Trip Report: Pechanga Casino Poker Room - Temecula, CA

Taking a break from Las Vegas-area Poker Rooms..

Pechanga Casino is located off the I-15 in Temecula, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego.

The Poker Room is located on the 2nd Floor of the casino, and upon arriving and opening the poker room's doors, one cannot help but be impressed.

Lots of Tables..estimated at about 60-70 or so. Cash games on the left, tournaments on the right. Other than the Bicycle Club and Commerce Casino in L.A., I can't think of a bigger poker room in SoCal.

Pechanga offers 2 Daily tournaments each day, Monday - Thursday, and a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning one as well. Buyins for these tournaments are usually very reasonable...$25-$50 buy ins, though they do often bigger tournaments on Friday and Saturday Nights, with $100 - $200 buy ins.

Cash games-wise, you'll mostly find Hold Em. This is one of the last remaining casinos that offers 2-4 Limit. Also they offer 3-6, 4-8, 8-16 as well as 1-2 NL, 2-5 NL, and 5-10 NL and some Omaha's as well. They also will offer some bigger games on request, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. Some of you on-line players who normally play for micro stakes might like the 2-4 L here..they even reduce the drop to only $2-$3 on the 2/4 level.

There are now five other Poker rooms in a 20 mile radius of Pechanga: The new Pala casino, Pauma, Harrah's Rincon, Valley View, and Lake Elsinore Card Room, all of which will be reviewed shortly. However Pechanga remains the King. Now, and probably forever

Grading:

Poker Room: A. Nothing too fancy, but visually very impressive. Everything a Poker player could want. Only complaint is they never offer Deepstack tourneys. Then again it is hard to find these in Indian casinos..you have to go to Lake Elsinore Card Room up the road a bit to find deepstacks.

Dealers/Staff: B. Some very good dealers, but I have found the Poker room managers to be uncaring or indifferent towards the players. I have played in well over 100 tournaments over the past few years there, and have yet to find a bad dealer. The location, room, dealers and waitress staff make the place..certainly not those that run it.

Strength of Players: 6/10. Probably the toughest players in the area. That's not to say there aren't some bad players there. (there are) If you drive about 20 minutes to tiny Pauma casino, you can find some of the weakest players anywhere. Lots of locals play at Pechanga, as well as L.A. people who come up for the day.

Overall, a very nice area to visit, and a great place to play poker!

Nice read
Binions seems better.

Pechanga is my favorite poker room here in Southern California. nice place, gorgeous poker room, soft tables.