OK, this is for the few of you who've noticed I've been absent for several days. The wife & I took a short vacation to Salamanca, NY. It's in/near the Seneca Indian Reservation.
Doing research via the internet recently, I found they have a casino there that offers both spa services, low limit Texas Hold'em & most surprisingly, 7 card stud poker. The spa was important as my wife & I have finally decided it's time to treat ourselves on occasion.
I consider myself somewhat above average at poker & I don't get much entertainment playing slots or table games with a house advantage so high it guarantees I will lose [unless I get extraordinarily lucky early on & quit that minute]. I prefer poker played against other people where skill can make all the difference between winning & losing over time. The fact the casino had real low limit poker & was an easy 2 1/2 hr drive [99% highway] was a double plus.
Reviews of the casino overall were quite positive, so we decided to give it a try.
My overall experience was not as positive as those reviews, mostly for one huge reason.
The standard rooms are very nice. They're spacious & well appointed, including a flat panel HD TV. Room rates seemed reasonable.
They offer in room internet access, but it's $9.99 a day, plus tax.
The view from the 9th floor is awesome. The mountains & the valley with the Allegheny river flowing through it offers a stunning vista.
The spa was wonderful. The fitness center, pool, saunas, steam rooms & hot tubs were fine too. That alone makes a return trip likely.
The Thunder Mountain Buffet was reasonably priced offering a near upscale dining experience. The prime rib was the best I've ever had in any buffet. The king crab, shrimp & several types of fish were fresh & tasty. Side dishes & the desert offerings were very good too. There were many choices we simply couldn't sample due to the wide variety of offerings, but everything looked good.
The room service & their 24 hour cafe were a bit pricey, but the food was pretty good. We didn't hit the Italian restaurant or the steak house, but folks did give raves to the steak house.
The casino is nice, similar to most non-Las Vegas mega-casinos [IOW, lots of slots, some glitz & free cheap booze flowing with the best service at the tables].
I learned a long time ago that slot machines got the name 'One armed bandit' for good reasons. So that excluded about 95% of the casino from my entertainment dollars.
Or so I thought. As noted above, I was there to play poker against my peers. Specifically low limit. Despite the clear wording on their internet site & clear responses to my phone queries, there is NO seven card stud available at the casino. And low limit Texas Hold'em is available only when there is sufficient interest to open a table [as I would learn much later means it MIGHT be played sporadically on Fri night, Sat & Sun morning].
Worse still, it wasn't until my 2nd day there that I learned the poker room & the casino are two separate entities & there's some bad blood between them. Apparently the folks running the poker room are moving soon to a new location nearby. And none of this info is offered by anyone. You find out the hard way if you are a guest of the casino's hotel, but you're there determined to play poker to the exclusion of the casino.
What I mean by that is that the front desk, the casino staff, etc., either don't know what is actually going on or have been told to keep that info from hotel guests. It also meant that there is no direct phone access to the poker room to get info from them. And most hotel/casino staff don't know the proper extension #.
BTW, the only thing further away from the guest rooms than the poker room is the parking lot. That means a disabled person like me is screwed big time trying to get accurate info. And because the casino & the poker room are not cooperating with each other, the chances of getting enough low limit players together at the same time is nearly impossible.
Then consider that low limit poker is not a huge money maker for a casino, so they aren't going to make it easy to fill their limited tables available for those type of games. Even if you're lucky enough to figure out on your own what steps are necessary to get on a list, you still aren't told that you MUST sit there & wait until they get 6 or more players before they open a table. They claim they will call you when there is interest but they don't. You must keep calling them or they take your name off the list after an hour or so.
IOW, sit there, twiddle your thumbs & hope or forgetaboutit. Obviously they want you to play high limit Texas Hold'em [$25-$50 & $50-$100 with the one or two $25-$50 tables mostly full 24/7].
Needless to say we were quite disappointed & will likely think twice about a second visit that includes any gaming. Nothing makes me more angry than being lied to or intentionally misled.
See my next post if you're interested what we played instead since we only played Hold'em once. |
