San Diego BJ

Recently while playing poker at Pechanga poker room (very nice room, by the way), I noticed they had set up a few BJ tables in the corner. I wandered over there to see what the hell was going on. Not much at that time, there was only one player.

The game was double deck, 10-300, double after splitting, no surrender, no resplits of Aces. The dealer stuck a cut card in the pack about 2/3 to 3/4 down from the top. The dealers seem to rotate from their poker table dealing duties. Every time a new dealer comes to the table he or she shuffles the existing pack and starts a new shoe. A new dealer can arrive at any time, there seems to be no set time for dealer rotation.

I don't know if any of you guys think this is interesting or not, just thought I would post the info.

Thanks for sharing! I was there a month ago and did not know that this game existed!

But they gave me late surrender.

I know where a better game than this one exists. But I refuse to be its death knell.

Another quick look this weekend while playing poker -

Rules and such are as stated (there is no surrender).
BJ pays 3:2. Dealer hits soft 17.
A machine shuffles the 2 decks.
They stick the stop-card in the 2 decks about 1/2 to 2/3 from the top.
Still very few players, or none at all, while poker tables very busy.
You can play 2 hands for 20 bucks each.
Dealer-change times unpredictable.
There is always a "supervisor" standing there watching player(s) & dealer.
Predicted life span for this game if popularity does not increase: gone by end of this year or sooner.

"you can play their BJ tables in a non-smoking poker room!" This is on the FRONT PAGE of their mailer, the page where your mailing address appears. They really want you guys to go there, I guess. I will be observing this closely to see if it works.

What I really want to see is improvement of the quality of their food offerings for the poker players, instead of all this BJ foolishness.

The few poker dealers I have spoken to are not particularly enthusiastic about dealing blackjack as part of their duties. I guess blackjack players are not as consistent tippers as poker players.

There is an escalator that I take up from the casino main floor to the Poker room, and I have noticed they have several 6 deck games nearby that also do not seem to be very popular. Maybe it's because they allow smoking there, but also they look to be slower than the upstairs games, because the dealers have to shuffle the 6 decks by hand.

Whatever it is, the casino seems to want to increase their BJ business somehow, so maybe a "smoke-free blackjack pit" in the poker room is their solution for now. The nearby Pala Casino has better rules for BJ, I am told, but I have no idea whether or not that has helped Pala's business.

The bingo parlor on the 2nd floor is very popular and busy, it seems that many old folks really like the room and game conditions at Pechanga. I hear several poker players saying that their parents are over there while the kids are playing poker (weekends).

Poker cash games are busy but no really big games (like Ocean's 10-20 NLHE-no max buy-in game), and low buy-in poker tournaments are thriving on the days I have been there.

The six "smoke free" BJ tables in the poker room still not very busy, but seem to have improved a little from last month. Several signs throughout casino promoting them. They want you to play there.

Poker is very good here. Tournaments are reasonably priced. Badbeat jackpot for no limit is Aces full of Jacks beaten by quads. Was over 30K last time I checked.

As for BJ, no more 2 decks. Now has 5 tables of CSM's and one table of non-machine shuffle. $10-$300. H17,DAS,no RSA, no surrender. Non-smoking since it's in the poker room.