Room Quality: These are some of the nicer rooms in Reno. Many other rooms are tiny, but the Sierra's are spacious. They offer two queens or a king bed, a nice writing desk, plus a couple of decent chairs. The bathrooms are unremarkable, but larger than most. Your spouse won't get too annoyed if you keep walking in while he or she is getting dolled up for the evening. They have iron and ironing boards. If you want a business-style hotel, the Sierra is one of the better choices in town. If you want a newer room, pay for the Summit level. Otherwise, your room, while clean, will look very 80s.

	Check prices for this property with Expedia and HotelDiscount.com. Weekday $60-110 Discount Weekday $50-70 Weekend $100-150 Discount Weekend $80-130 What does discount mean?

Service Quality: Good for the business person. The Sierra is a little city unto itself. Their shops and services should have everything you need, which is good because it's not within walking distance of anything. Since this is Reno's biggest hotel, check-in can be slow, and the hotel can be overflowing with conventioneers.

What You Get Bottles of in the Bathroom: Shampoo/conditioner and lotion, so we aren't so scaly all the time.

Clientele: A lot of businessmen and conventioneers. It draws the mid-40 executive type.

How's the Pool? It's a good pool, but we have seen it packed in the summer. Other than concrete, a few big mattresses and a little grass, there's not much to see. There are some trees for shade, but in the dead of summer, that space is grabbed quickly.

Table Games: Seventy tables make this just about the biggest room for live action. They have all kinds of games, including blackjack, roulette, craps, Let It Ride, Mini-baccarat, Three-card poker and a few screwy variations.

Bet Minimums: Most everything is $5. Mini-bac can be $10. Craps is 3x4x5x odds for five bones. Roulette has $1 chips, although on a slow day they can break out 50-cent signs.

Machines: Thousands of these crazy things. They have video and reels slots popping up like chicken pox on a five-year old. The video poker is not so hot. There are some full-pay machines--even nickel VP--and they were advertised as such, but the majority of VP is pretty poor.

Cocktails? Decent. This casino is huge and it's easy to be invisible to the lovely ladies with the booze. At the tables, you can expect slightly better service, but it's still not up to the level of service downtown.

Who Gets Comps? The Grand Sierra slot club is mediocre, about on par with other casinos in town, at 0.1% payback for slots and 0.05% payback for VP. At the tables, play $25 a hand or more to get noticed.

Cafe Sierra: This is the coffee shop, which is nothing special and prides itself on making solid coffee shop cuisine, like eggs, fries, burgers, chicken fried steak and fish and chips. It's open 24-hours and it serves the usual coffee shop fare like sandwiches, breakfasts, pastas. The breakfasts aren't too bad.

Charlie Palmer Steak: Man, this place is expensive. It's also, like, the fanciest steakhouse in town. Is it good? You bet. The steaks are tender and meaty and the room is elegant without being flashy. You can get as good a steak at the Peppermill, but you have to be ready for the dazzle there. Here, it's just about the meat.

Dolce Enoteca: A high-end Italian restaurant that serves a traditional menu with a lot of style, or at least what the folks in Hollywood call style. In fact, this is a transplant from Los Angeles. The wine list is extensive, and they are proud of it.

Fin Fish: When he's not cooking your steak, Charlie Palmer is serving you seafood in this room. It's every bit as crazy looking at the steakhouse is understated with driftwood all over the walls. Perhaps the ambience they are going for is trawling net. It is not meant to be as swank, though, and seating is more casual. There is an oyster bar to go along with the fancier crab and lobster.

The Lodge Buffet: Above average, and a decent value. This is a big buffet with a big selection. Breakfasts feature made-to-order omelets and a decent selection of fruit and pastries. At dinnertime, the fresh meats and decent salad bar come out to play.

Bowling: A huge, state-of-the-art facility. Not all of us get to bowl at the National Bowling Stadium, so we have to go here and pretend.

Crystal Lounge: The lounge off the casino floor has live music six days a week, including piano early in the week, and crooning later on. They also have nice comfy chairs seven days a week. Can you guess which day you'll find us there?

Driving Range: Drive golf balls into the Sierra's ugly pond from their artificial turf at the water's edge. It's probably huge with the businessmen who stay here and have no idea how else to let off steam.

Fun Quest: Reno's biggest arcade is in the basement of the casino. It's enormous and they have loads of games in the Super Arcade. Plus, there's all the multi-player stuff like air-hockey, laser-tag, and multi-player video machines.

Go Karts and Thrill Rides: Out back, the Sierra has an honest-to-goodness go-kart track and some goofy carnival-style thrill rides. The big one is a giant swing. The go-karts are cool, and if you hang around enough you can sort of get woozy from the fumes.

Grand Theater: The Grand Theater has a lot of touring acts with stars of yesteryear. See, that's a nice way of saying has-beens like Queensryche and Neil Sedaka.

Number of TVs: This is Reno's biggest sports book by far. They have five smaller screens to go with one 9'x12'.

Number of Seats: 400 seats in total. About 300 have writing desks and individual TVs. These are intended for the race bettor, but nobody gets worked up if a sports bettor sits there. All of the seats are pretty dang comfortable.

How Many Betting Windows? A ton, probably about 20, but they aren't all open at once. On a busy day you might find ten working.

Snack Bar? The Johnny Rocket's is right next door in case you're hankering an overpriced burger.

Minimum Wager: $2 for races and $5 for sports.

Other Notes: The sports book is plenty plush and a fun place to see a game. The walls feature a 350-foot mural and planes hang fromt he ceiling to honors the air races Reno hosts every year. It's cool to look at for about five minutes.

Number of Tables: Seven tables in the room.

Comfort of Chairs: Average comfort; just your standard poker room chair.

Closed Room or Open to Casino? Open to the casino floor, but this place never gets very loud.

Game Spreads and Limits: They have $4-8 Hold 'Em. They also have a half-kill No Limit game, usually at $1-$2. The no-limit is the game that is most frequently going.

How Crowded is the Room? Not a crowded room, usually only three to four tables will be going and the wait on weekends is minimal when there is one. They're definitely eager to get you into a game.

How Good Are the Players? Some decent players, and the games might be a little tight. But then some knucklehead businessman comes down from his room after seeing poker on Tv and shares his cash with everyone.

What Else Do I Need to Know? They have daily tournaments that are pretty cheap to buy into.