did not know that ty!

agreed. i should have added... we had no warning to buy ahead of time.

couple other observations from today (saturday).

1) unless youre there before the pokerroom opens call in. its a must (if you get there.. sit down and grab the breakfest buffet. good value imo.

2) they did not start the 5/10 holdem today. they went with (in order) 20/40 omaha with a half kill. 2/5 NLH 1/2 NLH 10/20 holdem with a half kill (approx 2 hours later). Opened a 2nd 1/2 NLh table at 3

due to that i was at 1/2 waiting.

3) if you play 1/2 and you are lucky enough to get on the table.. highest percentage of OMC (old man coffee) type of players I have seen at one table. Me and my friend brought the average age down by 20 years easily and we are both 30 and 34 respectively.

4) some dealers if youre lucky will not rake on a 3 or 4 way limped pot (happened alot more then you think) other dealers will.

5) Don't lecture the OMC's about throwing out a 5 dollar raise instead of a limp.. they don't understand why its better for 4 players to put out 5 bucks then it is 2 bucks each.

6) the people running the list lack any intelligence. they only started to open the tables at 12. i mean checking the tables with chips, checking the decks of cards. (could have already been done).
Often times they lose track of their lists and seats open. even at times 2 people were there they lost track of this.
1 Person its easy.. but when there is 2, its simple... 1 patrols the tables for seat chips the other monitors the lists.
Expect to play 6 or 7 handed due to this.
also expect that if yo uget 5 handed.. some people may not want to sit in right away as its "too short handed"

7) Dealers overall a bit better today. some had a bit of speed issues and being too loud.

8) people will try to abuse the fact they get 2 rotations of "sitting out" before getting removed from the table. I had 2 cases at my table and 1 case at my friends 2/5 table (the 2/5 one was funny as the guy immediately gets a meal button right away.. then does this after he sits back in). all 3 cases people got removed and were pissed.

9) there was a newer gentleman there as a floor supervisor.. who was often asked questions from other tables without having a clue.

Right now there are Americans reading this thread that wonder how we Canadian poker players can live like this.

It's a real joke.

2-3 hour wait today and it’s a Sunday.

I remember how prevalent all this nonsense was at Niagara/Fallsview and Brantford back in the day. Ahhh, memories. Ontario really is North Korea for live poker.

It used to be this way when actual poker people patrolled the pit but there are a few that I can think of off the top of my head that have no business being in the pit at all. It helps if one has a personality, too.... another sorely lacking attribute.

Anyone know if they changed the hours yet ? Instead of opening at noon.

No change in hours.

They did open a second 1/2 table at around 1pm.

Any info whether 5/5 or 5/10 NLHE have been running yet?

As we speak two 1k max 2/5s at Casino Niagara.

Have the run 5/5NL 1k max yet?

My biggest problem with this poker room is the overall attitude of the staff, which imo comes from mgmt.

They love rules. I mean they love them. And they get offended when you tell them how dumb their rules are -- they take your commentary personally.

All of these things happened in my last session there.

Guy gets double blinded. It happened cause they don't enforce any third man walking rule, so after the guy went for a smoke the table very quickly went 5 handed and the guy got double blinded. The guy came back right as the dealer passed him for the second blind. She called the floor, they removed him even though he was standing right there. I told them how dumb them enforcing that rule in that instance was, got a ton of attitude in return.

They say in all their literature the room closes at 4am. It doesn't. At 3:30, they say 3 more hands, then that's it. The room closes are ~3:37, not 4am. I pointed out to the pit boss how dumb it was to say the room closed at 4 when it actually doesn't, he told me he brought it up to mgmt. and they told him it didn't need addressing.

The dealers cannot change black chips, but they do play, but you cannot sit with them, you have to trade with another player to get change. This time when I went, she insisted on me showing her my chips before sitting. I showed her a bunch of blacks. She said I need at least $100 reds to sit and she wouldn't allow me to sit before getting them. She tells me to go to the cage and get them. So I tap some guy on the shoulder and ask him to change a black for me. She then lets me sit.

Later in the night a mega whale comes to the table, has 5 blacks. Different floor this time, tells the guy he must change all $500 into reds to sit. Someone changes $100 and tells the floor "ok good?". Floor says no, they must all be red, tells the dealer to deal him out. We're all looking at each other like wtf... everyone then chips in and changes all $500 so we don't risk losing the whale.

Then there's the speed. The dealers have gotten much much better. For the most part they're proficient. Not as good as the best Niagara dealers, but as good as the bottom 50% of Niagara dealers. But the floor..... my God they suck. Their room opens at noon, and they open one table at a time. Their speed opening tables is truly horrific. I was ~#14 on the 25 list, and there were a lot of ppl on both the 25 & 12 lists. So I knew I'd get a seat, but I'd have to wait till a few ppl declined the 25 before getting a seat. So they opened the 12, then the 25. I was seated at 12:34pm. It took them 34 minutes after the dealers were seated (they were sitting before 12) to open two tables. That's insane. After this they started opening the limit tables. So I imagine it was an hour to open 4-5 tables.

They desperately need the Bravo system. Their reliance on that silly system they devised where the dealer puts out a token, waits for the floor to collect it & call someone, REALLY needs to go.

Still not taking lists for any games other than 12 & 25. Fwiw tho they did tell me with 100% certainty that when Pickering opens in March Port Perry will be removing some slots & doubling the size of the room from 10 to 20 tables. I find this plan interesting, as I've never seen more than 6-7 tables running in this room ever, limit & no limit combined. So I understand they think their slot revenue will go to hell once Pickering opens (makes sense), but I don't understand why they feel they'll be able to fill 20 tables when they can't fill more then 10 currently.

That's all I can think of for now... the saving grace is the games themselves are very soft. But they really need an attitude adjustment. They do not treat the poker player as a customer.

Thanks so much for the current info. They sound like real losers at GBH. I will not return with these occurrences. A Niagara regular keeps asking me about the room, so I was looking for this sort of info.

No 5/5 1k max anymore? It was good before they closed room down.

The red chip thing is beyond absurd. If it's a lose game black chips should come in play on the flop, with returning 25 back in reds maximum. The worst rule I have read about was chipping down to the table min or max when you transfer tables to the same stakes.
When this is mentioned in Niagara, players need to be reassured that it's not a joke. It's really that foreign to both regs and rec players.

The table transfer thing for the moment is largely irrelevant, as there's almost never more than one table per stake. I've seen 2 12's twice, and iirc I saw 2 25's once, but that's it.

and that reminds me of another thing -- for hours while I was there they had ~12 ppl on both the 12 & 25 lists, had dealers sitting at empty tables, and did not open a feeder table at either stake.

That's absurd. No value for players time.

@ Buggie:

They. Don’t. Give. A. S***. They never have there since at least John had his position taken away and never will. Anything you tell them falls on deaf ears and, if you were there later in the afternoon, I can probably even guess who the green jackets were in the pit. If you’re not griping to people in navy jackets, nobody there cares and even most of them don’t if they even know what you’re talking about. Both of the poker managers that cared aren’t in charge anymore.

As far as dealers not opening tables, GBH has been union for years. There’s a good chance those dealers don’t even deal poker and were there just to have something to do. I believe even green jackets were put into the union too just so you know what/who you’re arguing with.

How do I know the poker culture there? I worked there years ago and still keep in touch with some folks. The ones that care about poker are gone. Now the drones run it. Better to drive to Niagara.

Drive to Niagara might be the only logical solution.

I would say Ontario poker is the worst, but places like South Carolina don't even have poker cause of police state laws.

I went for my first time since reopening. I was fortunate enough to have none of the issues people have mentioned.

I called in at 7:00(Thursday), got there at about 7:45 and was seated at 8:15. They had 2 1/2, 1 2/5, 1 10/20FL, 1 20/40 Omaha. I sat at 1/2 but wanted 2/5. It took about 3 hours to make it over.

So many familiar faces from the past decade lol. Many of the same dealers as well from before as well. Both games were good.

I was told that they will be forcing dealers to train on poker in order to eliminate the current open hours nonsense.

Overall it was a good experience. It seems like a lot of dealers are putting tons of faith in the woman who’s running the room.

I've been three times now spread a couple weeks between each visit. It seems they are taking some criticism and making changes but not enough yet.

1 - The hours

They are low on dealers at the moment and training more staff to come in, so I get it. I just hope that they are aggressively targeting a date to have a certain amount of staff to make expanded hours viable immediately. Right now if you want to start playing at noon on Saturday or Sunday, there's a certain time you need to call to catch the manager opening up calls for the wait-list, but it varies by day and no one really knows when. And if you are even a couple minutes off you're gonna end up way down the wait list. Me and a friend were calling at the exact same time, I was 6th on the list and he was 18th.

2 - The open seat token system

It's certainly not Bravo but I can at least say they've taken some criticism and instructed dealers to pay more attention and be aggressive when seats are open. Open seat was being called right away and the manager was getting people seated much faster than the first few times I went.

3 - Seat change rule - treated as new player

Right now this rule doesn't seem to matter since at most there are 2 1/2 tables running and only 1 2/5 table, but right now if you want to move tables and you are above 100 BB's they ask you to chip down to table max. I don't understand what the motivation behind this rule is. I honestly think its to allow nits to minimize their risk and play more hours and thus guarantee more rake for the room. I can't see one other benefit to this rule. It's a poker room. Do you want tables with lots of money flowing around? I'm already envisioning the scenario where you're sitting at a great action table, guy busts, and you witness a nit move from another table, pocket a buy-in or two in pure profit and then sit with 100 BBs in your table. Or better yet, the same nit moving tables anytime he wins a big pot or two? This rule is absurd.

4 - Black/Green chip rules

I really don't understand what they are getting at with these rules other than wanting each table to have the least change chips possible to minimize dealer errors? But, not only have I witnessed players with black chips being refused and asked to colour down but I witnessed a player not being allowed to buy in at a 1/2 game with all greens. And the dealer wouldn't change him even one green chip.

Overall, though I think what the room has going for it right now is the positive vibe around basically every table you're at. You have people recognizing other players from when they played years ago, players not giving newer dealers a hard time if they make a mistake. It's not the soul-sucking experience I remember from back in the day. But maybe that's just because most of these guys haven't played long enough to go on any sort of downswing just yet lol

Elements Brantford claimed they were hiring dealers. Long after they opened. Still a shortage of dealers last time I played there in October. Seems like a shortage of people who can deal. So that problem likely isn't going away.

Break even grinders, stop trying to play poker and deal poker instead. Jk.

Port Perry is hiring dealers, yes. There's an Indeed posting but it's not poker specific. I imagine union rules having something to do with that.

The 100BB rule is sheer insanity and is evidence that "poker people" are either not in positions that require them or aren't being listened to.

I'm going to Toronto in April for a week, wondering if these are time raked games? 9 or 10 handed?

thanks for replies