There are two main benefits to living in a state that allows for cardrooms: (1) plenty of local options and (2) some of the rooms are close enough to visit in succession on the same day.
With this in mind, I took a recent Tuesday to engage in a Bay Area cardroom crawl.
My plan for the day: I'd start before breakfast (since most of these places have restaurants that offer tasty egg dishes), and hit as many cardrooms as I could before the afternoon rush hour. I challenged myself to play at least one different game at every stop. My fixed budget for the excursion: $500.
The morning began around 8 a.m. at Lucky Chances in Colma. Here, while seated at a table of $3/$6 Limit Texas Hold 'Em, I wolfed down a Denver omelet and some dry wheat toast while waiting for decent cards. To describe the action as "sleepy" would be an understatement; during the first hour of play, one of my opponents dozed off at the table.
The cards weren't much better. I lost my initial $100 buy-in after being rivered in three consecutive hands. Then I lost another $50 after that (hey, even gambling writers can tilt).
My next stop was in San Bruno: Artichoke Joe's. I've had lousy poker luck here over the years, so I instead gravitated toward California Blackjack (which is a variation of the traditional game that complies with state regs that say the house can't win). Within minutes (thanks to two well-timed blackjacks), I had doubled my $100 buy-in and walked away.
The situation improved even more at the third stop on my outing, Bay 101 Casino in San Jose. I killed 10 minutes at an EZ Baccarat table (where I won $16) while waiting for a seat at a lively $2/$3/$5 game of No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em. Once I got my spot, I figured I'd stay and play through a cheeseburger lunch. Then I realized that two players at the opposite end of the table were terrible, and I lengthened my session to deprive them of their chips.
I turned my $300 buy-in into $627 (and could have won more, if not for a bad beat on the last hand that cost me a $115 pot).
My Peninsula/South Bay card room crawl ended at the area's newest casino: the uber-hip Casino M8trix, on the other side of the 101 in San Jose. A friend had suggested I try Pai Gow Tiles. I had prepared for this moment for weeks, studying the tile combinations and practicing online. Nothing, however, prepared me for bad luck: I lost my entire $200 buy-in in less than 20 minutes.
Back in the car, I did the math: Eight hours, four cardrooms, two meals and a net gain of $93. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday at all.
Matt Villano is a freelance writer. E-mail: 96hours@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mattvillano
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