Didn’t find a venue thread on “The Fort” so I thought I’d make one. I’m curious if any other 2+2ers are regs at the Fort.

Fort McDowell is Arizona’s oldest casino, located on SR 87 just outside Fountain Hills AZ on the Fort McDowell Yavapai Reservation. It is approximately 23 miles northeast of Phoenix Sky Harbor and has a pretty nice Radisson attached to it that we stayed at on one of our visits to the area.
Link to the poker room http://www.fortmcdowellcasino.com/cards.php

When we first moved here, The Fort had a much bigger poker room, but I think they sort of surrendered to Casino AZ when they opened up their new 50+ table room in 2010. The main reason we go to the Fort instead of CAZ is because it’s almost close enough to walk to.

The poker room now has just 10 tables and at most only gets 3 or 4 cash games going at any one time. They’re almost always 4-8 games except for the regular 20-40 mix game that runs on Fridays. I always see an ‘interest’ list for 1-2 but never seem to see one running. They have typical promos like bad beat and AA cracked. Meh. I usually stick to the tourneys.

They have a variety of low stakes tourneys. The worst of which is what we affectionately call the “donkeyfest”. Five bucks for T2k, reload another $5/T2k any time your stack is at or below 2k for the first six 15 minute levels. And then you can load up another 30K for $20 bucks at the break. They run this one a bunch of times throughout the week and get 30-50 players. If you suspect this plays similar to play money p* tourneys, you wouldn’t be far off.

The best one they run is the $60+5 freezeout on Friday’s at 7pm. They usually get 90-100 runners, but since they always keep 3 tables for cash games that means 70 max for the tourney and a lot of standbys. 30 minute levels, and a slowish blinds progression at the front end makes it a decently structured tourney.

I have a question for you.

I was in PHX for a golf trip and played in the mixed game on a Friday night.

The mix was triple low draw, Stud (not sure if this was hi low), O/8 and Archie.

I have tried to bring Archie back to my home game but have a few questions about the rules.

It was triple draw hi/lo. The wheel was the nut low and the second highest straight behind Broadway.

My question is how is a flush treated, if you make a low but it is also a flush does it only qualify as a high hand.

I am asking you as you mention you have played in the casino and may have played in this game. I could not find information on Archie online, though other folks I talked to at talking Sticks knew the game.

Thanks for the help,
KYRounder

Archie is 8 or better for the low and 9s or better qualifier for the high. Obviously a flush beats a straight and loses to a full house. If you make a 6 low vs a 7 low you would scoop (neither player has hi qualifier).

Thanks for info, did not know you had to qualify for high hand.

Still need to know what happens if you are drawing for low and make a flush.

Say I have A 2 3 6 all diamonds and draw one. I hit the 8 of diamonds.

I have an Ace high flush. Do I also have an 8 high or does the flush nullify my low?

I'm not familiar with the game Archie, but I do understand the question and maybe I can help clarify the verbage for someone who knows the answer.

He's asking if the flush counts against you for the low.

Example: A flush counts against you in 2-7, but not in A-5. Does it count against you in Archie?

KYRounder: If I had to guess, based on how other games work, I'd say that the flush would probably NOT nullify your low. Disclaimer: I don't know this game, just basing it off info from other similar ones.

I have played in the 4-8 here somewhat frequently due to their promotions. They have had some pretty ridiculous ones. The last time I visited, they had $200 aces cracked 24/7 ($100 for the loser, $50 for the person who cracked them and $50 splash pot next hand). Then, during selected football games, they would do the same thing plus "bonus" splash pots. If there were 2 games going, this would mean if someone got aces cracked, both tables would get 2 additional $50 splash pots (so essentially $400 given away every time aces were cracked). If there were 3 tables, each table would now get 3 bonus splash pots (the initial $200 plus bonus splash pots of $450, so essentially $650 given away each time aces were cracked). I am not sure what they would have done with more than 3 as I never saw that many going.

I believe they have now modified it, as this was obviously absurd. I am not sure what the current promotions are as they change frequently and I haven't been in a few weeks. Because of the excessive promotions, they changed from $3 house drop and $3 jackpot drop to $4 jackpot and $2 house. Then, because even this wasn't generating enough to keep the promotional fund afloat, they changed it to $2 house drop with a $5 jackpot drop.

One of the promotions they were doing before was $400 aces cracked ($200 loser, $100 winner, $100 splash) from 8-11am, not sure if they are still doing this one. I found this to be not quite as good as it sounds because it was mostly nitty regs playing in the games and the extreme rake made the game very unbeatable if not for the promotion. It was still good enough to warrant the trip I'd say.

The problem is the place is really far from most livable areas of town and it is basically a dump. Wild Horse, Casino AZ and now Vee Quiva are all less than 5 year old buildings with nice poker rooms. Fort McDowell has remain mostly unchanged, except for condensing the poker room, for decades.

Having said all that, I do think it is worth keeping up with their promotions. I have won thousands of dollars off their promotions over the last year and it is worth driving the extra distance and putting up with the dumpiness of the place compared to playing in an almost unbeatable 4-8 game somewhere else with no promotions.

The Fort had a new tourney today for their Sunday nooner. It's a deepstack tourney with the same blind structure as their Friday night tourney. 30 minute levels. Buyin is $50 (15k) + $10 (10k) + $20 (15k)... so $80 bucks for 40k chips.

Played for 8 hours and went out in 3rd out of 47. A bit disappointing- I was 2nd in chips and got the short stack all in and behind. He rivered me to survive and I went out shortly after... river cost me at least $300... #&#^&. Ah well, still a nicely structured tourney.

how much of the 50 + 10 + 20 goes into the prize pool?

$50 ?

The prize pool was 8 places totaling 2760.
I think it is $40 from the $50 buyin to the prize pool (so 20% rake)
and then 100% of the $20 addon to the prize pool
The $10 piece is dealer donation.
so the math works out if 3 people didn't do the $20 addon.
(47*40) + (44*20) = 2760
So if you count the dealer fee it is $60 out of $80 (75% to the pool)
I will confirm all this next time I'm there.

The Fort has tweaked their Friday night tourney. Buyin is still $60 but the dealer app is now $10 instead of $5. However the chips went from 5k+2k to 10k+5k. So at 15k now definitely a deepstack tourney. They also dropped the antes out of the structure.

If the activity in this thread is indicative of the degree of interest in this poker room, and it is, given that there has been no new post for almost eight years, this news should be no surprise. This poker room, which is actually in their new casino, We Ko Pa, is closing at the end of August 2021, or until they give away all the promotion fund, whichever comes first.
Until then, however, they are having some lucrative promotions to do just that. I won't post the details here, but you can read them on their page on the Bravo app.
I will say though that the room is open only Thursday through Sunday, and plays pretty much only 4/8 LHE.
As what I believe was the original casino/poker room in AZ, since 1984 or so, it's sad to see this one go.