Richie Lopez was born on a military base in Ft. Lewis, Washington on December 5, 1971. On Christmas day with baby in tow his family returned to their hometown of San Jacinto, California. In 1992, Richie took a Security position at Soboba when it was just a Bingo Hall. He left Soboba to pursue a career in forestry but left the forest in 1994 when Soboba reopened as a casino. At the time there were no security positions available so he started as a poker dealer.

Floor Supervisor, Larry Miranda, Sr. took Richie under his wing and helped him break into the business, he also made sure Richie stayed on the right path, sending him home when his shift was over instead of playing poker.

In 1996 Richie left Saboba to deal at Pechanga. The Miranda family is one of the founders of Pechanga Casino and even though Larry Sr. had passed away his son Larry Jr. followed in his dad's footsteps. Larry Jr., Mike Hofreiter and Tony Covington not only taught him the ropes but inspired him.

Tony Covington, former Cardroom Manager at Pechanga, and Richie started as poker dealers on the same day at Soboba, left Soboba together and started Pechanga together. They were both promoted at the same time to Floor Supervisors in the poker room. Richie worked with Tony for awhile then went to the table game area but returned to the cardroom later. He worked as Poker Shift Supervisor when Tony was promoted to Cardroom Manager and worked for Tony for a couple of years.

Richie was promoted to Casino Shift Manager and left the poker room once again but in 2005 Tony and Richie switched positions, Tony took over the Casino Shift Manager's position and Richie took over the Cardroom Manager's position. Richie oversees a 54 table cardroom and approximately 245 employees, made up of three Shift Supervisors, three Shift Relief Supervisors, 20 floor people, 11 clerks, 155 poker dealers, 20 servers, 14 chip runners and eight board people.

If you are looking for poker action, Pechanga is the place to visit. They run daily tournaments seven days a week at 10 a.m., buy-ins range from $25 to $40 and every tournament has a minimum guarantee of $2,000 with the exception of Saturday's guarantee of $4,000. All tournaments with the exception of Wednesday's Limit event are No-Limit.

Along with the morning tournaments there are evening events on Monday and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., and at 4:00 p.m. on Sundays. The Monday and Wednesday events have a buy-in of $30 and the Sunday event is $50 with guarantees ranging from $2,000 to $5,000.

If that's not enough, there is a $7500 monthly no-limit freeroll on the last Tuesday of every month beginning in February. The qualifying period begins in February and takes 40 hours of live play to qualify.

There's more, they run Beginning and End of Month Tournaments. All tournaments are no-limit with a $5,000 guarantee on the first Thursday of the month, $10,000 on the first Friday, $15,000 on the first Saturday and $10,000 on the first Sunday. This schedule repeats for the last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the winner of the last Saturday event wins an entry into the $10,000 Main Event at the World Series of Poker.

Wait I'm not done, on Valentine's Day, February 14 grab your other half and run to Pechanga for the Sweetheart Tournament. They are guaranteeing $5,000 and it's a 2 for 1 buy-in. Not a bad Valentine's present ladies. Speaking of ladies, Pechanga is holding a Women's event every second Thursday of the month and the winner receives an entry into the Ladies event at the WSOP.

Still not done, stop in for the Tuesday Night Special with a $2,000 guarantee for only a $5.00 buy-in. Beginning in February on Thursdays is High Hand of the Day from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. with a pay out of $200. If you are an all nighter or early bird player, get in on the Tuesday and Thursday Morning Splash the Pot action. A Random live poker table is called every hour from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. and $200 is tossed into the pot. Splash the Pot happens again every hour on Thursdays from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. with $200 for all hold'em games and $50 for Omaha games.

The Pechanga poker room is a non-smoking room, is equipped with the new Bravo sign-up system that includes two kiosks to avoid waiting in long lines, and live players earn comps based on hours played with a player's card.

According to Richie, Pechanga is in the planning stages of two major tournaments to be announced at a later date.

If tournament play isn't your thing then check out the live action. They spread several no-limit hold'em games, a $1 & $1 blind with a $40 buy-in, a $3-$5 blind with a $300 buy-in and a $5-$10 blind with a $500 buy-in. On the limit hold'em side they spread, $2-$4, $3-$6, $4-$8, $8-$16, $15- $30, and $10-$40. They also spread a $3-$6 and $4-$8 Omaha and a $1-$5 sevencard stud game.

Okay, I'm done, now stop by and tell Richie you heard about the action at Pechanga in Poker Player Newspaper.

Oh, one more thing, Pechanga is giving away $500 an hour to live players and $250 for tournament players on Superbowl Sunday from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. All players must be seated in a game to be eligible to participate.