http://www.facebook.com/ks.pearlgame.7

Will be in town for a week in may and was wondering If there was any 20/40+LHE or 5/5+PlO
Thabks

As a hopelessly addicted poker player, I’ve been thinking for over a year about how lucky I am to live near Portland, OR. When I came here to look around I assumed there would be a thread detailing the exploits of one or two Portland residents cruising from social gaming club to social gaming club, playing tournaments or the funky cash games (“shootouts”) that social gaming laws make legal in Portland. I mean, especially with how much everyone runs their mouth at the table about how great they are. ;-)

I am embarrassed for our lack of representation on these boards. I will post a big post to kick things off, and let some people know that there’s discussion here. If nothing else, I would expect to see more local club owners on these forums, so I’ll bug a few.

Portland has a list of high quality social gaming clubs to play at. They are venues with snack bars, usually, some have full bars, some sell beer. They run from cozy (6 tables) to quite large (30+ tables). Flatscreen TVs abound for sports and tournament clocks. When taken as a group and graded, I’d say well run and professional overall. They are low pressure and everyone’s friendly, so if you’re new to poker, find a low stakes Hold Em tourney and confess your ignorance. The dealer will always help you out.

Tournament schedules run from slim to robust, many with the pseudo-cash games sprinkled in. Games are mostly Hold Em, but somehow there has also been a bumper crop of pot limit Omaha 8/b junkies, and most of them prefer five cards to start instead of four (or “Big O” as it’s usually listed). There are the random weird events (HORSE, Crazy Pineapple) and many special events like WSOP satellites and other player perks.

I realize that many people posting here tend toward the professional end of poker. I have a day job. If you’re looking to make a living, you’re not moving to Portland for your poker career, don’t get me wrong.

That said, I’m a tournament player and I’ve had to travel all over the US for work. I have used these boards to find games, and good tournaments are hard to find. In a casino they want you paying a rake, so they’re hyper-turbo formats half the time just to get you back to the cash game. In Portland, unless it’s really low stakes it’s going to be a real tournament with a decent (or awesome) tournament structure. I absolutely love the poker scene in Portland.

Here are my favorite venues:

Portland Player’s Club
http://portlandplayersclub.com/
Smaller venue, owner operated (I think) by a super friendly guy who makes amazing milkshakes and has a decent menu for food. Professionally run, nice schedule, and an Irish bar downstairs? What’s not to love?

Big Stack Player’s Club
http://bigstackplayersclub.com/
Smaller venue, owner operated by another super friendly guy who is equally addicted to football and poker. The schedule is short, but the games are fun and there are other special events that aren’t listed on the calendar.

The Final Table
http://www.pokerportland.com/
Larger venue, usually well run, basic snack bar and food you can order in I think. I have not been here for a while but I’ve been happy with the tournaments. The schedule is vast and their Friday night Hold ‘Em event is very nice, with a big prize pool.

Encore Club
http://www.encoreclub.com/
Larger venue, usually well run, has a full bar and kitchen, which is nice. A little dark inside which I don’t like, but the schedule is very full. I haven’t been to this one in a while, either, but the times I have gone I enjoyed it.


These are places I’ve been – I have nothing to do with any of them, besides paying the $10 door fee to get in. There are other clubs too, like Aces, that I haven’t been to so can’t comment. Hopefully we can get a few other Portland people here to comment. We are not generally a shy bunch. There’s plenty of action on the NW Poker group on Facebook – I will cross-link.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/415541628483848/

Hey dfazman, thanks for the bump.

In regards to room managers being more involved with this board, 2+2 has a pretty strict rule against promoting rooms. I accidentally violated it a time or two, so I'm pretty wary about saying anything regarding my room, even the name. Needless to say, it is on your list, and since you haven't been in for a while I want you to know we've installed new brighter lighting in the last six months as well as beefed up our tournament and shootout schedule. I hope you'll stop in and give us another try, if you do ask if Sean is working. That's me, and I'll be happy to say hi.

I'm reasonably active in the B&M section of 2+2 forums and like to share my opinions on floor calls and how to run a room. I do try to engage in this thread as well, but like I said I have to be careful not to promote my room too heavily as I don't want to violate the Terms and Conditions. We really do have a good thing here in Portland (where else can you play a $50,000 guaranteed, $300 buy-in tournament and only pay $10 to the house?) and it's really starting to take off. At my room, for our recent anniversary series, I had several people come to town from Seattle, San Francisco, one guy from LA, and another from Vancouver BC. I know the other rooms have similar stories, and I'm happy to see all of us succeed.

What's the deal with the Pseudo cash games, as in highest limits regularly available, which rooms have em, and how they work?

It's the weird legal structure we have to operate under here in Oregon. We do the best we can, but we can't explicitly hold cash games in Portland.

It's a great deal for the players in some ways, because there is no rake and you can't tip the dealer as you go. So a lot of your costs are eliminated. However they have to technically be tournaments, so you are unable to change seats, stand up and cash out whenever you choose, and other little weird stuff that comes up. Finally, they run on a time period (100 minutes in my room) so when the time is up you have to cash out entirely and start over when the next game starts.

So you buy in for $200, build it up to $1K over 90 minutes, and then have to cash out for $1K and then buy back in for $300 after a 20 minute break. Or you can lose $500 to some idiot, then watch him walk out the door with all your money after 100 minutes when he's forced to cash out.

Like I said, it's kind of crazy, but it's the best we can do with the laws we have. Each club kind of does their own thing, so you'll find some variety, but the basic rundown I just gave is the agreement with the city that we all work under. The game at my room runs nightly with two tables quite often, so there are plenty of people who enjoy the format... like any kind of poker, it's just a matter of figuring out the right strategy.

I'll be happy to offer more details in a PM but like I said I don't want to cross any boundaries promoting my room, each club has their own thing and if you're looking for play "cash" games each of us have our own niche.

Are there any active legal things going to try and get this changed? It doesn't sound too terrible, but the 20 minute wait is pretty crap. Can't just switch tables to another shootout tournament assuming one is running? But thanks so far, this has been pretty helpful.

Honestly there have been legal efforts, but our fight has been to maintain the status quo. The city was looking into tightening down on social gaming a couple of years ago, and in the end we convinced them we were good small businesses paying taxes and providing a service and they've so far left things as they were. We've all tightened up on transparency and professionalism since.

I'm actually a pretty political guy personally, and I've considered getting together some sort of petition or trying to get something before the city council. However none of the clubs in town are exactly popular with their neighbors, so the popular opinion is not there to support us. I contacted our mayor-elect while he was campaigning and received no response, I'll probably try again once he's in office.

As for the shootouts, we run ours on a schedule so people will know when they start, and that has really revitalized our games. The 20 minute break allows for cash-out and then 10 minutes for the dealer to rotate or take a break. The "end-of-one, start-of-another" distinction is one of the things that the city is picky about.

We've tried the "hop from one into the other" idea but that left a lot of half-filled starting tables, people angling to get position on the waiting list, etc.

If you're looking to find an underground cash game, there are plenty, and they're not too hard to find out about. There are a couple of safe ones that my shootout regs would recommend, although I personally don't know any details.

I saw your posts earlier in the thread, Allin4flush - I dig Encore and I'm sure I'll be back there. I understand the rules about posting, but I'm still surprised I don't see any players really talking here, either. Maybe they're more active in other parts of the boards - I just popped in to see what the Portland thread said. ;-)

I have subscribed to this thread and I will keep an eye on it to see if we can build it up a little. I just feel like, even if we're not Vegas, Portland is the place I want to play poker tournaments. It's awesome and on any night I want to play I can find a game.

Thanks for the kind words. We work really hard here and I actually take a kind of pride in being one of the few people who participate in 2+2. I feel it has helped me run a better room, even if I do occasionally get my ass handed to me on the B&M forum. I steer all of my floor people here, a couple of them post on rare occasions but most of them just lurk.

Good bump! yah I have been trying to get the portland threads active,but never gets going. Also Oregon's biggest series with the biggest gtd we have ever had is coming soon on feb 3rd at the casino at the coast. with a 100k gtd,im really excited for this.

Yeah that Chinoook Winds series will be pretty sweet. One of their dealers is a regular at my place, and he's pretty excited about it. I imagine a number of my customers will be there, a few of us are going together. I'm glad to see a decent tour come to the area. If the card rooms in Portland aren't able to host something like that, at least the Indian Casinos can.

http://www.thepokeratlas.com/city/portland-or-usa/547/
Good Link for up-to-date nightly poker tournaments in PDX area.

You guys aren't the only ones lurking. i have lurked here since the early 00's. This would be the Blind Guy that shows up at the tournaments with the monocular sometimes. Zachary.

good luck all!!!!

Hello Zachary I have played with you a few times at final table.gl

hooooowdy ho neighboroony!!!!

There's 20/40+ LHE on Monday, Tuesday and Friday over the border in La Center, WA, although the games are getting fragile so the situation may have changed by May. There's no PLO at that level except for private games, although there is a weekly public 1-2 PLO/PLO8 dealer's choice mixed game involving 5-card variants run out of a strip club if you're into that.

I love most of the games in our awesome town

Could you tell us anymore about the limit hold em games overall in La Center?

By "fragile," he means the games are horrible, anything 10-20 and above plays way tougher than it should because of the highest game in town factor. I'm sure you have similar problems in Seattle, but basically there are a bunch of young displaced internet kids of varying abilities, some are excellent others are merely decent, but all make the game unplayable and many create a pretty bad environment for the fish just by being their nerdy, smarmy selves.

dayamn, and here i ponderin bringin my blind-ass up north to play too!!!! hmmmm....which should it be today? portland tournaments, OR La Center Limit Cash Call-Anything-Aments????

I realize I'm probably in the minority and most don't care, but the most unpleasant thing about playing the social clubs in Portland is the quality of the bathrooms. I won't single out anyone for this attack (they are universally awful), but bar-quality bathrooms are not acceptable if I'm going to be spending the day somewhere.

Anybody know of any non-shootout cash games during the week that manage to consistently start before 7:00? 6:00 is even better. Seems like the well-known games aren't starting until 7:30 or 8:00, even if they "advertise" earlier.

I've been going to the Final Table this week to play the Big O tournaments (plo8, but with five cards). They even have clean bathrooms! ;-) Might miss today because of work, but I'll be back tomorrow and Saturday!

off to La Center right now!!! wish me luck......sigh.