Jackson Rancheria



A largish Indian casino just south of Sacramento, Jackson Rancheria offers a nice poker room in addition to their standard tables games and slots. The complex also includes a hotel and conference center.

Games
Limit hold 'em: 3/6, 4/8, occasionally (but not often) 6/12, and rarely 10/20. No kills.

No-limit hold 'em: 1/2 blinds $200 max buyin and $40 minimum, 2/5 blinds $500 max buyin, occasionally 3/5 blinds $500 max. 10/25 with a $10,000 max ran once.

Omaha/8: Occasional 4/8 games.

Rake: 10% max $4, plus $1 for jackpot.

Game Character: A lot of beginners at 3/6, and many fairly unskilled players even at 4/8. This leads to a lot of loose passive play, although an occasionaly maniac can spice things up. At the 1/2 table, there are some skilled players and you will rarely see anyone all in before the flop unless they have less than $20 or so.

Posting: You can sit anytime you want and dont have to start posting from BB. So you can just start from the dealers button and not put anything in until it comes all the way around you.

Shuffling: All tables have Shufflemaster machines and have two decks that they use.

Wait Time: Varies from time to time, but will generally be from 0-30 minutes. For larger limit games, wait can be enormous.

Smoking: none at the second level where the tables are.

Tournaments
Monday: -Standard Daily Tournament10:00AM -$25 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $5  service charge

-WSOP Satelite Qualifier7:30PM -$55 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons.$10 service charge

Tuesday -WSOP Satelite Qualifier10:00AM -$55 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons.$10 service charge

-Standard Daily Tournament7:30PM -$25 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $5  service charge

Wednesday -Standard Daily Tournament10:00AM -$25 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $5  service charge

-Standard Daily Tournament7:30PM -$25 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $5  service charge

Thursday -Bounty Tournament10:00AM -$45 buyin=3000 chips. $5 bounty. $10 service charge

-Bounty Tournament7:30PM -$45 buyin=3000 chips. $5 bounty. No rebuys or addons. $10 service charge

Friday -Standard Daily Tournament10:00AM -$25 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $5  service charge

Saturday -Standard Daily Tournament10:00AM -$25 buyin=3000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $5  service charge

Sunday -$120 Standard Tournament10:00AM -$100 buyin=5000 chips. No rebuys or addons. $20 service charge

--Bounty Tournament7:30PM -$45 buyin=3000 chips. $5 bounty. No rebuys or addons. $10 service charge

UPDATED MARCH 29, 2009

Refer to this site for an updated version of the Tournament schedule:

http://www.jacksoncasino.com/pdfs/casino/Tournament_Changes_012909.pdf

Jackpots and Promotions

 * Super Bad Beat Jackpot: Quad 8's beat = $130,000 (May 2008)
 * Bad Beat Jackpot: AAAJJ or better beat by anything = $14361 (Feb 2007).
 * Bonus Hands: showdown the hand (both hole cards must play) to win the prize:
 * High Hand: Highest ranking hand every 12 hours pays $100.
 * Tens full or better: A ticket is given out, and the player is entered into a prize drawing.

Atmosphere
Since the expansion in late 2006, the Jackson Rancheria poker room is now a quite nice and reasonably-sized poker room. At peak times (weekend evenings, especially), it's completely full, but it's almost exclusively low limit players. On a recent Saturday night, while all 15 tables were running, there were no 6/12 tables, and only one 4/8. The room caters to the beginner player - at 3/6 dealers patiently explain to players about protecting their hand, betting out of turn, proper bet amounts, etc.

Recently remodeled, some high-tech advances have gone in: each table has electronic signalling for "seat open" and "service" (but the room has no chip runners, buy chips from the brush or from the dealer themself). Nice automated software for running the board is visible not only at a screen at the main desk but also on four large screens posted around the room, so all players can watch the wait list grow. Four largish LCD TV's are also hung on the walls for player enjoyment.

Neighborhood: As with most Indian casinos, it's in a remote agricultural area. In this case, it's nestled in a hilly area south of Sacramento, on a remote country road. Nothing around for miles, but driving there can be a bit nerve-wracking - the two-lane hilly road that goes there is often loaded with cars zooming in both directions, so watch yourself.

Parking: Lots of parking in the large parking structure in back.

Tables and Chairs: extra-large 9-seat tables with short-cropped green felt that is unusually slick, and nice black vinyl. Decent fixed-frame padded metal chairs.

Cards: Gemaco

Chips: Paulson

Service and Comps
Standard casino cocktail service; free drinks etc. Apparently the iced mochas are particularly good, since a lot of people were drinking them. Pretty good service frequency; waitresses come by about every 30 mins.

Links and Notes

 * MarkT visited in February 2007.
 * Closest competitor is probably Rancho's Club in Rancho Cordova.