Player's Stories

Reviewing Las Vegas Poker Rooms - Boulder Station
By Gone West

BOULDER STATION ROCKS!

Make your first hand a winner! This is the old mantra of the numerous poker pundits that I have come across in the card world. You know the philosophy. Sit down, fold until you can get pocket Kings or Aces and then easily win a hand so that you are now rolling along the river of profit. This is a pretty good guideline for beginning your session. It works great as long as you get those big pairs and then no one floats down the river with their raft of two pair of 3's and 8's and sticks the old philosophy right into the old eyeball. However, I decided to begin my review of poker rooms with a winner, Boulder Station.

I know, I know! Where the hell is Boulder Station? For those of you not in Vegas, the Stations Casinos are spread all over town and generally attract the local action. This action, otherwise known as, those who work on the Strip and wouldn't be caught dead there after their shift is over, has been very lucrative for the Stations organization. Boulder Station rests along Boulder Highway about twenty minutes away from the Strip and Downtown and just up the street from Sam's Town. The best bet is take a twenty minute cab ride over and back. However, if you are a serious player, those twenty minutes will feel like Captain Kirk just beamed you there.

ACTION - Boulder Station is a ten table room that caps out at a $4-8 spread. I can already hear those $15-30 Bellagio players giggling from their rock hard seats next to the omniscient Nolan Dalla. By the way Nolan, the Don Johnson scruff, OUT OF STYLE! Oh, but this is what makes this little Station worth the stop on the poker train. Yes, Yes, this room has just what you need for those low-limit gladiators. The standard $4-8 Hold'em and the ever-menacing $1-5 Stud are available. Usually, there are several Hold'em tables going and the action is pretty strong. The stud game needs to be requested, but will opened if players can be found. This room also does not have any weekly tournaments. It is just cash and more cash.

At the Hold'em tables, the flop usually comes at the price of six or seven callers and you better have the stone nuts to take the pot. Plus, it is only a $2 call to see the flop. So you better toss the Sklansky bible right out the window. However, good and tight play will usually scare you up about $100-$125 in winnings in a few hours.

The real secret at this train stop rests in the game that fills up most of the tables in the room. See, the Boulder Station sits a $4-8 Omaha High game that is out of this world. Although a great number of rooms will spread an Omaha High/Low, it is nearly impossible to find any regular action across the Meadows for Omaha High Only. Well look no further, because Boulder Station has it at any time you feel the need to blow through a few hundred. I know you poker ninjas are saying, "This guy is nuts, I graduated from kiddie poker. Why would I bother with a $4-8 game?" Well son, this is not Granny's Saturday afternoon tea party. There is so much action in this game, I have to go to confession every time I finish. Most people buy in for $100 rack of white and blow through that in about twenty minutes. The most common dealer screech is not "Floor on 5", it is "rack of white on 5". I heard one dealer call it the "crack-cocaine" of poker. I do not see many Omaha High games, but I have witnessed several crack deals in this town and I think the pace for re-buying is about the same. It is not uncommon to walk out with $400-500 bucks in a good night. While reviewing this room for this article, I watched a nice gentlemen bury a table for $800 in ninety minutes. Don't believe me! Just take a cab from your $10-20 game over to Boulder Station. I guarantee the next cab you fall into will be the next morning.

There are some detractors to the action at Boulder Station. First, $4-8 is as high as they are going and frankly the room staff knows they do not need to go higher. If you want bigger stakes starting out, you will have to go somewhere else. Also, Boulder Station is a local casino and you do get all that is great and all that is bad about local settings. There is a great deal of what I like to call the "Raisin Mafia". These no-prostate, drive through a crowded fruit market, I played poker with the Indians while settling this land, elder statesman are really only a genuine problem during times when the games are slowest and they can all sit around and discuss their ungrateful children. On weekends and evenings there is enough mix of players at enough tables to make lemonade out of these sour lemons.

Overall, I give the Action at Boulder Station a pair of Jacks. It is a strong starting hand, but you may still have to fold on the flop. Just make sure not to fire them at the dealer's head.

SERVICE QUALITY - This is where the poker room at Boulder Station really shines and gets this reviewer's rank of "Pocket Kings". First, the wait service is excellent in the poker room. There is a regular waitress for the room and they are quite quick with your drinks. However, I do believe that you have to pay for alcohol, an obvious drawback. I do not drink while playing so this is not a concern for me, but I do get a nice big coke for free and not one of those shot-glass sodas you get at some places.

The extra dealers and staff regularly scour the room picking up trash and emptying ashtrays. This is a nice touch and makes for a pleasant atmosphere. Inevitably, there is always a poker gear guy. You know the one with the cigarettes, lighter, personal fan, six bottles of water, a half-eaten crunch bar, disc player, and two racks of chips more than he needs. The staff acknowledges these people and give them every extra run-by they can manage. The ever-vigilant staff definitely keeps these people from leaking all over the floor and the table. I guess that is what really ups the ante on this staff. Instead of recognizing the players' neurosis and then bitching about it while taking their smoke break, this staff tries to anticipate what is going to happen and then makes the moves required to limit the damage or keep the games going.

From the minute you walk up to the desk, the staff is professional and courteous. The floor personnel are not shy about getting a game rolling when the lists get lengthy. They have a complete grip on the players, what they can fill and what they can't. The first time I walked in there, the floor man promised me a game in fifteen minutes. In ten, he created an eight-person Hold'em game out of a waiting list of four. Good luck getting that kind of attention from some of the big boys in town. Nothing is worse than getting all pumped up to play and then having to wait two hours to get into a game. The dealers are "lifers" who know what they are doing and really keep a tight game going especially when white chips are flying all over the place. The dealers make strong attempts to keep players acting in turn and always call the number of players left after each round. This may not be necessary for a good game, but it does prove the level of discipline and care put in by the card droppers.

The room has also installed several tables with automatic shufflers. If you have not witnessed these modern marvels, just hang tight. I have feeling that most rooms are going to switch to these very soon. These machines really keep the table moving at a good pace, because people are prevented from asking for a new deck every hand, the dealer's shuffling technique is not regularly critiqued by some clown who dealt the Women's League Summer Bridge Tourney back in New York six years ago, and the dealer is freed up to sort out the pot and money buy-ins while the shuffler is doing its' thing. When the dealer is ready, the cards are too. With a conservative estimate, I figure a table can get five or six extra hands an hour, even in an Omaha game.

The only service drawbacks I could find at all involved the Omaha games. Anyone who has played Omaha knows that this game is a River game, with a capital "R". Thus, tempers tend to escalate when the river floods a player's rack. Cards tend to land in very strange places after someone has just hit the only card in the deck for the sixth time against a made flush. I feel that there is a little too much card tossing and player versus player commentary. It did not seem that the staff was concerned about this and frankly does not do anything to limit these antics. It is easy to become jaded after the King of Spades has bounced off your dome a few thousand times, but it is still worth a warning or two to keep the game fun rather than some bad soap opera.

COMPS - Using your player's card, which is known as the "Boarding Pass", you generate poker dollars at a pretty fair rate. I am not quite sure what the math is, but I did not hear anyone complaining that they were getting ripped off. The nice thing is that you can use they print out for you at any of the restaurants in the casino. Boulder station has the usual casino food stops plus franchisers such as Burger King. It is so nice to walk up to the counter at Burger King and get a Whopper rather than choking down the jockey's special at the coffee shop. The quality of the meals is all over the board, but you do get your options. Another nice touch is that your earned bucks stay in the system so you can easily build up a bank. I accumulated $30 worth in about four sessions. However, unlike your points for non-poker action, I do not believe that you can redeem your poker bucks at other Station locations. I have to give the comps system at Boulder Station a rank of pocket Queens. Worth the raise!

MISCELLANEOUS - Boulder station simply has to be part of the best bad beat jackpot in the city. The stations casinos offer a $100,000 Hold'em bad beat progressive for all of their casinos with a poker room. It only takes four 5's beaten to get the money. This standard is steep but fair considering what the amount is and the number of rooms involved. Boulder also has a local room bad beat for Aces full of sixes beaten in Hold'em and four Jacks beaten in Omaha. Last time I checked, there was ten thousand dollars plus in each of these jackpots. Trust me when I tell that there are more stipulations to winning these jackpots than trying to get a government contract for the exploitation, I mean rebuilding of Iraq. However, none of these exceptions are any different than all the other rooms in the country and if you hit this hand, I would make them pry the cards out of your cold, dead fingers before conceding that you did not win.

Another nice touch is that the room gives $100 to anyone who hits a royal flush. No, it does not happen that often, but when it does, you want a little recognition. I only ever have hit one in my life and all I got was a nice hand from the guy who had the flush. Whoopee! There are also seasonal promotions like tickets for a money drawing and football squares for four of a kind. The casino is always coming up with something extra which just makes playing there an outstanding experience. I have to give the miscellaneous stuff a pair of Kings also. The little perks are plenty and appropriate. I can play anywhere there is a chip and a chair, but I like being at places where the casino recognizes that poker players are different and then tries to accommodate those needs whenever they can.

The location of the room is right inside the front doors surrounded by glass right next to the Burger King and just a few steps away from an enormous sports book. The room has televisions all over showing the main games of the day. Another nice touch is that you can hear your name through most of the casino and don't have sit around like a dope waiting to get into a game. I firmly believe that there is a better system then forcing people to wait around the room like the poor begging for alms just to hear your name called. The only time I want to hear my name called is when I am a Defendant. I have a few suggestions to improve this system, but I will save that for another article.

JOKER - I can sum up Boulder Station in one simple anecdote. I was in a late night game and the room was empty save one table. The extra dealer went around the table and took a breakfast order for everyone, regular and stranger. Then, she called in the order and went down and picked it up for everyone. That is class. Most late night dealers glare at you every chance they can get so that you will leave. Not Boulder, they want you to play right through to the free morning donuts.

On the river, I have to give the Poker Room at Boulder Station a "Nut Flush". It is a winner most of the time and it is very hard to beat. The limit spread is low and those of you who play higher games will be turned off. But, playing in this room is simply worth the trek off the Strip. I found very few flaws with the room and the operation. Boulder Station should be proud of what they have going out in there little corner of the Meadows. I for one will be returning from time to time.