Well I just came back from Artichoke Joe's, a Bay Area card room. My first time there. I had an awesome night. I played 3/6 and won $100 over about 2.5 hours. I needed some luck to do it, but it felt great.

The place is a little bit bigger than I thought. I had heard it was kind of dirty.. Maybe my standards are lower than the 2+2ers, but it seemed fine to me. Tons of tables running hold 'em and various other "california" card games like Pai Gow and some Blackjack variant. They had four 3/6 tables (lowest stakes they had tonight), and started a 5th shortly after my friend and I arrived. I waited about 15 minutes for a chair and unforntunately my friend had to wait about 30 minutes. They had 15/30. I don't remember anything higher than that being called. I don't think they had No Limit tonight, but people were talking about it.

The button pays a 3rd blind that goes to the rake ("button drop" I think this is called), and the small blind is taken for the rake. Both of those are "live blinds", meaning you get to see the flop for free if you're on the button in an unraised pot.

Dealers were competent and somewhat friendly. I didn't order any drinks, but the service seemed a little slow. The floor people knew what they were doing, and they handled more than a few situations where players were getting out of control.

Which brings us to the best part of Artichoke Joe's: the PLAYERS! Not that they were bad, just some great characters. One guy at my table was an ultra maniac. He raised and re-raised everything. He would do things like cap down to the river with unimproved pocket 3's or pocket 7's. And he CONSTANTLY asked the dealers "how much can I raise?". CONSTANTLY! (Yes this was limit). The dealers were always fed up with him. He would raise out of turn, blind raise, etc. The guy was totally nuts (and drunk). I watched him lose at least a couple hundred. He also caused the guy next to me to practically throw a temper tantrum at the table after he spiked his pocket 3's on the river. It was hilarious!

After the temper tantrum went bust, he stood up from the table and asked for his spot to be held. He never came back! After 30 minutes they removed his jacket and gave his seat to someone else. Craziness!

There was some verbal sparring going on between players at tables around us which the floor people had to attend to.

For my part, I rivered the same person 3 times. Rivered a flush, rivered an Ace pair, and then finally rivered two pair to crack his aces! The same guy! After his aces were cracked he was really pissed at me. He stood up and requested a table change! I think he just wanted to get away from me! I honestly felt bad for the guy.. He played his cards well, but I just got lucky and drew out on him.

I plan to return to AJ's and maybe play there on a semi-weekly basis.