Notes from the Oceans Eleven Casino & Palomar Card Club

A few notes that I took for the OE / Palomar poker rooms:

• No post required when sitting as a new player in a hand out of big blind
• No dead button; it certain cases, the table will go three blinds in order to avoid a dead button.  In the specific example, the SB gets up & leaves table.  The would-be Big Blind posts the BB and sits as the Small Blind and the would-be UTG posts BB as the new Big Blind.  During the next hand, the Big Blind posts the BB normally, the Small Blind posts the SB normally and BTN also posts a SB.  Thereafter, future hands normalize.
• The bad beat jackpot requires both hole cards but not necessarily pocket pair to make qualifying quads; i.e. board of 3 3 3 8 8 qualifies if one player has 3 T (because the T kicker plays) and the other player has 8 8, etc.  As a result, the BBJ is typically $20-40,000 - smallish.  Aces full of Kings generally qualifies for the BBJ (Oceans Eleven for certain; not sure about Palomar Club)
• The tables are 9 max.
• The rake is $5 (for the 2/3 NLHE at least) every hand.  Flat fee.  No flop, no drop.  Stealing blinds *DEFINITELY* makes sense here because a simple BTN / CO raise nets $5.  Limping the BTN / CO puts your limp as the only pot on the flop (since the $5 gets dropped immediately, which makes up the SB + BB).
• They run a 1/1 $60(?) game, a 1/2 $100, 2/3 $300, 2/5 $1500...
• Again, the Blackjack offerings - in fact, any table game offerings [it seems] are interesting in what I suppose is all of California.  The casino charges a per-hand fee, $0.50, and have an outside contractor hired to bankroll the part of the "house."  If players so choose, they may take over the bank and play the side of the house for the same $0.50 fee per hand.  This rule seems to be universal within the non-Indian run casinos.
• Oceans Eleven has a huge room with LOTS and LOTS of tables.  It's not quite the Commerce, but it's certainly up to par with Charles Town...  somewhere around 40-60 tables.  The limit tables are in another room.
• Palomar Card Club is a small, home game atmosphere.  It has [at most] 8 tables, and they are must-move.  It was definitely a reg fest.  It should be noted that I will *NEVER* return to Palomar Card Club in future visits.  Simply put, it is not a very safe place.  Apparently, there are pimps and hoes right down the street, and the area is generally shady. 
• Palomar does not have points / etc., but they give you a $5 voucher for every day played more than an hour and a half.  You can use the voucher to get food from the local restaurants (i.e. Dominoes around the corner, or a sushi place) or purchase water @ $1 / bottle.
• For what it's worth, Poker Wiki has a comprehensive page on the California poker offerings.