Table Mountain Casino

Games
Limit hold 'em: 2/4, 3/6 with a full kill, 6/12 with a full kill

No-limit hold 'em: 1/3 blinds, 50-500 buyin. 3/5 blinds, 200 min buyin. Only spread when there's enough itnerest; often there's a single table of the 1/3 going. Best days to play NL are Mon and Wed.

Rake: The rake on all games is similar to Vegas percentage rakes: $1 when the pot hit $5, $2 when it hits $20, and $3 when it hits $30; max $3 rake. Additional jackpot rake is $1 when pot hits $10, $2 when it hits $20 (max $2). So total possible rake on a pot is $5 ($3+$2).

Blinds on 2/4 and 6/12 are standard; on 3/6 the blinds are 2/3.

Posting: New players need not post.

Shuffling: All tables are hand shuffled.

Kill: Killer acts last on preflop betting round.

Game Character: Fairly dead at times, often full of "retired rocks". Later at night it livens up. The 6/12 is currently played with $1 chips, which makes it insane when the kill kicks in! They'll be switching to playing it with $2 chips by late summer 2006, though.

Wait Time: Can be extremely long, anywhere from 5 minutes to 90 minutes. But they announce your name over the casino PA system, so you can leave the room and go play blackjack or slots or Let It Ride while you wait; when they announce your name you have a few minutes to get into the (easily found) room and claim your seat.

Tournaments


No regular tournaments, though they occasionally have special tournament series to stage-up to a WSOP seat or such. Call ahead for details about any tourneys they may have at the moment.

Jackpots and Promotions

 * Bad Beat Jackpot: AAATT or better full house beaten by quads or better = $10000
 * Mini Bad Beat Jackpot: AAA77 or better full house beaten = $1000
 * High Hand Jackpot: every hour during a few 8-hour periods of the day, $100 to the holder of the high hand
 * Royal Flush bonus, progressive by suit.

Atmosphere
The poker room in Table Mountain Casino is a nicely separated room near the card table area (around blackjack). While still open to the casino, it's separated enough that no smoke drifts in, and the noise of the casino is nicely removed from the game itself.

The poker room is fairly dead in the early afternoon; as the day ends and people drift in from their jobs, the action picks up throughout the casino, including in the poker room.

Neighborhood: Up above Friant Dam, just northeast of Fresno. Lovely and seemingly remote area, next to a state park. But still very close to Fresno (only about a 15 minute drive).

Parking: A huge connected parking garage, as is standard for the larger Indian casinos in California. Garage elevator exits directly onto the casino floor.

Tables and Chairs: Standard 9-player tables, with nice felt with a clean commit line and vinyl padding on the armrails, with cup holders set into the armrail. Nicely padded fixed-leg chairs.

Service and Comps
There's some type of drink and food service available, but the waitresses are few and far between. Drinks seem to be standard casino drink service (free sodas, etc), but no alcohol.

There is a Table Mountain Players Club Card, but it doesn't seem to apply to poker play.

The buffet restaurant is really quite good, I must say, though not particularly cheap. The food is also very good at the coffee shop.

Links

 * Nearest competitor is the 500 Club in Clovis, or Chukchansi Gold in Coarsegold.

Visited by wiki authors
Visited by MarkT in May 2006.