As to first bold paragraph: if they think that, I really doubt they've had an attorney review it. I think I've expressed this conspiracy theory before, but I don't think it's a coincidence one of the first stern letters from the City came very shortly after the Supreme Court oral argument on the La Center standing issue. I would not be surprised if there was a conversation with the revenue bureau and city attorneys saying, "hey, I think we can win this on standing, but during the briefing [which I've read] they bring up a lot of good substantive points. Might want to look into what you're letting happen."

As to the second bold paragraph: because I love the clubs! I love playing in the clubs! I realize I sound adversarial, but it truly comes from a place of concern. If the clubs (and players) convince themselves everything is hunky dory and can go on like this forever, I think we're ****ed long term. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but there will be more HB 2190. I'd prefer there be active efforts in the opposite direction.

Don't you think the city's legal team would have at least given things a look-see before they went to the Supreme Court to keep La Center's nose out of the tent?

Seems like common sense—no conspiracy needed—to me that the whining from La Center was behind it, just like it was behind HB2190, but it doesn't seem to have accelerated the process significantly.

I don't know anyone who's said anything of the sort.

That's my entire point: I have a hunch "the lawyers" hadn't even looked at how the games were operated until this case came about. The "conspiracy theory" I referenced wasn't La Center's pressure (obviously that's common sense), but the lawyers sitting down with the City and talking about how the games are most likely violating the law in some respect. "Conspiracy" was the wrong word, more a wild speculation. Oral argument before the Supreme Court was on May 10, 2016. With the effective completion of the Supreme Court case and the BOLI ruling, the timing was right for city attorneys to address the ways the games conflict with state law and give Holm the go-ahead to start doing something about it, i.e., write warning letters and issue fines).

I see this mentioned on the NW Poker page, and I think you've actually mentioned it before, so it's worth stating: it is entirely misleading or inaccurate to say anything along the lines of "La Center already sued the City and lost." For those without knowledge, that statement infers a court has already decided that social games are "legal." That's not true, and provides false hope. Beyond the initial Complaint and briefing that ended up not being addressed, that ENTIRE case was about standing, and addressed issues MUCH broader than social games, issues that were very important to the City.

What do you think was more important to the City: keeping social games alive, or stopping out-of-state interests from interfering with the City's regulations and operations? I have very little doubt the later issue is the ENTIRE reason the City fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The League of Oregon Cities intervened at the appellate level; do you think they would have done that if the issue was only social gaming? Of course not (the ACLU intervened as well, effectively on the side of La Center; pretty sure they weren't in it with the goal of shutting down poker rooms).



Those exact words? No. You just have the armchair-lawyers coming up with brilliant ideas like "let's put board games behind the counter" and other ways to wink-wink-nudge-nudge things, thinking that will solve all the problems. Again, the law is not a fan of pretext.

Any reviews of Final Table since they went to self deal? It's right down the street from me and I've had the itch to play live lately. Self deal sounds pretty horrid though and they raised entry to $15.

Ok, so I went to Final Table for almost a full day yesterday.

Trip Report:

Showed up around 4pm and jumped in a 1/2 cash game. 2/5 and 5/10 used to run sometimes but they don't seem to run lately. The cash games were pretty nitty. Not sure how I feel now about people all wearing headphones, watching movies and stuff on their devices, and barely talking or interacting. Makes for a pretty boring table and I feel it makes people gamble less. The important part: they were still using dealers (thank god). There are little signs that say 'self deal with player option to pass' but I never saw a player deal and it was never even mentioned or suggested. Players were tipping the volunteer dealers. I played for a few hours and never saw anyone go south, the games basically just ran like a normal cash game.

At 7PM I played in the Friday night MTT, which was $60, $30 add-on, with a $60 live rebuy (didn't opt for this). I played for 4-5 hours before I busted. I think there were about 83 players, a bunch of rebuys/addons, and the $10k guarantee was exceeded.
Again, nobody self-dealt and things went pretty smoothly. While the MTT was going on there were 3-4 1/2 NL games going the whole time, but higher stakes never got going.

Overall, a pretty good experience. I wish they would pay a little more attention to atmosphere. There was no music or anything playing all day, and they had all the screens showing Root Sports all night - how about some ESPN or something else on some of the channels? Most of the seats are pretty damn uncomfortable as well. I'm only 5'11" but find myself plagued by low-sitting chairs that have no back support.

Overall: B+

One last thing, some players were talking about Encore and Meadows getting fined very recently for 10K for having volunteer dealers... anyone hear about this?

Isn't Encore the place that closed a year ago?

They were no doubt talking about this: http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/06/23...t-contractors/

Cliffs: Even though it's closed, the BOLI case was ongoing, and they settled for $10,000 in civil penalties. Meadows wasn't involved with the settlement, so if you heard that, it was incorrect.

I'm a former poker pro (made a living playing poker during the boom) who moved to Portland a few years ago. I'm just a recreational player now, and every few months I like to spend a few days playing some poker. I preface with that to indicate that while my skills are rusty, I'm an experienced player and can certainly easily beat any recreational game.

I played in the games both at Final Table and Portland Meadows back in November and December and I found them quite soft and easy to beat. I got busy with my day job the last half year, and hadn't had time to stop by, but I'm somewhat surprised, after a few visits to both Portland Meadows and Final Table over the last few weeks, that the "shootouts" are actually not trivial to beat.

There are certainly soft spots and recreational players around, but I've been rather surprised at the number of regs who are reasonably solid players. Some of them make classic self-taught player mistakes, but generally speaking, it's actually "work" to beat the games, which somewhat surprises me when comparing it to the action I saw back in November and December.

I'm not just posting to complain: I'm actually trying to figure out what the factors were that caused this. I'm dubious that the obvious cause is the primary one: I don't think the legal actions and questions by the city would actually impact the games that much. I suspect most recreational players don't follow carefully such stories, and would remain comfortable with a business has an air of legitimacy, particularly Portland Meadows which is set up professionally, part of a legit and legal gambling establishing (horse betting) and making real efforts to comply with the regulations.

So, I'm left wondering where the huge influx of recreational players are. Folks around the Meadows keep saying "the WSoP", which I'm dubious about: recreational players don't play WSoP events or even pay attention to it, after all.

My theory is that the weather is a factor. Pacific Northewesterrns love the outdoors and I'm somewhat suspecting that maybe the real issue is that people want to be out enjoying the nice weather, and save the poker for the rainy season. Could it be this simple? Can others who have played Portland's scene for years confirm if my theory is correct?

Finally, I want to make a comment to any regs from Portland Meadows who might be reading this. The chip-down thing that Portland Meadows now does -- allowing players to rabbit-hole money -- is really good for the game, and stop complaining about it. NL and PL games do dry up when the player pool is small and the competition is tough: it just moves money from bad players to good players too darn fast. Let the fish rabbit hole their winnings each hour. They'll be back. Plus, the chip-down makes it much more compliant with the Oregon legislative rules, which is also important for sustainability.

People at Last Frontier in La Center have told me that they are definitely less busy on weekends when the weather is nice.

Weather is definitely a factor, but it's also just sample size and inconsistency. Meadows has had some pretty juicy games the last couple of times I've been in, but has also been so bad just by looking at the table that I've walked out before even checking with the floor.

Consistency is a problem with all the local games, except some of the "underground" games. Spades (The Game) can be really, really good, other days it's a yawnfest.

This is a really good point. It's tough to good game selection for someone who is not playing that often and therefore I don't really have the time to scope out, and give up if the games aren't good. I have to set aside time to go in advance, and just have to hope the games are good when I'm there or "try again next month". Viable, but sad when you're a recreational player still trying to play like a pro.

I think my new plan is to focus on my day job for the summer and see how the games look in the fall.

But, in the meantime, my best times to play are Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Can anyone recommend where the best place to play is at those times? (I can play both NL HE and BigO)

As a side question, are the games out the driving-distance casinos (Wildhorse and Spirit Mountain) worth the round-trip drive on a Sat/Sun rather than the local games?

Awesome thread. Thanks for keeping it up.

Any limit games worth mentioning? What's the tournament scene like?

Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

The local limit games are at Last Frontier in La Center, WA. They always have 4/8, often 20/40, and sometimes 8/16.

Discontinued 10/20 and 15/30? Do they play a spread game? I was working there 10 years ago, but haven't played there in ages.

They just changed the limits offered a few months ago to be consistent every day. Could possibly be as a trial basis, not sure. They offer a 1/3/100 spread game, but I think it is rarely going, if ever.

Did Meadows end up losing their lottery machines?

I haven't heard anything new, but scuttlebutt is games have gone quite a bit downhill. Lots of defectors to The Game/Spades; I've heard they've been going very strong.

anyone interested in hitting up wildhorse in pendleton for the tourney series in november?

http://wildhorseresort.com/sites/def...mtSchedule.pdf

i want to get in wed night, leave sunday. looking for someone to split a room or airbnb with

Anyone played at Midpoint at 50ish and SE Division?

Looking at the PM tourneys later this month, including a $30k Guar; any comments/observations on prior events held there? Are tourneys run any differently like cash games are down there? How about a place to stay nearby? Motel 6 safe lol? Thanks guys.

Hi Portlanders !

I'll be in town next week, can you tell me what's my best bet for 1/2 and 2/5 action ? The Game ? Meadows ?
Is there somewhere for PLO as well ?

Thanks for your help !

Whenever I go to Portland I stay at the Motel 6 on SE Powell and I've never had any issues. I've stayed there probably on 10 different occaisons maybe a total of 20-25 nights.

This is actually one of the smaller series run at Meadows. Their regular weekend schedule includes a $10K guarantee (Sat) and a $5K (Sun), and their weekday noon games have $1500 guarantees. They cooperated with Final Table, the other big poker room in Portland, for a series in August that had a $50K guarantee main event, and beat it by more than $30K. The tournaments are run as well as most Vegas locations, in my opinion, in part because tournaments are the backbone of the Portland poker scene.

Not sure about places to stay, but I doubt the Motel 6 down the street has two security guards in the parking lot like the one in South Sacramento, and I survived that.

Do these 7pm tourneys go all night?

Much appreciated


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