Calling the Sands (in Bethlehem) Philly area is a bit of a stretch, Borgata is probably closer, but agree that Philly has become a great place for poker.


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If for every room that has one table running there is a room with 19 tables running, 95% of players play in 'bigger' rooms.

ya this is fair, but close enough for my point lol.

I wonder how many tables that casino with 1 table at 2pm on a Wednesday will have on Friday night ...


The smaller rooms usually see a larger difference between day and evening, weekend and weekday, than the larger rooms do IME.

It would take far much more research than I'm willing to put into it, but what is the ratio between small poker rooms and big card rooms? I mean, how many 35+ table rooms are there in the US, especially outside the hotspots mentioned here? Now balance that out with hick 5 table rooms in every hick town. If the hick rooms outnumber the big rooms by a large margin (which would be my guess), then it could quickly be the case that more people play at smaller rooms.

FWIW, *every* single person in my province plays in a small card room because there is not a single big one. My guess is that statement applies to every province (with perhaps some exceptions, I'll admit ignorance to that).

Gbutit'sallabout'Merica,cuzthat'sallthatmatters,am irite?G

It's a shame nobody addressed that question up thread. Like did a count in bravo or something crazy like that.

Such a shame.

Yeah, cuz Bravo lists every hick room.

GaccordingtoBravo,1pokerroomwithin100milesofmeG

It's a shame that wasn't addressed up thread either.

No it isn't because you're assuming big rooms vs small rooms would use / would not use Bravo at the same percentage. I have no idea how Bravo works, but I'm guessing (???) it would have to be paid by that room, with my guess being that it wouldn't make financial sense for most small rooms to use it.

The fact that there is 1 room listed on Bravo within 100 miles of me when there are upwards of a dozen rooms (with that 1 room being listed being likely the biggest room) would suggest this.

GcluelessBravonoobG

My room is 8 tables. Usually 1 goes in a.m. weekdays. 2-3 tables Mon - Wed evenings, 5 tables in Thursday evenings, 6-7 tables on Fri & Sat nights. I don't really play Sunday.

It's the only card room within > of 120 miles each way. Imo there is a huge difference between the weekend and weekday/evening crowd.

Pretty sure I live in GG's city. One of the largest in the frozen North. 5 rooms in metro area. 3 rooms combined have about 12 total NLHE tables (and 3 wild PLO tables). The two larger rooms have around 6-8 tables on a weeknight, up to a max of 10 tables on weekends only. Often just a single 2/5 game in the last 2 rooms only, all the rest 1/3; a second 2/5 table usually opens on a weekend (last Friday the 2nd 2/5 game died out around 1 am).

Of the two larger rooms, one is in a different building than the actual casino, hence no crossover traffic. The other room, you can't bring liquor into the poker room (long boring story). There's also no TVs or music in the 2nd room. Waitlists on weekends are always 2+ hours; it is literally impossible for a random to walk in and play.

2 pm on a weekday, there may be 10 tables going in the entire metro area. On any given weeknight at least 7 of the 10 seats (yes, our tables are 10-handed) at 2/5 are populated by the same players. That's actually not too far off the ratio in the 1/3 as well. Waitlists on the average night are easily over an hour, so again, only someone who knew to call in, came in an hour later, and had the patience to wait on top of all that will get into the game. IOW, the opposite of "action". By the time all those hurdles are crossed, 90% of the players who are left have some passable level of poker knowledge. Anyone else walked out of the poker room and can be found playing roulette.

(To make matters more grim, tips are pooled in all the casinos, so gl getting more than 25 hands/hour. And fwiw, rake is 7+1.)

If this sounds lke a very different experience than what you are used to, it probably is! I see photos of Playground or Commerce/Bike and it is miles away from my experience. I'm totally jealous that a 'decent-sized but not a poker Mecca city' like philly has a hundred tables. I'll watch a poker vlog from a guy in (to me) a random US city like St. Louis and wonder how in the world I can get noobs like the ones he has in basically every vlog to come to my game.

Until this thread from today, I had no idea Philly had so many games. Ditto AC. Perhaps like GG, I assumed that outside of LA and a bit of LV, most cities had just a few, small poker rooms. All I can do is imagine what your scene is like, because it is so different that we are talking about qualitative, not just quantitative, changes in game conditions. I'd feel like a kid in a candy store if I was suddenly dropped into a casino with a 30+ table poker room. (And you may feel like a kid forced to swallow medicine if you ever come visit up here.)

^^^^

And are those conditions much different from those in the state directly below us? I've had very limited exposure to those games, but from what I understand its not that much difference (in terms of room size, especially the smaller ones). I think G (and perhaps one or two others on this forum) is from that area and might know better.

And are those conditions much different from the rest of the province (where 1 or 2 table rooms are likely all that can be supported in most towns)?

And are those conditions much different from the rest of the country, apart from perhaps the few exceptions?

And while there are obviously some huge rooms down in some parts of the US (above posters have clearly pointed this out, I'm not arguing that they don't exist), I'd be shocked if that was the "normal" case in most cities in most states, especially the smaller ones.

Glivinginadifferentrealitythanmostonthisboard,obvi ously,butthisboardisn'tthebeall-endallofpokerexistenceG

We don't have casinos everywhere in the US. There are places that have them like we've listed, but then there are spots where there is *one* legal room for a hundred miles. Rooms like that tend to have more traffic, and more discrepancy between weekdays and weekends.

Where I play there are 3 casino's with 12 tables and 1 casino with 9.
We used to have 3 other casinos with poker rooms but they were small rooms.

Between them there is 3/6 LHE, 4/8 LDC, 1-2 PLO, 2-5 PLO, 1-2 NLHE, 1-3 NLHE and 2-5 NLHE

Right now the one I play the second most has 1 table of 1-2 open. Last night there was 4. On friday night there will be 6-8 tables open.

Edmonton is a blue collared city and most are paid well and sure as **** they will spend it!

This sounds horrendous.

One of our casino's poker rooms is right on the floor!
Drink and gamble at will!

I'll assume you guys are in Ontario?

60% Bravo measure at 2pm EST Wed, 72% at 5:30pm EST Wed

but let's not forget that this "debate" was started by GG disagreeing on some level with the obvious statement:

"@gg a 5 table room is crazy small and definitely not the norm for where most of us play"

lol @ disagreeing with that statement. I followed up with the bold claim:

"I would guess that over 90% of poker in the US happens in rooms that are busier than yours."

Computing this number would take some work. To be fair, we'd have to count the table hours per room per year and put the total table hours by casino equal to or less than the GG casino table hours into one bin and the casino table hours of all the casinos with more activity into a second bin and add em up. My guess would be 95%. I could be wrong, maybe I'd be surprised to learn it is 85%. idk

But no, let's pretend the GG casino experience is typical.

Or maybe a couple of Thunder Bay regs are Winrate readers and I'm out to lunch.

Not going to rehash a ton of the argument, GG, but you're arguing two different things. I suspect that even in your room, there is more difference than you think. The weekday games are probably tighter than you imagine, but you don't know because you are at work. All regs are not created equal. As others have mentioned, even if they are equally skilled in theory, non-worktime players are generally much more willing to accept variance, as they can afford it. Late-night (after OMCs like you and me go to bed) tends to be even better. This does not require noobs wandering in. Even the regs are more gambly at 2am.

Come on, GG. first, as many have mentioned, it takes a lot of 5-table rooms to equal one 45 table room. Second, poker is not common here. The bolded just does not exist in most of America. In most places (other than Washington and California) poker has to be in a casino, and many casinos don't have it, either due to laws limiting what can be offered (Alabama, for example), or just not wanting to bother. As of 2014, there were 510 casinos in all of the US. Most of them are clustered together in enclaves where gambling is legal (Vegas, AC, Tunica, Blackhawk CO, etc.), or are out on an Indian Reservation that is a long drive to get to. In the meantime, as of 2012 (may have closed since then, but it was the easiest to count list that had rooms not on Bravo) the entire US had 453 poker rooms. About 1/4 of them are in Casinos in California or Nevada, and almost 1/4 are stand-alone rooms in California and where laws are looser. So take out those two states, and there are about 230 poker rooms for the rest of the US.

And this. That was also my room until recently, and when I was in Colorado Springs I had to drive up in tot he mountains to play in a similarly 8-table card room. Even in those rooms, where noobs were rare, the game is very different between workday and not.

The difference is actually less in vacation spots, imo. I tend to play during the day in Vegas, for example, which I never can when I'm working, ldo.

70% of US population lives in 15 states. Like worldwide, the majority of the population lives in metropolitan cities. Since when are hick cities the golden standard for average, median or whatthe****?

Since Bravo Poker began gerrymandering.

1 casino in Brisbane, 4 tables total and the refuse to open more than 2/3 half the time regardless of length of list. :')

^I feel you, meale. I live in a European metropolitan city. 1 casino, 8 tables max on the weekend, even fewer on weekdays .

this is good poasting

I want to see some year-end graphs! The more turbulent, the better!

2 weeks left! And I guess people might be busy around new years. You'll get em in Jan tho for sure

Pretty sure my giraffe (if all goes well in December) will consist of 4 lines: one horizontal, one straight up, one straight down, and hopefully ending on a straight up one.

GbutoutsidechancemystraightdownoneisextendedG