10 tables is nothing. Another disappointment. Come Saturday probably going to see long waiting times.

They said 10 tables to start with. They could easily put 20 tables in old slot area.

I imagine they will as demand picks up.

Also be aware that for any pot seeing the flop, a mandatory $2 rake is charged. I imagine this is to deter blind vs blind battles which take up time to the “detriment” of the rest of the table and to dissuade small flops that go 3 streets of checking. Oh yeah, and money secured for the house.

Silly rule. This is why I hate rake. I heard they had two 2/5NL games and a 20/40 Omaha tonight. How were new 9 seat tables? Comfortable set up? Food service to tables still good?

I actually haven’t gone yet. Though I was able to learn the information I stated today by 1)calling in & 2)this website: https://gbhcasino.com/great-blue-her...-offers-poker/

I’d recommend you read the link to get acquainted with the rules, too.

Thank you.

This is rule is so bad that I may never return to GBH:

When*Table changing, you become a New Player – meaning you must meet buy in requirements.

The above rule rewards hitting and running and punishes regulars who want to play deep, and also want the right to change tables if their game is no longer good, and take their entire stack with them.

Staying in Niagara, paying their cheap session fee, and moving my entire stack every hour just for fun.

High rake & ridiculous rules= To hell with the place.

I think they are referring to “minimum buy-in” requirements. So if playing and you go 100bb to 10 bb and switch tables you must meet minimum requirements of new table. I think even when table changing this rule will apply:

“After leaving a table, you cannot return with less chips than you left with, unless an hour has passed“

Also players may be reluctant to wait the hour and sit out as new players take their seats and now the returning player is on wait list.

Key word is you become a new player. Hence you must chip down if you have over 500 for 2/5 when changing tables. Same applied in Brantford once it 1st introduced no limit, until enough people complained and got rule changed. Too many negatives to bother with this room.

Anyone make it to the room yet? How is it?

+1...... please give us any details, how many tables, what games were running, rake amount etc.....

Rake is above in post.

10 tables so far. 1-2 and 2-5 NL, 20-40 Limit Omaha(I think), 5-10 and 10-20 limit.

Sounds like the good old days will be coming back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10% up to 6 is a decent rake .. Brampton is 10% up to 8 and Rama is 10% up to 10.

Rake is as follows, this was sent to me directly by GBH. This is their wording:

It's different for each game.
Smaller the Stakes smaller rake. Higher Stakes higher rake.

Low stakes games are $6
5/10 limit and 1/2 no limit

Med Stakes are $8
10/20 and 15/30 limit and 2/5 NL

Lrg Stakes are $10
20/40 and 30/60 limit and 5/5 NL

They also told me that 5/10NL is $12

So I visited today and have some thoughts...

First the room itself. The casino reno is significantly bigger than I'd thought it would be, and others have stated, it looks like they have additional room for expansion elsewhere in the casino should they choose to.

The room itself is quite nice and modern. Nice new tables, phone chargers that all work (at least for now). Additionally, you can eat at the table, tho the poker room menu is crazy sparse. It's all stuff like sliders and chicken fingers. There's no actual proper meals that you can order in the room, tho I'd guess you could get take out from the snack bar and bring it to the room.

Now the not so good things.

When I called in I asked them to put me on 12/25/55. They informed me they were only running 12 & 25, they didn't even allow me to put my name on a 55 starter. So if they do eventually end up running 55 or 510, they def have no interest in doing so right now. They most NL they ever ran, which was a Friday from 12-5pm, was 1 25 and 2 12's.

Next was their speed. I fully understand it's a new room and the majority of the staff (both floor and dealers) are new, but my God.... I've never seen a slower poker room in 25 years of playing poker. Anywhere. Ever. And I've played in a lot of places all over the world. I played both the 12 & the 25, and the speed was mind blowingly slow at both games. There were times on the 12 game where a $25 pot would take 10 minutes, and it wasn't the players, it was the dealer. Here's some examples of the excruciating pain they put me through today:

They had this token they had to put out to show an open seat, then the floor would then come collect the token and call a name from the list. The dealer would look through the tray, trying to find the token. They've also been instructed not to drop whites, so once they've collected rake, they would drop the red chip, and place the excess whites beside the drop, wait till they've got $5 in whites from subsequent hands, then colour up and drop the next red. Additionally, none of the dealers are capable of keeping track of pot size as they go, so each dealer would stack the pot once the hand was over, count it, and calculate and remove the rake before passing the pot.

Then there was the floor. There were lists at all tables at all times. When I left the 25 was 3 handed & paused, and the 12 was 4 handed. Again, long lists for both games. A normal poker room at this point will just grab anyone standing in the room and say "what are you waiting for?" and seat them. Not here. They meticulously (and slowly, as they have to retrieve the seat open tokens), wait for each person to see if they show up. This process is not helped by the fact you can barely hear the announcements even if you[re standing right in front of the brush. You've no chance of hearing anything if you're standing 1' beyond the edge of the room.

I realize most of the above are growing pains, and that you'd think they'd be able to sort this kind of thing out with a month or so of experience. But as for right now, all the above really made the game almost unplayable for me. It was just way too slow.

Then there's the rake. At first glance it is higher than Niagara no question, but lower than Rama. So it may seem ok. But a deeper dive shows problems, especially at 12. First, the buyin at 12 is $40-$200, it's an incredibly shallow game. There was a guy who actually bought in for $40 while I was on the table. So it has a rake of $6+$1, and an automatic $2 flop rake, with some ppl buying in for $40. The second hand a played had a guy open limp the button, so they took a $2 rake on a $5 pot. I don't think this game is beatable, at least not for more than "hey I made a couple hundred bucks playing poker today. Not bad eh?". Too shallow, too much rake. I've less commentary on this at the 25, a $500 buy in with an $8+$1 is a lot better, and the $2 flop rake isn't really an issue at 25.

So anyhow... I won't be going again, the extra half hour each way to Niagara is really worth it. Only way I'll be going again is if the 25 action gets better, the game today, tho the smallest of sample sizes, was nothing special.

Great info. I will also stay in Niagara. Imagine not even attempting to run the 5/5NL. What a joke.

If youre a limit holdem or interested in limit omaha player, this is the casino for you...........Especially if youre from the Toronto area!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m blown away at the dealing issues. Have they lost that many of the OG poker dealers in the past 2 years?

As a beginner, I drove up here once on a Thursday and played another session on Saturday.

Seen mostly wild plays:
Standard 5x open by utg
Utg + 2 calls
HJ goes all in for 20 blinds
Utg rejams for 40 blinds
Gets the third player to fold an Ace
Hands were T-8 suited v 8-7 suited
Ten high wins the pot

The action seems pretty great and I was not 3-bet on often at all. If anything the players limp way too much and call station-ish.

All and all a fun place to play and learn.

That’s a bog standard 1/2 lol

In my time there I saw one proficient dealer, and one rusty but good enough dealer. The rest were terrible.

The large raises are cause everything gets called at 12, so if you want any kind of chance at all of not going 6 way, you need to give it a good raise. 3 bets are also non-existent at 12 with anything below QQ.

Played last night.. got 4 different dealers. All were lightning quick and made few mistakes. The regular dealers who dealt before the poker came back work later at night. But yeah early on I got a few dealers were terrible. They only had 2 weeks of training.