Chip Shot
There’s nothing like the rush of stroking a 30-footer for birdie to take money out of your best friend’s pocket.
At least, that’s what we thought before we called it quits barely halfway through a particularly soggy round in October and headed over to the Muckleshoot Casino to try and salvage a good time out of a wet afternoon. Our friends at the Muckleshoot had been inviting us to come check out their new poker room for months, but the varying demands of work, family and a beautiful summer for golf had prevented us from making the short drive out Highway 18 to 164, until Mother Nature intervened.
By the time we walked out five hours later (a good two hours longer than we’d planned to play), our only question was, “Why didn’t we do that sooner?”
From the moment we stepped through the door — wet, hungry and with an unsatisfied competitive urge — we were tended to by some of the friendliest staff we’d encountered at a casino, who directed us to the Island Deli for a thick, grilled cheeseburger that took care of our most immediate need, and showed us to the Muckleshoot Casino poker room.
Let me just say this once — for anyone whose adrenaline pumps a little faster when there’s some action on the game, this poker room is a must. At more than 7,500 square feet, it’s the largest in the Northwest. That size allows the casino to comfortably fit 32 tables, meaning a wider variety of games, tournaments, blinds and limits to accommodate any player’s time or budget. If you’re like us — just walking in off the course with a few bucks in your pocket — there are tables with blinds as low as $1-2 and half-price food for players … a combination that, as we found, can keep you in the game for hours without stretching your budget.
Other tables range all the way up to $100-200 blinds, with games running the gamut from Omaha hi-lo and Seven-Card Stud to the ever-popular limit and no-limit Hold ‘Em. On top of the regular action, daily tournaments, bad beat jackpots and hourly $250 high-hand giveaways (plus $50,000 bi-monthly drawings) make it hard to spend an afternoon without winning something … even if it was just a great burger.
Now, we’re not necessarily ready to give up our golf game for a life at the tables … but we aren’t going to wait for Mother Nature to force us back, either.
