Anyone play in this new room? Website doesn't give much details regarding the poker room. Only about 5.5 hour drive from the Denver area. Worth checking out?

had an old friend of mine just spend a few days there while running down a job offer. He said he played in a pretty soft 2-5nl on a wednesday night, always a good sign. The other good game in the room right now is apparently a 20-40 mixed. Apparently Sandia is giving up their bigger games, or at least is not interested in keeping them, also good for a new room...

I know a few of the poker room staff there from vegas, they are all top-notch. I'm planning a trip out there in about three weeks. If you get out there before me fire off a TR, I will do the same.

I played at Buffalo Thunder last night (Sunday). A group of 6 of us got there around 7:30pm. Nice Vegas-style casino. Not what you'd expect from the usual southwestern Indian casinos. Lots of space, bright lights, slots, roulette, black jack, plenty of convention space, several nice restaurants and a pretty good buffet (but pricey at $17.95). After the buffet 3 of us went to the poker room. You can sign up and they give you one of those coaster buzzers that light up so you can roam around the casino. Staff very friendly. Before dinner they had seats available at a $1-$5 spread limit hold'em and $1/$3 NLHE and they were wrapping up a tourney. After dinner they were down to just 2 tables: $1/$3 NLHE and $2/$5 NLHE. Max buy-in at the $1/$3 game was $300. The rake is only $3 with a $1 drop going towards the high hand payout (any quads or better). Pretty modest. Play was very soft with tourists and some clueless locals. By about 11:30pm the game broke up and I moved to the $2/$5. An even better game. I left at 1:30am up $700. I saw no dealer mistakes. What surprised me the most was at 10:30pm the cocktail server announces "Last Call". I never heard of a last call in a casino before. The rest of the group who played table games said it was a little smokey, but nothing like the smaller pueblo casinos like Camel Rock down the road. All in all a good experience.

Thanks to both of you for the info. Sounds like it's worth the trip plus Santa Fe is a pretty cool town to chill out in anyways. Bummer on a 10:30p last call though. The poker room is non-smoking, correct? Pretty cool looking chips as well.

Curious if you can drink alcohol at the poker tables? I play at Inn of the Mountain Gods near Ruidoso, NM and you can't drink anywhere in the gaming area.. it sucks.

I think it depends on the tribe/gov of the tribe. At Sandia and Inn of the Mtn Gods you cannot, but at Isleta you are allowed to drink at the poker table.

I play at Buffalo Thunder occasionally. Its a very nice room, with a friendly staff. It doesn't seem particularly well run in terms of cocktail service, keeping track of open seats, etc., but the vibe is quite pleasant.

Its not a very big room, and there's not a lot of traffic.

I played at the forerunner to Buffalo Thunder; Cities of Gold daily from 2004-2006. I believe much of the staff is the same. Great dealers and soft friendly games. Looking forward to checking out Buffalo Thunder sometime this year.

Regular games: Mon and Wed 5 p.m. $5-$5 PLO, Wed noon $20-$40 limit, $4-$8 Omaha H/L on Saturday at 4 p.m.
Daily $2-$6 spread limit, $4-$8 limit, and $1-$3 NL
Daily tournaments $40-$110 buy-ins and a really popular late night tournament Friday and Saturday nights at 2:30 a.m. (Sat/Sun am)
Progressive HH Jackpots, quad bonus on hand of the day, flush specials.
18+ year olds can play live and tournament. Alcohol served to 21+ at the tables.

What is the story on this place ATM? Does it slow down quite a bit in winter? Still good regular games everyday? MTT Schedule still good?

Thank You

I'll be staying there from April 18 (Wednesday) to April 21 (Saturday). Any updates on the poker room? Limits, traffic, rake, etc. Thanks...

Usually have a 2/6 spread limit. Inconsistently have a 1/3 nl game that is generally kinda soft. They are big on Omaha. Run a small buy in tournamentment. They have a pot limit Omaha game that attracts big money. They will give poker players casino rate on rooms.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully the 1/3 NL game is running at some point.

kaartman, see my post in the NM thread

Hello,
I will be at Bufalo Thunder Tuesday, Wednesday.
Any 2/5 holdem games or 20/40, 30/60 limit holdem?

I was in Santa Fe this week so played a 3-hour session yesterday evening (Friday). Some notes:
- 1 table of 1-3 was running when I got there around 8pm. By ~10pm there were actually 3 tables running.
- pretty small room, 7 tables total, but has a nice feel. Is physically walled off from the main casino so not too much ambient noise.
- free water bottles for players, I think you pay for everything else
- action seemed slightly on the soft side