Isleta Casino Poker Room - Tournament Frenzy

To the south of Albuquerque's city limits lies The Isleta Casino & Resort, New Mexico's first reservation casino. Ever since its early days, poker has been a part of the action. The poker room is located at the far north end of the casino, next to the lounge and showroom. Although its poker room is not one of the bigger ones, it makes up for it by providing lots of action. Isleta is also the most smoker-friendly room in New Mexico with smoking allowed

Tournament Action

Every poker room in New Mexico tries to find its niche, and for Isleta it is constant tournament action. Every day of the week there are at least two tournaments and on weekends it rises to three. A link to their September schedule is here. Most all tournaments have a rebuy structure which keeps people playing and builds the winning pots. This can also create some unusual action and crazy results. The only no-rebuy tournaments offered are on Saturday and Sunday at 10AM. For those players who excel at tournament style play, one can get far or win in one tournament and finish just in time for the next one.

Personal blog notes

I went both Saturday and Sunday for the 10AM no-rebuy tournaments. Saturday, I performed like most times, and finished in the dead middle of the pack (16th of 33). I posted my best finish ever on Sunday as I came in 3rd place in a field of 23. One other note: I find the tournament structure at Isleta to be turbo in nature. They don' t raise the limits quickly, but at the tournaments I attended the starting chips were 800 and the blinds were 50/100. This made everyone have to act in more of a panic mode. I am happy for my 3rd place finish though, and look forward to more weekend tourneys at Isleta.