Room Quality: The rooms aren't in the casino building, they are across the street in the old Nevadan. They are all small rooms; clean, minimally decorated, and without good views. Bathrooms are small, but fully functional. They basically look like what they are: old hotel rooms with fresh paint and carpets. Perfectly fine, but not as nice as new, larger rooms. And the bathrooms are tiny.

	Check prices for Reno hotels with Travelworm, Expedia or HotelDiscount.com. Weekday $40-$70 Discount Weekday $30-$60 (if you can find a discount) Weekend $70-$110 Discount Weekend $60-$90 What does discount mean?

Service Quality: Fair service. In the Cal-Neva you're on your own and most everything has a do-it-youself feel. Check-in is almost always a quick process.

What You Get Bottles of in the Bathroom: Shampoo/conditioner, and a fat lip if you don't like it.

Clientele: A wild mix of gamblers and cheapskates. You'll find all age groups here, the only thing you won't find is anyone pretending to be the leisure class. These are your hard-working, hard-playing types. For some reason, it seems to be a favorite among Canadians. Maybe it's because they're used to slighty run-down places.

How's the Pool? It's nonexistent, that's how it is.

Free Shuttle: They don't appear to have an airport shuttle so you better sneak on some other downtown ride.

Table Games: The Top Deck used to be a hideaway but now it's just as crowded as the main floor. And just as expensive! Cheaper games are available at Western Village and sometimes Circus Circus. Upstairs, they also have blackjack. On the main floor, look for blackjack, craps, 3-card poker, roulette and Pai-Gow.

Bet Minimums: $3 single deck blackjack with double on ten or eleven only (Boo!), $3 craps with 3x4x5x odds, $3 Let It Ride and 3-card poker , 50-cent chips at roulette, with a $2 minimum bet. Pai Gow is $5. In the summers, those minimums may go up.

Machines: Some truly ancient slots where the reels are getting sort of yellow. Loads of the old dollar machines, especially. There are also plenty of the newer money-sucking devices. The video poker is excellent. Plenty of full-pay machines. Not all VP is full pay, but a lot are; just poke around.

Cocktails? Hooray for fast drink service. The cocktail waitresses aren't always knockouts, but you won't have time to look anyway, since you'll be too busy sucking down free booze. It comes fast and furious most of the time.

Who Gets Comps? They have a slot club and if you sign up you're likely to get some mailings for a little play. Even at our nickel level we have been offered free rooms. Some tracked table play will earn you some comps at slow times.

Casino Grill: The 50s diner theme is bewildering and poorly done. The burgers, shakes and fries are slightly okay.

Copper Ledge Steakhouse: Traditional surf and turf with almost no pretension, just food, seats and tables, and a salad bar. A good deal is the $9 prime rib special. They advertise the joint as having a unique ambience, and that's a good way to put it without pretending it's fancy. It is only open at night.

Pasta Shoppe: Good thing they added the "pe" to the end of shop or you'd think this wasn't a really classy, old-timey place. The food is quite generic, but the servings are generous and the prices are ridiculously low. The ambience is, well, let's just say they have cafeterias in Italy too. Expect spaghetti, fettucine and other very typical dishes, but only for dinner and only Wednesday through Sunday.

Snack Bars: We would describe the two snack bars the same way our former girlfriends described us; cheap and greasy. The difference between this place and dating us, though, is that if you go to the snack bar with low expectations you'll walk away satisfied. The menu consists of burgers and their typical companions. A Hot dog and a beer for $2.50 is a longstanding favorite.

Top Deck: Prime rib for cheap or a whole bunch of other coffee shop staples is what you get her on the top floor. It's a cramped, unattractive restaurant, but the food is solid American fare. You'll be hard pressed to spend more than $12. Usually, it's $7-$9 for dinner. On weekend nights, expect to wait a while to get in this joint.

Arcade: The second floor has loads of pinball and video games for the young, the young-at-heart and the old-at-heart who like to kick kids playing pinball and video games.

Number of TVs: Twenty-eight for sports and twenty-six for race, plus sixteen more at the adjacent bar. They're all just regular old TVs, and we kept expecting a rerun of "Welcome Back Kotter" to show up on one of them.

Number of Seats: About 120 below-average seats with tiny writing tables are meant for sports bettors, and another 85 serve the pony aficionados. The race bettors get the worst of the deal. They only get nine seats with individual TVs, but there are enough TVs up on the wall to cover all the races.

How Many Betting Windows? Eight each for sports and race, but chances are they're never all open at once. The signboards aren't electronic, but they're still fun to watch. They're on tracks and slide up and down to reveal two layers of boards. If you've ever seen the movie "The Sting," it looks like those.

Snack Bar? The "Sports Deli" serves up hot dogs, tacos and the like.

Minimum Wager: $5 for sports, $2 for racing

Other Notes: There's really not much to recommend this room over others in town, but it's a nice place to take a break from the hot-and-heavy table action elsewhere in the Cal-Neva.

Number of Tables: Five tables with a one or two tables usually going on.

Comfort of Chairs: They're average, but they'll feel real comfortable if you're winning.

Closed Room or Open to Casino? An open room, upstairs and set off a bit from the action, so it's not too noisy.

Game Spreads and Limits: Loads of low-limit games, all Texas Hold'Em at $3-$6, and maybe a cheap No Limit game on the weekend.

Beginner Games or Classes? No, but they do have some bad players in the Hold 'Em games. Why not win while learning? They have a sign saying they will teach anyone who comes in how to play if they ask, but we've never seen anyone ask.

How Crowded is the Room? This room is rarely crowded. Even though they have five tables, they usually don't run more than three.

Comps? There are food discounts for four hours of play, and a poker room rate for several hours of play.

How Good Are the Players? Average, with some easy marks. There are some good players who stand shoulders above the rest, but mostly it's a beatable crowd packed with some real nutjobs.

What Else Do I Need to Know? They take a 10% rake and $3.00 max which is great for the low-limit player. They have many tourneys each day and it almost completely kills the cash games, which start up again afterwards.