Diamond Lil's

The oldest cardroom in the city, Diamond Lil's is an 11 table cardroom and restaurant that specializes in poker. It's a prime destination for Puget Sound's best poker players.

Games
Limit hold 'em: 4/8, 8/16, and 20/40 limit Hold 'em games are spread every day. With plenty of tables and consistent demand, there is strong enough interest in every Limit HE game listed to have each game every day of the week.

Rake: 10% to $3 max, plus jackpot rake of $2

Blinds: standard.

Posting: New players need not post, except in the 20-40 games.

Shuffling: All tables have standard Shufflemaster shuffling machines.

Game Character: The most consistent 20-40 game in the state attracts a mix of some of the area's best poker players and players simply looking for bigger action. The 4-8 game can get pretty wild with good action, especially nights and weekends. The 8-16 game is somewhat of a hybrid between the two.

Wait Time: Varies based on time of day, but not too long at most times (0-20 minutes).

Tournaments
Sunday: NLHE -- $60, with no rebuys. Signups begin at 9 am and are limited to the first 90 players (depending on live action play). Cards are in the air at 10 am. The NLHE tournament is among the most popular in the city and often fill up, so sign up early!

For NLHE, starting chips are 5000. Blind levels start at 30 minutes for the first two rounds, then reduce to 20 minutes, then 15 minutes. Blinds start at 25/50, followed by 50/100, 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 500/1000, 1000/2000, 1500/3000, 3000/6000, 5000/10000 and doubling from there.

Play varies as many player get aggressive early with the idea of getting into a live action game if the cards don't fall their way, and others playing considerably tighter. An 10-minute break is taken after 2 hours. Tournament usually lasts 5-6 hours.

Jackpots and Promotions

 * Bad beat jackpot for Aces full of Queens or better beat by Quads or better.  Super bad beat for Quad 8's beat.
 * Washington Monte Carlo jackpots.  Progressive payouts start at $2000 for Royal of each suit, $500 for SF Wheel of each suit, and $100 for each of the first two quads daily.  All other straight flushes pay $200.  At least one royal is often in the $10,000 range.  There is no limit to the number of payouts on any hand every day (after progressives are hit, hands pay re-seed amounts).

Atmosphere
A large, straightforward old school card room, with 11 tables spread throughout.

Big flat-screen TVs are judiciously spread along the walls.

Neighborhood: A busy commercial corner in Renton, located in front of Fred Meyer and next door to a Firestone tire shop.

Parking: Tricky, short on parking and it can be difficult to find a space. Carpool with friends and/or get there early. Many players just park in the adjacent Fred Meyer parking lot.

Tables and Chairs: Long 9-seat tables with brand new speed cloth layouts (as of 10/07) and newly recovered vinyl rails. Dealt cards occasionally bounce off the surface and on a couple occasions, deals went dead after cards bounced right off the table! The tradeoff is that the felt doesn't wear. New two-color layout include commit line. Chairs are quality Gasser chairs, but have seen better days.

Service and Comps
Breakfast is complimentary for all live action players from 10am to 11am on M, T and from 8am to 10am on W, Th, F, Sa, Su and is fully catered. Service isn't much, however, once tournament play begins.

Links and Notes

 * Visited by Michael in Oct 2013.