I have returned from Deadwood. And I had no idea it was the beginning of Bike Week in Sturgis and I would be surrounded by literal Hell's Angels. No problems at all.
The games: despite the crowds not many were open, some were still doing the hygiene theater but no one was forced to wear masks or anything other than making you use hand sanitizer when arriving at the table. Partitions were up between seats in a few places which effectively reserved two spots for each player. That can be useful.
With a couple of exceptions table max is $100. Rules are H17, no surrender nearly everywhere, and 6D pen was quite good and dealer dependent, down to a half deck in some places, as was the pen on the rare 2D games. If $100 max, 2 hands is OK for you I suppose it's not the worst environment. There are some playable sidebets in town (for very low limits), but those are for they who do the math. There are also a couple of electronic opportunities that will provide minimum wage for a solo player, and possibly much more under other circumstances.
There was only one heat incident for me, I hit a game very hard very quickly, heard the whispers and phone calls, then tipped my hat and colored out. Being they probably don't see a lot of counters in Deadwood if they catch you there is a chance you will get a security guard who has never dealt with it before, thinks you are a criminal and treats you like one, so try to avoid incidents.
The food and drink isn't very varied. Best was at a place called the Eagle (no it was not "that kind" of Eagle bar, just a regular bar & grill!) Culturally: you may be surprised to see entire stores devoted to [political], t-shirts, jackets, posters, campaign flags all about [political], and [political] is enthusiastically discussed at the tables so if you are not a fan of [political] you may feel distressed. I did take the trips to see Mt. Rushmore and Devil's Tower, both were very impressive and provided a welcome escape from a week of low-stakes grind. Glad I went, but I won't have to go again for a while.
