You’d think, and me neither. Lone Butte it is. **** haven’t been there except a couple bad bingo date nights when I was on the prowl. Hopefully DD will stay open for good though cause I live like 5 minutes from there, 3 if I speed and catch the lights

Pics:



Looks much more sterile than the old location. I kind of liked the darker room with the low ceilings. This one just looks like poker tables thrown into a ballroom.

Can already tell the main complaints on day 1 will be about the TVs being too small and too few. I remember CAZ being the same way at the beginning before they got all their jumbo screens installed.

So if I understand it correctly, Lone Butte is going to have 30 tables open today while Talking Stick is still at 23? That should help them pick up some share in the short term at least. They already have an 8/16 game going this morning at Lone Butte, something they never got for the past 4 or so years.

It will be interesting to watch throughout the day. Bravo shows 16 tables with waitlists of 30+ for multiple games. Might make my way over there in the evening.

And no one will be running good tournaments 😭😭

IIRC Gila River was nice but just way more limited than TSR-CAZ, in game selection and food. Besides the pf rake, Gila used cards designed for the legally blind. If I had a black ace I had to fold it halfway up to see what was my suit.

Yep, you are remembering correctly. Can't comment on if they are using the same in the new location.

There are already 25 people on the waitlist for the Brad Owen meetup game on Monday at Lone Butte.

Any news on talking stick expanding their tables? Supposably they were meeting yesterday to discuss this?

Were they also discussing going from 7 back to 9 handed?

I hope not. Want to get in a play some 20/40 7 handed.

I bet it's more like 5 or 6 handed with people walking. This is a great spot if you know what your doing.

I would think if they are going to expand the number of tables they are more likely to take the plexiglass off than have to put it on for the added tables.

Looked on Bravo today and saw 10 tables at Desert Diamond West Valley, and sure enough:
DESERT DIAMOND WEST VALLEY POKER ROOM IS OPENING THIS MONDAY, APRIL 26!!!

Also, Brad Owen meet-up game at Lone Butte today starting at noon. Looks like it might be crazy based on the wait list for the game.

think i am headed to desert diamond this afternoon as it's only a few miles from me, shrug

Played about 6 hours at DD West yesterday, their first day back open. Room is decent, staff seemed very friendly, chairs are comfortable. TVs are a little tough to see from the middle of the room. Overal it seems pretty good.

They were running 12 tables max all 7 handed. I know they had 3-6, 4-8, 8-16, 1-100, 3-300. Maybe an Omaha game or two. There was a list for 5-600 but that didnÂ’t start until just after I left because another game had to break (the 12 max table thing).

The 3-300 was about the same as youÂ’d expect at TSR. High hand promo was $200/half hour (Mondays and Wednesdays). Today itÂ’s $500 (Tue, Thu). Unless someone hit it after I left, the Jackpot is 52k with the requirement currently at aces full of jacks (requirement goes down until it gets hit; above 55k itÂ’s aces full of tens).

Some other notes:
For the first hour, buy ins are capped at whatever is standard for the game. After that you can match/buy in for the largest stack.
UTG straddles only.
No preflop 4-bet cap.

Some advice:
Don’t hit Kings full of 9s and forget to show it—throwing $200 in the trash is mildly annoying.

Anyone know if this is because of the new tribal gaming compact thing or just a DD house rule? For some reason I always thought the, “bet and 3 raises” was the rule for all of AZ.

Thanks for the info Dead.

At Casino del Sol in Tucson the spread games do not have the 3 raise cap - that cap does apply to the fixed limit games

I went to the Desert Diamond reopening night yesterday. I was fortunate to get into a 3-300 within 15 minutes of arrival and later transferred into an 8-16 game. All games were 7 handed and the 8-16 played with a full kill.

The beverage station has a sign that says please allow us to serve you, so no more self-service.

I was struck by the fact that most of the tables in the room had plexiglass, more than just the 12 that they currently have open. Hopefully this means they'll be opening up some more tables at some point to facilitate busier times and tournaments. Looking at Bravo right now at noon on Tuesday, all 12 games are going and the lists are starting to get pretty long. They could definitely stand to open some more tables but maybe they don't want to bring on that many staff until they know the demand is there.

The cage had some serious lines at times, especially when the dealers were cashing out their boxes, hopefully they're able to streamline that process somehow.

I can't afford 20-40 these days and don't want to get staked so the 8-16 was a good game for me. I live 10-15 minutes away from the casino so should be able to stop in there pretty frequently after work, which just isn't feasible at Talking Stick anymore. Hopefully we can keep the 8-16 game going and maybe we can add a 20-40 once I win a jackpot or whatever.

I also visited Lone Butte's new room the other day. It seems nice but for me, the location is way far away so I don't expect I will be returning there often.

On the map it looks pretty close to Wild Horse. Why would they have two casinos so close to each other?

It's about 4-5 miles away, yes.

People like to gamble?

Because that's where the reservation boundary line was drawn in 1859.

This has never been the rule for spread limit in several AZ casinos that I know of.

Lists too long at DD today, gave up after an hour. Hopefully they open up more tables or fewer people start showing up soon or this entertainment option may be off the table for me.

That’s just the way they do it as it’s in place before the new compact is actually in effect.

On how long the lists were, that was a function of the jackpot being over $55k. I was on literally every waitlist and was in the room when it hit. Within 10 minutes probably 30 people left and the lists were back to normal.

Possibly huge news here, but one of the guys on the staff said that one of the things in the new gaming compact is something that will be of some minor interest here....


True No-Limit for Arizona.