Yeah sorry, SM shill is just wrong. I also feel like I doubt the cash games being run more often outside of Portland. There is a great 2/5 game at a pdx club that runs every Fri and Sat. Extremely rare to not find 1/2 seven days a week from noon till 2 or 3 am, even in the unlikely event you just have to leave one club for another. But if you are troubled by a ten minute cab or drive or 45 minute bus ride, just start at ace of spades on Barbur, shootouts are their lifeblood.

I'm not a shill. If I never had to pay rake again, I'd be a rich man... but rake free or not I think the shoot outs they offer are a waste of time, and if you played any decent amount of cash you'd understand why.

I'd love it if the clubs changed their shoot out structure and offered bigger games that ran during the week. They're pretty much the only venues in the entire state that can run 2/5 or higher during the week but they don't. And from the looks of it, the bill is looking to shut them down or at the very least, place restrictions probably limiting the biggest games and the amount of rebuys... and if that's the case i'd rather see the clubs shut down and the entire player base move back to spirit mountain.

If I played any decent amount of cash... Lol.

What are you trying to say, the winrate is too low?

Poker in portland is awesome. For low buy in tournament players, don't think it can be beat .... (try to grind <$100 tournies in vegas). Maybe not huge fields but rake overall is so sweet.

Wondering about updates for poker in Portland/SW Washington, especially for middle limit games.

Someone in an old thread mentioned a "New Frontier" casino that had bigger limit games. I can't find that one anywhere, but I did find a "Last Frontier"; is that the one that was meant? Are they still getting 15/30 and 20/40 games going? Any details are appreciated.
I'll be visiting the area and am looking to play limit poker at 8/16 or higher.

Siculamente-- offering bigger games is in general not good for the players. It's likely good for many of the players who post in this thread, but in general, offering bigger games leads to action drying up quicker, which is obviously not good for the clubs.

The truth of the matter is that offering no limit games is worse for clubs than offering limit-- fish stick around way longer in limit because they have a chance. But the clubs must deal with the demand, and so they will try to spread higher games if people want them for the same reason they spread no limit since that game is almost universally preferred. But neither of these things is particularly good for poker long term.

Legislation that shuts down social gaming clubs offering tournaments where locals can spend $20-$50 to play poker for a few hours isn't going to provide venues where "businessmen" who are afraid of black people can play cash games.

Seriously, La Center is just up the freeway. People who want to play cash games can go there or SM just like they always have. As for "businessmen", there are plenty of folks from a wide variety of professions who don't feel "dirty" playing in the Portland clubs. I played last night with an electronic researcher with a degree in astrophysics and the founder of a nationally-recognized theater company. One local businessman recently won over $200,000 in a WSOP Circuit Main Event and was seated next to me in a $30 entry noon tournament back here in Portland two days later. The clubs have also produced a slew of quality tournament players who've moved out to the larger poker world.

Lots of people don't want to play cash games. Most of the tournament players aren't going to go to LC or SM. They'll just save up their dollars and take them out of state to Vegas or someplace else they can play tournaments, or they'll play smaller home games like they used to.

Yup. Portland poker clubs more of a melting pot than anywhere else in town ainec

And it is indeed hard to imagine basically any of the tourney players bringing 3k to sm like our friend thinks would magically happen

I like playing 2/5 or 5/10 as much as the next guy, but when my job permits me to be home in Portland, I want to stay in Portland. The people from academia, business, et al, also don't seem to want to travel for the fun change of pace mental stimulation the tournaments offer, buyin irrelevant.

Why the **** are you already pulling the race card darrel? Why do you assume all businessmen are afraid of black people? How ignorant of you. You live in Portland, Oregon, a funky city known for it's open minded people. Most of the sm regs live in the portland area, so stfu. I'm talking about poker here, not racism, and if you think that's the reason why they still go to sm to play cash, you're mistaken sir. You're seeing ghosts in the closet. Get your mind right fool.

That's great, there's obv plenty of wealthy people that play in portland clubs.. if I gave off the impression that anyone who played in portland clubs were dirty or scum or whatever, that was not my intention. But there's a big difference in levels of comfort between playing a $30 sng, and walking in with 4k+ in your pocket. You can't argue that. And deep down, those players WANT to come in with lots of money, they want to play higher, the clubs just need to give them a good enough reason to. The portland clubs just aren't up to par yet, and I wish they were.

I strongly disagree that lots of people don't want to play cash. If the clubs were better, cash games would thrive. Catering to only tournament players and stiffing cash game players is wrong... and the clubs are missing alot of money by doing it too. If the clubs offered it, and helped get it started, people would play. When they see lots of money on the table, in a venue filled with tournament donks, they're gonna wanna sit down and play. Tournament players benefit from cash game players, and vice versa, catering to one and stiffing the other is piss poor imo.

FWIW, I actually agree with Sicul and am constantly shocked at how lax security at these places is, some of them are in safe locations but have quick access to major thoroughfares and would be ripe for hold-ups. When I win "big," like 1k+ in the baby nl games, I am less comfortable walking to my car parked in a neighborhood than I am using a parking lot at a casino, even without a valet.

I don't agree with much else that he said, and I don't see how this legislation is going to help establish anything like what Sicul wants. It's just going to be another dagger that Portland poker has to swallow. The situation as it stands now is pretty nice for the players-- although, I would really like to see the issue of dealer compensation fixed, which likely can't happen without a significant increase in door fee or the clubs being allowed to charge per tournament/shootout.

I just don't get what way you think the clubs are stiffing cash. 2/5 runs every time people ask for it. Frequently during the week at aces, and as a regularly scheduled, specifically catered, separate room event with one of the best dealers I have ever encountered anywhere, Fri and Sat till 3 or 4 am at ace of spades

You didn't give off an "impression", you outright said the SM regs you talked to thought the clubs were "dirty" and unsafe. Apart from the inadequate bathrooms in most locations which can get pretty ugly on busy nights, I just can't agree. And if you think there's a lack of racism among Portland business people (or others), you're seriously mistaken. Maybe that's not the reason they gave you for thinking the clubs were "dirty". Maybe they just don't like mixing with lower classes of any race. It doesn't seem to matter to a lot of other folks.

You don't really seem to understand the reason all Portland clubs offer are tournaments (which are multi-table tournaments, not sit-n-gos). They can't run actual cash games and conform to the rules governing social gaming. They're not "stiffing" anyone; if they could take a rake from a cash game to cover dealers, security, and facilities I'm sure they'd be happy to do so. But that would violate the rules. The lack of cash games has absolutely nothing to do with "dirty" clubs, and everything to do with the social gaming regulations. Sure, if casinos were legal in Oregon outside of the Native lands, there would be cash games. But shutting down the tournament card rooms isn't going to make that happen, you'd need a change to the state constitution,and that didn't fare so well last fall when the voters were asked to weigh in on allowing the poorly-named The Grange casino.

Measures 82 and 83, which authorized non-tribal casinos (by amending the constitution) and a casino specifically at Wood Village near Portland, both failed with more Han 70% of the votes against.

One last note: From my understanding of the current law, there's nothing stopping anyone from setting up a private club to run, say, a 20/40 NLHE cash game, so long as the house doesn't make any money off the game. The issue--and this ought to be obvious to a businessman--that you need to get people to pay you something to cover expenses for facilities and staff, dealers, and security. Unless you charge a very high cover fee per person, the option is to get a lot of people through the door at a smaller fee. That means catering to people without $3K bankrolls, which means making the potential payoff for those people higher, which means tournaments, where the ROI for a win could be +2000% in a field of 100+.

But if you rented a space, hired dealers (or self-dealt), bought a couple tables, hired guards and a manager, and were able to keep it under $15000/month for expenses, you'd only need to charge the 18 people at the tables $835/month for membership. Less if you had more members and they were willing to go on waiting lists to play. Obviously, lots of variables depending on hours of operation. Lest you think I'm mocking the idea, keep in mind that a reg paying $10/day in an existing club 20 days a month is already dropping $200. $850-$1000 would be a small price, I'd think, for someone willing to bring $3K to the table on a regular basis.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I suggest you go back and read all of my posts itt a couple of times before replying. Yes, the SM regs think the clubs in Portland are dirty/scummy/ ripe for something to go terribly wrong, I'm not taking that back.. why would I?

I said… Again, there's a big dif between a club being dirty/scummy/ possibly dangerous and the people that frequent the clubs being dirty/scummy/ dangerous.

I said no rich businessmen is going to go in there with a bunch of money to play, and you misunderstood (again lol) and basically countered with 'siculamente, there's plenty of smart, educated people/ businessmen that play the $30 nooners (lol) at the clubs, and the only ones that don't are afraid of black people' ... missing my point completely and throwing out the racial card.

If the clubs actually cared about following social gaming regulations, they wouldn't offer shoot outs in the first place. The clubs found a way to circumvent the law by offering "shoot outs". A cash game under the guise of a tournament. And what's worse is they structured it in a way that's tilting as hell to anyone who has a clue of what's going on.

So, off the top of my head the clubs are making money because they've found a way to circumvent the law by offering cash games under the guise of "shoot outs", stiffing their dealers/staff by not properly training them or helping them to improve their craft, not paying them a wage, and most importantly imo not providing an ample enough environment/ security which in general promotes shady **** to happen. It's the wild west of live poker.

will the circle be unbroken
by and by lord, by and by

Your claim was that the people you talked to viewed the clubs that way. They are demonstrably not dirty/scummy/dangerous, however, so whatever views the people you claimed to have talked to are simply the result of some sort of ignorance or prejudice. Maybe it's not racial prejudice. Maybe it's some other sort of ignorance. In any case, it's ignorance.

That doesn't make any sense. You don't seem to know what the actual laws are on social gaming. What specific provision of state or city code do you think they're violating? For a starter, here's Portland's section of city code on social games.

The reason you have shoot outs is this:

In a cash game, you're betting cash (or chips representing cash). In a tournament, you're betting "tournament betting units".

The idea that Portland dealers are somehow inadequate is simply laughable. I'd be the first person to admit the volunteer system they work under is distressing, but closing the clubs isn't gong to get them jobs either. Some deal regularly at events out of state. A number of them are exceptionally talented, and the amount of Omaha played in Portland makes many of them faster and sharper than a lot of dealers I've run across in casinos. On the other hand, one of the guys I had at a Chinook Winds tournament in February was dealing his second table of poker; he'd been pulled off a table game and wasn't even sure how to handle antes.

I feel like I'm talking to a lock rep. I love how you pick and choose what you want to read and respond to, and ignore everything else. It's clear no amount of sound reason or logic will get through your thick skull. That's fine.

But everyone should know what the clubs are doing is wrong. Yes the social gaming laws are kinda silly, yes I think they're outdated. But it's still the law. The clubs found a way around it, and now the city is trying to close it. Fair enough. The city didn't want a casino, what makes you think they want poker clubs? For many people a poker club = another form of a casino. If the city wanted gambling, they'd change the law or try to put in a casino, or both. It's clear they don't want either atm.

But the current situation is hurting things. The player pool isn't big enough, and these quasi cash games the clubs offer just aren't good enough. Somethings gotta give. Either change the laws which will basically shut down SM poker room and LC, or shut down the clubs.

darrel- gl with ur future endeavors. I hope your critical thinking skills improve.

edit: PS I'm not afraid of black people

lol at thinking shoot outs as ran by the majority of clubs are safe under the definition quoted, Darrel.

One clear sign someone knows they've lost an argument is that they have nothing to counter with except personal invective.

You can't come up with any specific codes that the clubs are violating by running tournaments. I pointed you right to Portland's social gaming regulations and you claim the city doesn't want poker clubs. I guess that's why they wrote rules to license them. If there's a break in critical thinking, it's not with me.

I don't think they're "safe" (and I'm assuming you're using the word in the sense of legally at-risk). They're certainly skirting the edges of the regulations. So far as I'm concerned, shootouts could disappear and I could care less. I don't play them and I don't play cash games.

The spark for this discussion was the idea that shutting down local card rooms so people who want to spend $30-$150 to play a tournament for 3-12 hours would instead drive 30-90 minutes each way to mix it up in cash games with $3K bankrolls. That just doesn't sound very likely to me.

Darrel,

I love your idea about making a club to play 20/40, but unfortunately, it just won't work. Nobody is going to pay that kind of monthly fee to pay-- and, to be frank, I think it could be done for a lot less, but people won't even pay that. Many regs who pay $10 a day to play wouldn't throw down $200 at the beginning of the month. It's the same reason discounted iPoker comes in the form of rakeback instead of a, say, $30 a month fee-- a fee that, with the level of business Pokerstars has, would easily support a huge business. But it just doesn't happen, and it won't.

Now, if you talk to sicul and all of the bourgeois business-owners that he's friends with, you might have something. They will apparently pay anything not to associate with riffraff. The baton marks still on my back from getting beaten up at Occupy testify to that.

Quick trip report. I was in Portland last week for one fun-filled day, and went to Encore to check out the club scene. I don't really know any details, but from perusing this thread, Encore seems indicative of the top few of the clubs in town. Here is what I saw on a Weds afternoon:

Room was nice, about a dozen or fifteen tables, color coded to keep the simultaneously running tournaments easily segregated. Standard bar off to the right. Just two one-seater unisex bathrooms, which was fine during the afternoon on a weekday, but prob gets silly during break time in the big tournaments. Very little parking, as far as I could tell, which is likely an issue for any business so close to downtown. I was staying at a walkable hotel, so no issue for me, but might be for regs.

When I came in (about 3pm) there were two tables still going from the noon tournament, and two from the 2pm. I went and had a beer and came back for the 4pm tournament. $500 guarantee with $25 BI, with option for one re-buy and one add-on (3k chips for $10) at first break. Game started six-handed, and I joked "wanna chop?" Dealer quickly informed us that we couldn't chop till first break and it quickly became apparent why. We ended up with two tables as people came in a bit late and bought the dead stacks, people shoved 99 and got called by AJ with effective stacks over 100bbs and then re-bought, etc. Prize pool easily covered guarantee by first break. Dealers and floor were fast and efficient, with great attitudes.

Definitely didn't seem like amateur hour. I've rarely seen a casino card room as consistently solid. By the time the tournament ended at 7:30 pm, there was a table of 1/2 "shootout" running as well, the 6pm tournament had a couple of tables, and people were flocking in to sign up for the "big" daily at 8pm ($2K guarantee, $50 BI). I asked what time they close, and they said whenever the last tournament ends, which is usually around 2am.

All-in-all, I was impressed. The room was well run, the value for tournament players is sick. Rake is unbeatable for most live tournaments under $1K BI, so I'd pretty much given them up, but with the $10 for all-day play, even the quick tourney structure is very beatable, esp with the extremely weak fields. Like 2004 Party Poker weak. So this is what it feels like to have true easy access to poker for non-threatening amounts of money for rec players. SWEET! I don't think I'd want to try to make a living grinding in Portland, but as an income supplement, it's very viable, and for a complete rec player it's almost paradise.

+1 Especially to the last paragraph.

Spades club is now, more frequently (than weekends) holding 2-5 shootouts. However, there is still a lack games higher than $2-5 and still a fair demand for them. I agree with the lackluster security comment- I hate parking far from a club with a wad in my pocket