop.
The worst of the worst. A smallish Indian casino, the floor covered in slot machines, no non-smoking section. The poker room has three tables. Immediately adjacent to the slots, no wall, no sound barrier, no special ventilation. On a Friday evening there were two tables of $3-8 spread limit going. I didn't stay to play.
Like Spirit Mountain, a sad commentary on how poker rooms get run when there is no competition within 2 hours driving distance.
Daily no-limit tournament at 10AM. Three tables on the casino floor. Each time I've visited there has been one table of 3/6 kill going.
Location at International Boulevard just south of 192nd street is in walking distance of Sea-Tac airport hotels. Handy if you have an overnight stay without a rental car or even a long layover at this airport (the hotels all offer free airport shuttles.)
A small friendly room. A few tables of blackjack, pai gow, etc in one corner, four poker tables in the other. Only game running most days is $4/8 with a half kill. Sundays are $5-25 spread limit. (In other words, if you're a low limit player, don't plan to play on Sunday morning or early afternoon.) One daily tournament, which ends after 3 hours and top three places are paid - does NOT run until one player is left. $1 jackpot drop (as of April 2007 - it may have gone up by now to match the $2 taken in Seattle.) You can phone ahead to have your name put on the list for a seat.
The other really big room, about twenty tables. Games spread theoretically include stud, holdem from $2/4 up to $50/100, no-limit, Omaha, and pineapple. In practice, there was usually only 4/8, 10/20, and NL going. I did eventually get a seat at 3/6 but only after being pressured heavily to play 4/8 first. 2007 update: emphasis continues to shift toward NL. As of May 07, Tulalip was one of the few Seattle rooms still taking $1 instead of $2 for the jackpot.
The good news: it's a non-smoking room, clean and well-maintained. In addition to being able to order food at half price while playing, they provide a complimentary buffet at mealtimes in the poker room. The bad beat jackpot is aces full of tens or better, and a small additional bonus for every royal flush dealt.
The bad news: game selection is a bit limited. The NL game is $3 and $5 blinds, $200 buyin, so very action-oriented. The NL game always has a couple tables going and tends to draw in the "saw it on TV and want to try it" crowd - which means that the 3/6 and 4/8 games are tougher than you'd expect for a room this size.
No hotels in walking distance, and no discounts at the hotels in driving distance, but there is a free shuttle every hour to five hotels in the surrounding area if you don't have a car.
All online poker rooms have suffered reduced table selection and become much tighter in 2007 as a result of the new US banking rules that make it harder to deposit money.
My first choice for online poker. Clean no-frills interface, and the "mini view" is ideal if you multi-table or just like to watch two or three tables while you wait to see where a seat will open up.
Hand records can be displayed in a separate window at the conclusion of each hand (and show mucked hands at the showdown.) A hand-grabber program, UltimateHistory, is available to automatically download all your hand histories.
Bonus dollars never expire, and you can withdraw money immediately after you deposit it and still qualify for a deposit bonus. The bonusis released very slowly, however, a maximum of five cents per hand you put money in the pot.
Formerly the most generous site on the internet for giving reload bonuses, and still offers frequent reloads but at a very slow clearance rate. If you like full tables, game selection is limited especially late at night. Always lots of 6-seated tables going. Most of them are bad-beat jackpot tables - which is a good thing if the jackpot is high and bad if it is low, of course.
Recent improvements to the software made it easier to review your previously played hands. Using the waiting lists is a nightmare especially if you'd like to try playing more than one table at once. Your first indication a seat is open is often a popup saying "you have been removed from the waiting list"!
They were also the subject of a major cheating incident in the winter of 2007-08, where it was shown that some of their prop players had been allowed to see their opponents' hands, perhaps explaining why they were formerly so generous with bonuses.
A small friendly site. The games are loose -- I often see as half the table taking the flop even at $2/4 and $3/6 tables -- and the players seem chattier than elsewhere. Playing interface is uncluttered and functional (but no miniview.)
The site doesn't advertise heavily, doesn't feature big-name pros, and doesn't do a lot of big flashy promotions or frequent reload bonuses. Still, I find I have no trouble making enough extra money at the tables to make up for the lack of free gifts.
One other minus is that the hand histories are available only on the web, not as downloadable text files you can study at your convenience.
You'll either love or hate the interface. It has some novel features, like automatically rotating the tables so you always sit South, and allowing you to play 3 tables at once, one full-size in the middle of the screen and the others as insets on the left edge. (This means you can't resize or reposition the tables.) Sometimes hard to find a game as the player base is small, especially if you want to play anything besides hold'em.
2008 update: they have grown and are almost the same size as UB now, though still much smaller than Stars and Full Tilt.
Their main claim to fame is having produced two World Series of Poker winners in the last 3 years. The site itself is clean and functional. On the downside, the games are pretty tough, and there is very little in the way of bonuses / promotions / signup incentives. Not a site I choose to spend much time at. On the plus side, they have added a wide variety of games recently - you can now play razz, triple draw, and HORSE, among others.
As of May 2007, one of the largest rooms, and the only one to regularly offer Razz, HORSE, and triple draw tournaments.
The games are looser than Stars though the site has nearly as much business. Like Stars they offer razz and HORSE ring games but not much action on the tournament side for non-holdem games. The interface seems a bit buggy to me, however, and the table list is sorted by number of players waiting which makes it hard to find the table you're looking for sometimes.