The California Grand Casino brings you your favorite card games at our East Bay casino! Voted the Best Casino in the East Bay 7 years in a row, the California Grand Casino continues to be the oldest continuously operating poker room in the world. The California Grand Casino opened its doors in 1854 as a hotel, saloon, and Wells Fargo Pony Express stop. Since then, the poker action has never stopped.
In 2009, we opened a new facility that is open 24 hours a day, all year long for fun and action. With widescreen TVs, a 19-table gaming area, full bar, smoke-free facility, and free Wi-Fi, you will never miss out. It’s a great place for you to have fun, relax, and learn new games with friends after work or by yourself on a day off. We offer Poker, Hot Action Black Jack, Three Card Poker, EZ Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, and now, Face Up Pai Gow Poker with the lucky Fortune Bet. Check out our game pages to learn more about our fast-paced games and the big payouts.
If you get hungry while playing, check out our Grand Café. We serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our friendly staff and dealers will make sure to enhance your experience every step of the way.
Learn more about our games and new player coupons. California Grand Casino is Your Best Bet in the Bay Area!
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The California Grand Casino offers several popular casino games for players in California. You will have the ultimate experience playing your favorite casino games. Some of our most popular games are Hot Action Blackjack, EZ Baccarat, Three Card Poker, and Pai Gow Poker. Learn more about which game is your best bet!
Hot Action Blackjack
Blackjack is a game with several variations, and Hot Action Blackjack is one of them. We offer bets that pay up to 200-1. With a bet as low as $5, you can win up to $1,000 on a dealer bust.
There are lots of other ways to win. We add jokers to the deck and you will get paid 4-1 if your first two cards are jokers.
EZ Baccarat
Enjoy the baccarat experience without worrying about the 5% commission charged when a player wins a Bank Hand wager. EZ Baccarat combines simple gameplay and a low-house edge to give you the best chance of winning. We also offer bonus bets that pay up to 40-1.
Three Card Poker
Our Three Card Poker game has better odds than Vegas. You can see one of the dealer cards before you act, and you can win up to 1000-1 on our bonus bets.
Pai Gow Poker
Have you had a chance to experience the excitement of playing Pai Gow with a fully wild joker? Our game rules offer better odds than Vegas. The California Grand Casino’s Pai Gow Poker game runs 24/7, and the joker is always wild.
Enjoy Your Favorite Casino Game Today!
If the urge to play your favorite casino game is calling, you can answer the call with California Grand Casino’s new player coupon. Visit our Promotions page to receive a new player coupon.
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We have games inside and in our outdoor climate controlled facility, together with a waiting area, sign up board and food service areas where players can order food and beverages. Our waiting, gaming and dining areas are smoke free.
Come in for cash jackpots, great games, fantastic food and friendly service, all without having to leave the Bay Area. We have been voted Best Casino in the East Bay seven years in a row! We hope you have a great experience here.
The California Grand is located at Highway 680 and Highway 4 in the East Bay, near Walnut Creek and Concord, 20 minutes from Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Bridge.
Thank you to all our customers who have returned, our new customers, Contra Costa County for helping us to get open, and to all our staff that have worked very hard to make this a great and safe experience for everyone.
California cardrooms have evolved from the old western saloons of the Barbary Coast to modern casinos while keeping the basic idea that players have the chance to play card games against each other.
California Cardroom History
In the old west, saloons had card tables where players could play card games against each other, with the players taking turns being the dealer. The California Grand Casino has been offering games like this since it was a Pony Express Stop in the 1850s.
In 1872, California prohibited “banked” card games, usually understood to mean games where the players play against the house. For more than 100 years after that, regulation of cardrooms was left to local governments. At one point, there were over 300 card rooms operating in the state.
In the early 1980s, cardrooms also began to offer non-banked versions of card games such as Pai Gow Poker, which was invented at a cardroom in Los Angeles. In these games, players could take turns playing the dealer hand against the other players. While casinos of the type operating in Nevada and New Jersey are not allowed in California, the California courts determined that these “player-dealer” games where the players can wager against each other are legal. As a result, a unique structure took shape in California. The cardrooms supply the dealer, tables, chips and cards. And at least every two hands, the player-dealer position is offered to a different player. There also are independently owned companies whose employees take the player-dealer position when it’s offered. But every player at the table still has the right to take the player-dealer position and bet against all the other players. In 1997, the Gambling Control Act was adopted, which created the California Gambling Control Commission to regulate California cardrooms and it now also regulates these third party companies.
Today cardrooms exist in a special place for most Californians. The laws create a fun, competitive gaming atmosphere that is separate and distinct from a casino. As one player who travelled from out of state said: “At first, I thought it was strange having the dealer position offered around, but when I realized I could bet on the dealer hand and enjoy the odds, I loved it.”
What’s The Difference Between a California Card room and a Casino?
Unlike tribal or commercial casinos, cardrooms do not offer slot machines or video poker. But in addition to poker and Texas Hold’Em, they offer cardroom versions of newer card games like Blackjack, Baccarat, Three Card Poker and Pai Gow Poker. In these games, each person has the opportunity to wager on the dealer hand against the other players, rather than betting against the house.
How Many Card rooms are there in California?
There are 66 cardrooms operating in California ranging in size from one table to nearly 300 tables, offering many of the same games played all over the world, and hosting tournaments and events.
When you arrive at the California Grand Casino, we’ll greet you, ask you what game you want to play, and help you find a seat. We can explain the games to you.
New players also receive special bonuses. If you want to play poker, you can buy in for $20 and receive $50 in chips. For the player-dealer games, you will receive Four $10 Match Play Chips and $10 in free food on your first visit, with the same again when you return a second time. You can take both the poker and Match Play bonuses on your first visit. Come in and see why the California Grand Casino has been voted best casino in the East Bay for seven years in a row.
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/California-Cardroom-photo.jpg312468Steve Weirhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngSteve Weir2020-10-12 06:09:352021-10-05 08:37:26What is a California Cardroom?
The California Grand Casino is OPEN with Texas Hold ‘Em, Pai Gow Poker, Hot Action Blackjack, Three Card Poker and EZ Baccarat. We offer the best games and the Best Action in the Bay Area! We look forward to seeing you. New Players receive $100 in Match Play for table games and poker players get $50 in chips for $20.
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/games-banner-e1626785258917.jpg381666Alex Wilkinsonhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngAlex Wilkinson2020-06-04 20:41:362022-01-21 22:25:51When Will California Cardrooms Open?
The Bay Area has so much to offer that the City of Richmond is often overlooked. The climate is the Goldilocks climate of the Bay Area, not too hot and not too cold. That weather makes the turn along 35 mile long Richmond Bay trail excellent for Hikers, Bikers, Walkers and Photographers. The bay views give some people an entirely new perspective on the Bay Area’s majesty. If you are coming, don’t forget the pooch! Richmond has three separate dog parks so that bowser can get his exercise.
In town, Richmond features numerous breweries, coffee shops and art. There are 13 Museum and Art Centers in Richmond. The Rosie The Riveter memorial park and visitor center was started as a local art’s project. It was so successful it was turned into a national park site, featuring an outdoor walk that memorializes the contributions of women during World War II. Inside the Visitor center are fun and educational interactive exhibits that make a stop here fun for the whole family.
The Best Casino In Richmond, CA
The Casino that locals love is the California Grand Casino. In nearby Pacheco, California Grand has been around for over a hudred and fifty years and now features the latest in gaming action. A long time favorite, California Grand has been voted the best casino in East Bay each year from 2012 to 2019. Come see why people from Richmond, and all over the bay come to California Grand.
Just a short drive down highway 4, into Pacheco you will find the California Grand. If you’re looking to play check out our Directions page now and come by anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have free valet parking, great food and are smoke free. Our games include Texas Hold ?Em poker, Pai Gow Poker, Hot Action Blackjack, Three Card Poker and EZ Baccarat.
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Best-in-East-Bay-Aug-2019-scaled-1.jpg14402560Alex Wilkinsonhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngAlex Wilkinson2020-05-11 12:06:152021-12-04 05:34:18Casino Near Richmond, CA
Concord California, located in the East San Francisco Bay Area, is a city with a rich history and charming downtown area. Todos Santos Plaza is the center of the action in Concord, with a charming farmer’s market twice a week, live music on summer evenings, and a collection of excellent restaurants and bars open year-round.
The Concord Pavilion is a great place to see shows and concerts. Some of the Country’s biggest bands have played there, including Maroon 5, Incubus, and Santana.
One of the best things about Concord is its location. It’s only minutes from San Francisco and San Jose, giving residents and visitors plenty to do all around the Bay Area. It’s also just a few minutes away from the California Grand Casino, the Bay Area’s premier Cardroom.
California Grand Casino in Concord
At the California Grand Casino you also can play all your favorite table games, like Texas Hold’Em, Three Card Poker, Hot Action Blackjack, Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, and Omaha Poker. Many of the games have with better odds than Vegas. In our Three Card Poker game, you can see one of the dealer’s cards before you make a play bet. In our Pai Gow Poker, our joker is fully wild. In Hot Action Blackjack you don’t bust on 22 if the dealer also has a 22, and you can win up to 200 times your Buster Blackjack bet. Players win double their money if their first two cards are suited Aces. In EZ Baccarat, you can win up to 40 times your bet. California Grand Casino has been coted the best bay area Casino annually since 2012, and it’s the casino that locals love – stop on in!
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/about-banner.png4481400Alex Wilkinsonhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngAlex Wilkinson2020-03-11 23:26:062021-12-04 05:38:32What To Do In Concord California
Walnut Creek in San Francisco’s East Bay is full of outdoor sports opportunities, cultural activities and nightlife. This fun, family friendly town just minutes from San Francisco has great weather, great restaurants as well as The Lesher Center of the Arts, outdoor parks, open spaces and many golf courses and hiking trails throughout Contra Costa County. People in Walnut Creek lead an active lifestyle, and when they want a little fun and relaxation, they head to the California Grand Casino, which is just minutes away
At the California Grand Casino you also can play all your favorite table games, like Texas Hold ‘Em, Three Card Poker, Hot Action Blackjack, Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, and Omaha Poker. Many of the games have with better odds than Vegas. In our Three Card Poker game, you can see one of the dealer’s cards before you make a play bet. In our Pai Gow Poker, our joker is fully wild. In Hot Action Blackjack you don’t bust on 22 if the dealer also has a 22, and you can win up to 200 times your Buster Blackjack bet. Players win double their money if their first two cards are suited Aces. In EZ Baccarat, you can win up to 40 times your bet.
Casino Minutes away From Walnut Creek
The California Grand Casino is located only 10 minutes from downtown Walnut Creek and is just off of interstate 680
If you’re looking to play at the casino that locals love, check out our Directions page now and come by anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have free valet parking, great food and we are smoke free.
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/about-banner.png4481400Alex Wilkinsonhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngAlex Wilkinson2020-02-25 22:20:432021-12-04 05:30:39Casino Near Walnut Creek, CA
In part 1 we discussed different types of A2 hands, and what qualities we look at when comparing them.
In this part we will look at some other types of hands, and consider when and how they might be played.
Wheel Aces with High Potential
These are the bread and butter hands of Omaha 8 or Better. Hands with an A that can make a wheel for the low, while also having cards with some high potential. Hands like: AKT4 AQJ3 AJ46
A key concept with hands like these is that they will often play better with fewer players in the pot. As we discussed in part 1 the ability to make the nuts with a hand shoots dramatically up in importance as the pot goes multiway.
Hands in this category are excellent hands to play in pots with 2-3 total players.
High Hands
High hands, or hands that cannot make a low, are dangerous hands in Omaha 8. They will very rarely see a “clean’ flop where they know they will never have to split the pot with a low, and also rarely flop a hand so good that they can never be beat for high.
That’s why it’s important to only play the very best hands in this category, and be selective about when to play them.
Consider a hand like QsQcTs9h. In Omaha Hi this hand is a premium, hovering around the 5% rank. But in Omaha 8 or Better this hand is closer to the 35% mark, and it’s easy to see why. Let’s look at some flops:
Jh8h5s: This is one of the better flops for QQT9 where we flop an overpair an open ended straight draw, but against a reasonable 20% range of hands we are not even a favorite with only 43.5% equity.
K54: On common board types like this with a possible low and overcard our hand has only 30% equity and cannot continue.
J98: A slam-dunk board for us, and we still only have 75% equity against a reasonable range of 20% of hands.
We can actually graph how often our hand will be a favorite on the flop:
When evaluating high-only hands it’s important to remember a few points:
They don’t do well in two player pots
They don’t do well when your high cards will rarely draw to the nuts (IE AKQJ is much better than QJT9)
They don’t want to pay a high-price preflop because they will frequently have to fold on the flop
Low Cards Without an A
Hands like: 2345 2456 3568
These hands fit into a category that is similar conceptually to high hands. They will rarely hit a flop in a very strong way, and will often have to fold immediately on the flop. They perform poorly in two player pots.
Just like with high hands it’s important to be very selective with which of these we play, and when we play them.
We want to make sure we plays hands that can hit flops hard, and that we are in position to maximize when we do. This means only playing the lowest, most connected versions of these hands. Hands like 5678 are complete trash and should always be folded. And it also means only playing these cheaply before the flop in hands that are most likely to go multi-way.
Bay Area poker players love the California Grand Casino. We have the best poker and the liveliest action in all of Northern California. For seven years in a row, the California Grand has been voted “Best Casino in the East Bay” and “Best local Gaming in the East Bay” by the readers of the Bay Area News Group, which includes the San Jose Mercury News, the East Bay Times, the Marin Independent Journal and bayarea.com. That is why they call it Hot Action Poker.™
Our Bay Area casino is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with fast paced Hold’Em and casino game action. We focus on what everyone wants: great games and service. Our staff is friendly and experienced, and as a result our poker games here are considered by many to be the best and with the most action in the Bay Area.
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/rules-details.jpg434615Alex Wilkinsonhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngAlex Wilkinson2019-12-23 00:41:102022-02-07 04:45:53Preflop Play in Omaha 8 or Better Part 2
Omaha 8 or Better (frequently written shorthand as O8) is a Hi-Low split the pot version of Omaha poker played fixed-limit, meaning you can only bet in fixed increments. The low hand must be five cards of 8 or less, including Aces.
As with most poker games, preflop decision making is a very important part of winning Omaha 8 strategy. Generally, you want to play hands that can scoop, that is capture both the high and low best hands. You certainly want to play hands that can win the high, because in some hands there are not five cards for the low (8 or less). So it often does not make sense to play for the low, especially since low hands are more likely to tie, meaning even if you win the low you may get only 25% of the pot if someone has the same low hand.
Players used to Texas Hold’em might be surprised to learn that there are no “preflop charts” for Omaha 8. This is because Hold’em has 1,326 starting hand combinations whereas Omaha has 270,725 starting hands. It’s impossible to give a concise and accurate description of what hands to play from each position for Omaha 8. This makes Omaha 8 a very dynamic and interesting game with no concrete guidelines available each pre-flop situation can be truly unique and is an opportunity to apply your problem-solving skills to determine the best course of action.
Unlike most poker games you will find top players who disagree about what the best hands are preflop, and how they should be played. You’ll even find players who have been playing the game for many years who do not have a good grasp of what a “good” hand even looks like.
To give you an idea of what I mean let’s consider a few similar looking Omaha 8 hands:
Hand 1: As 2s 3c Kc
Hand 2: As 2s Qs Jc
Hand 3: As 2c 8c 9c
All of these hands are superficially quite similar. They all contain (A2) which is the 2-card combination most likely to make the nut low. However they vary dramatically in quality.
Hand 1 is a super-premium, top 1% hand. It’s double suited to both high cards, contains (A23) which is an extremely powerful low-draw, and (AK) which is a powerful high hand. It’s such a good hand that not raising with it, even when facing a raise, will almost always be a mistake. It’s a significant favorite over even a tight player only playing 10% of their hands.
Hand 2 is also a premium hand, but it doesn’t have the super-premium status of Hand 1. We see that the hand is no longer double-suited, but single suited. It also has an extra spade, which hurts its value somewhat. However, significantly, it’s still suited to the Ace, and it still contains strong high-card potential. This is a strong hand that should be usually played for a raise, however unlike Hand 1 it is not an equity favorite over a tight player’s opening range.
Hand 3 is one of the worst (A2) hands. (A2) is strong enough in Omaha 8 that even the worst (A2) hands will be playable in most situations, but this hand is far from a favorite over a tight opener’s range. Unlike Hand 1 and Hand 2, this hand has limited high potential. Our 9-high flush draw will always be in danger of domination, and neither the 8 nor the 9 make particularly powerful pairs. When we pair our A we are likely to be out-kicked.
In Part 2 we will look at other types of Omaha 8 hands, and how to evaluate them. Then finally, in Part 3 we will look at how the specific qualities of our hand can affect preflop decisions in non-obvious ways.
Bay Area poker players love the California Grand Casino. We have the best poker and the liveliest action in all of Northern California. For seven years in a row, the California Grand has been voted “Best Casino in the East Bay” and “Best local Gaming in the East Bay” by the readers of the Bay Area News Group, which includes the San Jose Mercury News, the East Bay Times, the Marin Independent Journal and bayarea.com. That is why they call it Hot Action Poker.™
Our Bay Area casino is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with fast paced Hold’Em and casino game action. We focus on what everyone wants: great games and service. Our staff is friendly and experienced, and as a result our poker games here are considered by many to be the best and with the most action in the Bay Area.
https://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/rules-details.jpg434615Alex Wilkinsonhttps://www.californiagrandcasino.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/logo.pngAlex Wilkinson2019-11-15 02:10:592022-02-07 04:45:45PreFlop Play in Omaha 8 or Better Part 1
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