Good luck! Oh yeah, no matter how close your hotel is to the cardroom, make sure you drive - it's not a place to be walking around, regardless of how it appears. There are 40-80 and below games going 24/7. If you go there, play at least 6-12, but probably 20-40 becuase the rake is too high at the small limits. They have the best games, staff, and food of any poker room around. Really, though, unless you can't play limit, Bay 101 is the Cat's Meow for poker. Hayward is in the East Bay, about 25 minutes from Bay 101 (up the 880 freeway). Of course, you don't have to play it that big if you don't want to. 1-2-2 blinds, 5 to open, but the game is usually killed or double killed, making the game play a lot bigger if you want it to. Better choice is to go to The Palace in Hayward. They have those capped buy in games, and the blinds are something like 3-5, I think. If you want smaller NL, then don't play at LC's. I don't play the game often enough to remeber, but you can call them and they'll tell you. The game is only spread on like Monday, Friday(?) and Saturday, I think. But Bay 101 will have zero problems filling these tables up, they literally don't start games during the middle of weekdays because they run out of tables. There was a 'recommended' 20 tip on dealer change at this game that I did because I do know we need dealers. I have heard that now they get down 20-40 blind games. The real shortage is not of whales/players but dealers/tables. It used to be blinds of 10-10-20, 40 to open, uncapped, of course. If you want to play big NL, you only have one choice: Lucky Chances.
