Here's another report, a week later. Last night, Thursday.

At 5 pm, there was a 5-10 going and 2 2-5 tables, and a few low-limit tables. I wore my NorthFace 300 weight fleece with windstopper that has seen the summit of Rainier, and was comfortable. The place has really calmed down from last week, and they have started running tournaments in the morning - $30 buyin, 15 min rounds, 1000 chips, 25-50/50-100 were the first two levels. $300 added.

The real wild-card will be getting here in the afternoon - Once I hit I-90, I never dropped below 70 mph and made it to the casino in 35 minutes at 4:00 pm from Seattle. This would be virtually impossible heading north or south on I-5 at this time on a Thursday, and it will influence decisions to drop in for a game in the afternoon/early evening.

They are double/triple comping for a while - the usual food comp is .75 an hour, and last night it was double to 1.50 an hour. I think Sundays it will be triple-comped - 2.25 an hour. I was told now that the jackpot was 8K, so somehow the 35K answer I got last time was misinformation. They are still working out the bugs, so take everything you read here with a grain of salt (except for the frequent references to the cold - bring a coat.)

A few quirks, but I suspect the room will stick. A bigger room will help, and daily evening tournaments should help the mid-week action. Getting here is no problem in the afternoons, which will be huge for many people.

bill hagen does indeed rock.

yeah thats crazy
on opening weekend they did have nickel blackjack
but raised it to $10 at night

Was there Tuesday night and it was...I don't know...underwhelming. But then again, it does *look* nice by Washington standards. And maybe there's a significant east side population that would never drive to Tulalip or think Muckleshoot is too grimy and smoky, but would go to this place.

Poker room was mildly chaotic. Floor, cage, and dealers all seem like they've never done any of this before. Tables are poorly designed - they have this weird down-sloping gutter right at the rail, so you have to stack your chips out a ways. Nice chairs though.

At least it wasn't as cold as expected. Maybe someone figured out how to turn down the AC.

At least the cigar lounge gives me one reason to go. It's about the only place in the entire state you can have a cigar indoors.

The other odd thing that I noticed was that the poker tables were 'cupped' (have built in cup holders in the rail) for 10 players not 9.

correction. the stakes started at $10, and then went to $15.

I've been there a few times now. I live in Redmond, and am one of the Eastsiders who would rather drive to Snoqualmie than go North to Tulalip or South to Muckleshoot. I truly hope they get the kinks worked out; I'm tired of the card rooms where $3-$6 limit is the norm. It is cold. Service sucks. Food is way too expensive, and it's horrible that they charge for coffee. (WTF?!?) They should have coffee pots in the room for the players. If they want to be like Vegas, this isn't going to cut it, and they're going to lose people like me.

I was there tonight and there were 4 $5 blackjack tables spread out around the casino and quite a few more $10 tables. Of course there were way to many people and no way to actually play.

Everything about the casino was ruined by the large number of people. Couldn't play any games, couldn't get any food without waiting for hours, couldn't even get in the place because the wait for the elevator was 30 mins. I'm going to have to check it out again in a month or so and see how it's working then.

I thought the poker room was all right, despite my horrendous play. It certainly is very tight in there, but it didn't seem cold to me.

The entire facility seems poorly designed, though. It's brutal trying to get from the garage to the casino. The seating capacity at the restaurants was tiny. And the prices look high for what you get.

Here's a non-gaming question: My wife was in the nightclub with a friend, and since there was a $10 cover for guys after 9 p.m., the DJ stopped the music at 9 and they went around and collected $10 from all the guys already in the club. Is that how it works in clubs now? I'm not much of a club guy, but I always thought if you got in early, you beat the cover charge. She said it took more than a half-hour for them to collect from everyone.

Anyway, it's nice to have a closer place to play cards (I live on the Eastside), but there's no way I'm going through all that hassle just to try to have dinner or a beer with a friend. The Muckleshoot is crowded, but it never feels THIS crowded to me.

This is absolutely over the top money grubbing and insane!

QFT... no ****ing way if i saw that would i go back to that place..

This was my first impression too. From the outside it looks like an impressive building but the parking lot being forced to the backside and that far downhill from the casino was definitely not fully analyzed. They may just be a victim of their own popularity and it will possibly calm down after a few weeks but making every person who parks have to enter the building through 3 elevators was a huge mistake. I overheard people openly saying they were leaving before ever getting in the casino after waiting at the elevator for 30 mins.

Thanks to everyone for the reports. I was thinking about going next week, but think I'll pass for now. I'm sure I'll check it out at some point.

I just stopped by the Poker room at Snoqualmie last night, Sunday the 16th. I played in the 2/5 NL game and walked out with $1200 from my $200 buyin after 4 hours..When I was there, they had two 4/8 games and three 2/5 NL games going. The rumors about the A/C are true, I was freezing my balls off in there. However, the game was great, I highly recommend it. It wasn't too crowded in there, but I could see how it would be if all the tables were full. It seemed like half of the players at the table had just watched the WSOP and decided to give NL a shot.

Anyone who is sick of the local low-limit no-foldem games needs to check it out.

As far as Tournaments go, the dealer told me that they are going to be holding a 'turbo' tournament every morning. This tournament starts with 1,000 chips and lasts an hour (four 15 minute rounds) and has a buyin of $30. Completely rediculous crapshoot tournament if you ask me, but they said they are going to have more tournies starting in 2009.

getting into Snoqualime from the garage using the elevators on even a semi busy day, is total hell, like I have said god forbid what should happen if a fire occurs. There are lots of things wrong with it, its bad enough they charge 16 dollars for a hamburger, and it takes 10 minutes by elevator on a normal busy day to get inside the damn facility. No stairs and if your really desperate you have to walk up the huge ass hill to get into the front entrance of the place, and if you hate smoke its horrible not only do you have to deal with cigarette smoke you have to endure the cigar smoke as well. Its like it was meant well and all but lets see how it holds up over time once the hoopla and curiosity is over.

wow after all the reports, it doesn't even seem worth my time to head down there. i mean is there anything good about the place?

Bump.

People that I work with were violently backed off and denied the ability to cash out their chips after 1.5 shoes of Blackjack. They were not allowed back into the casinos to meet up with their friends and was told to walk ~3 miles to the nearest gas station in the rain.

I am not going there.

Was finally able to get there in person and take a look around the place last night (about midnight on a Monday night).

There were 30-40 active gamblers spread across two pits plus a couple of tables going in the poker room.

As for the poker room: this is *clearly* a temporary room. It *has* to be. In fact, I'm convinced it's a space that was originally designed to be a retail shop, but was converted for use as a makeshift poker room when something changed in the main poker room's design. First reason I say that is that the location is not the same as originally published. I've heard talk that the upcoming "expansion" room will actually be back where the "original" room was slated to be, and that jibes with this view. We'll see. The other reason I say this is ... well, you just have to see the room, it's simply not designed as a poker room. It's just plain a converted retail shop. Glassed-in display windows, with 10 tables crammed in so close that the chairs are literally 10 inches apart back-to-back. Like playing in a GAP store, but significantly smaller.

However, the rest of the facility was very nicely designed (everything was very professionally crafted, with an understated edge).

The staff did not impress me. Lots of break-in's and near break-in's -- although perhaps that was just due to the shift I came in on. I guess time will tell who lasts and how the quality of their staff evolves over the next year or two.

Parking was ample and it took me about 1 minute to get from my car to the casino floor via the elevators. However, that was at midnight on a weekday with no line and no significant incoming traffic. On a busy Friday or Saturday, however, the bottleneck situation is obvious, and they should have designed for it better.

Biggest surprise was still the poker room, however. I can only imagine that this isn't the same room they'll have in a year. If it is, then Muckleshoot and Tulalip have absolutely *nothing* to worry about.

q/q

crazy bump. ho-lee sheeet.
i might be able to conclusively determine someone is counting after 1.5 shoes if they are teaming up, betting more than one hand, and spreading $5-$250; but to back them off so soon is just stupid. at least wait until they hit a downswing. (did they eventually cash out?)
and violently?
f those gangsters
i'm lucky i got out of there alive.

My own take on Snoqualmie:

-The games are softer. I went on a saturday night, and the games were softer than saturday at Tulalip or the Muck. I think Tulalip games got harder recently (maybe when they moved to the larger buyins?) and this was more like the games used to be a year or two ago. Players ranged from bad, to very bad, to decent but predictable.

- It really is incredibly cramped. Also, ten tables is way too few. Took me maybe 45 minutes to get a seat, and should have been longer.

- The glass is cool. Since youre gonna be waiting for a while, its nice to be able to sweat some of the tables. Its also cool that people can watch the action without being in the way. I like that people are able to watch, think thats a great feature.

- Staff is sort of awful, especially the floorman Leo. This guy was a dick when he was flooring at Tulalip, and no surprise, hes still a dick here. He seems to have two main modes, condescending, and brusque. Ex: We hear that we can get a reduction when were down to 6 players. So we ask for one, and he says, no, theres a seventh stack on the table, cant give you a reduction until he has two missed blind buttons. OK, thats fine. Later were down to six players, ask for a reduction again, and he comes over, says, "denied" and wanders away without an explanation. I track him down and ask him why, and he says, "because rake reductions are at my discretion. You dont get one automatically". Like I said, guy is a dick.

-Problem with the cold seems to be fixed. At least I didnt notice it. Problem with elevators still true. Food also still too expensive.

The dealers and floormen at the casino are retreads and hires from other cardrooms from Western Washington, remember - they know who might be APs and who they just don't like. Now that they have tribal unilateral power, it only stands to reason that they would wield it.

My thoughts exactly. Predictable city - which, compared to Tulalip, is not normal. Hopefully this new Sno game doesn't become as tight as some of the Tulalip tables I've sat down at.

Dropped in on Sunday Nov 30th. I was in and out in 1 hr 20 min, in for $300, out with $800 and didn't hit any resistance. Though, I was lucky not to have to play a single hand with 'sharkie' - smart/funny asian guy sitting with $1,300 to my right. His stack seemed to grow $100 every 10 minutes even though he wasn't even playing in any hands and the chips stacked themself.

Cold as **** in the card room, wear pants and a decent jacket. Feels like the roof is open in there.

True, and that was a good post too.

Slightly OT, but I'm trying to contact a live B&M poker pro who lives in the Seattle-Tacoma area and whose name is Martin Forsburg.

Martin if you read this, or if any of you know a poker pro from greater Seattle whoes name is Martin, please PM me.

Thanks,

phy

So I have been there a few times mostly during lunch to harvest some chips as I am a chip collector.

First Trip. Opening night: What a cluster F. I live in Bellevue and it takes me at most 15 mins to get there, but this time after about 2 hours I finally park and am able to park my car, in the lowest parking lot and wait a short time for the shuttle. Even 2 hours after the casino opened I only waited for 5 minutes for an elevator.

Got into the casino. Shoulder to shoulder, I couldn't get to any pit game and forget about the poker room. The lowest limit in the pits was $15. I was only in the place for about 30 minutes but was very impressed with the look of the place. All else aside the facility is beautiful. It was designed to give the feel of a Native American longhouse and they acheived that feeling. However I don't know how many people will be able to recognize that, who have not actually been inside a longhouse before (it was a college field trip type thing where I got to witness some tribal ceramonies). Anyway the only real negative feeling I got from the place was even with the very high ceilings the place was still as smokey as the Muck's smoking side and the lack of stairs was very annoying.

Second, Third and Fourth Trips. Several different weekdays at lunchtime: These were strickly chip harvesting trips. The casino air was clear and clean (which is a big plus for me). Only about 50 people playing in the pits. $5 min bets on all games that had people at them. The $10 min games still had people playing but all of the $15+ were totally empty, which was pretty funny because they had a whole pit devoted just to that with like 15 employee's standing there with their thumbs up their butts. Getting chips was easy and the employee's were friendly.

Last Trip. Tuesday Night at 7pm (I finally get to play!): Drove right in and parked with no issues. No wait for the elevator, but there was a sign up that said they were experiencing some issues with the elevators, so that may explain why some have been experiencing delays. Got to the casino and the place was about average for a comperable night at Tualip. Made my way to the Poker room and was seated immediately. They had 2 $4/$8 limite games going and 2 $2/$5 NL games going, all almost full. I prefer limit and sat at a 4/8 table, but from what I have read, the limit game sounds pretty similar to the NL... It is easy to quickly distinguish who knows what they are doing and who has no clue. Played for about an hour and had to cash out with a $35 profit (Not going pro anytime soon).

Pros: Seemed that they fixed the AC issue. The only time it was cold was when the doors to the room were opened as I was seated about 3 feet from them. It is a non smoking room. The dealers were Ok, not good or bad. Not that it matters to this group, but the Dealer Buttons are Beautiful... I tried to buy one for a $30 toke but was denied!?! Oh well, I will try again.

Cons: Tables were sloped to the rail meaning you have to stack your chips a ways out there. Floorman was unwilling to help with requests. No decent tournaments. Food still pretty pricey.

Overall, I think once they work out the kinks, it will be a nice place to play.