Bonus content for our readers! Flynn had a long drive back to the homestead, and yesterday the overnight option was Sacramento / Roseville specifically so he could check out the Stones Gambling Hall and Thunder Valley Casino’s poker room.
All went according to plan. He hit Stones in the early afternoon, and perused the list of games. 1/2 NLHE with a 200 cap, or a 1/3 500 cap with match the stack. He signed up for both, and the 1/2 opened up first. Ugh, not Flynn’s strongest game. For sure Flynn’s problem, and not blaming the stakes or other players because that is an ignorant excuse. Flynn just can’t help but play looser and chase more, and while bluffing in a timely manner works for bigger games, it just does not work at these games. He immediatly lost a buy in, and rebought just as a new 1/3 game got called. It should also be noted that every single person playing (4 /5 tables) was a regular. Flynn was the only visitor there.
Having never played a match the stack game before, he was relieved it was a new game so everyone started off on even footing (500). Flynn actually only bought into that game for 400 because he has found he really doesn’t need to put a max buy in on the table usually, either he re-buys, or runs it up. Long story short, this game plays like a 2/5 and Flynn was more in-tune with the rythym of the game. He made friends with the player to his left, and that player bought Flynn dinner with comps (Flynn didn’t have any comps at Stones). Flynn stayed at this table for about 40 minutes, ran his stacks up enough to cover his losses from 1/2, and then a hundo + to boot. He took his comped food to go, and jetted outta there.
Review of Stones: Good decor, well laid out, comfortable. and clean. The staff were professional and nice, dealers knew their jobs. Service was good, the food was reasonably priced but hard to rate, since Flynn nuked it in his room later. No sign of Mike Postle or Justin K, and there were no references to the drama from a few years ago. Flynn couldn’t even figure out where they had filmed. Flynn would play the 1/3 again there if he were in town.
After checking in to his hotel and freshening up, Flynn hopped on over to Thunder Valley. He had been here before during a WPT event (this is where he met BriscoMutt’s dad, BJ Nemeth) many years ago. At that time the games were on the casino floor somewhere, this visit Flynn got to experience the poker room itself. This is great room, with lots of tables, lots of space between tables, good dealers, floor, and service. It was busy on a Saturday night, but Flynn didn’t have to wait more than 15 minutes to get on a 1/3 table (he was also signed up for 2/5). They run ALL kinds of games here, from 3/6 limit – 4/8 O8 – low-limit no limit to high stakes. It was busy!
Flynn was on the property for under 2 hours. He had the opportunity to play 2/5, but prudently decided it would be smarter to stay at the 1/3 table as the stacks were massive at 2/5, and he had already had a long day. Playing bigger stakes usually means anticipating a longer stay at the table to recoup if things go amiss. At any rate, his 1/3 table was a good one, Flynn ran up a hundo + profit and called it a night. Wish there were some exciting stories to tell or characters to rant about to entertain our readers, but there were not. Just plain ol’ poker.
Writing this final Oct ’21 trip report, the editior is watching the massive rain/wind storm outside the hotel window and really, really wishing to be back in Las Vegas. Instead, we gotta drive through this crap to get home to more rain. Sigh.
Fin
Flynn