Honestly I have all the options available to me since I just broke up with my gf. CN rake is worse for me because I play very tight but maybe that would be offset by making other players looser. I like the rake being taken out of the pot vs time. Is MTL still cheap living costs? How do the games compare?

I would imagine Niagra has way more conventions around the casino and tourists but maybe Im way off on that.

Hey guys,

What does the live poker landscape in Canada look like at the moment?
Im thinking about making the trip from Europe to one of the big Canadian cities to go grind for a few months. Been to the US a million times but wanted to give Canada a try now.
Which one would be my best option? I mainly play 2/5 NLHE with some 5/10 and PLO mixed in. Any help would be appreciated.

Niagara also has the Seneca joints in the US for added variety.

Montreal is just better. Coming in from a European city it will fill closer to home where as other CDN cities will look closer to the USA.

Montreal, the rake sucks at both Casino Montreal and Playground Poker. But this is offset by the terrible play of the French Canadians. I think Montreal has the softest tables of anywhere in Canada. Certainly softer than CN on average.

There's a lot of reasons for this. Stating with Quebec's love affair with alcohol. Quebec is the per capita leader of consumption in Canada and one of the few provinces that allow Beer sales in corner stores. It's not uncommon to see players drunk at the tables, so drunk it seems they can barely see their own cards.

Second Montreal has a kind of Seediness. Since the economy has turned to crap in the 1990's a lot of people turned to drugs, Prostitution and other vices. It's the one city in Canada where you can find hookers or strippers at your table and/or drug dealers. This has happened to me before.

Third is the young tourist crowd, 18 to drink and gamble as opposed to 21 in the USA. Some young Americans, some of whom study but a lot just go in there and don't have the experience. They have tells spottable from across the poker room. Their hands shake that much.

Put it all together and there's no place Montreal for poker.

Niagara Falls is the centre of Canadian tourism outside of Banff and Jasper, Alberta. You want tourists? There aren't many more found in Canada in the summer than Niagara.

If you're wanting to pay 10 points to a max of $14 or a max of $75 on PLO, I question your thought process. I know, I know: "The food is free and the servers are hot." From what I've heard the other day, the comp system has changed for the worse and isn't the same anymore.

Also, from Niagara, there are three casinos within minutes, Detroit is a few hours, Syracuse is a couple hours, it's 6 to Foxwoods/Mohegan, and there are also rooms in Cinci and Cleveland. There is no better epicentre for poker than Niagara currently.

Ya I cant even find rake info in the Montreal thread on 2p2 or their websites. Its that bad?

How is holdem in Niagra for the winter or non peak tourist months?

The last time I was in Montreal, the max rake was at least:
$9 + $2 (promotions) for 1/2
$15 + $2 for 2/5.

You now have to earn points to redeem for food and beverages - https://www.playground.ca/rewards. Hopefully somebody will post the rake and rewards details.

It will continue to be busy with the Niagara Series of Poker satellites running now until October, followed by WPT Fallsview.

Not as many tourists as you think and they are also the wrong kind of tourist. These aren't "Vegas tourists" looking to have a good time and gamble. Lots of young families and young couples at Niagara. Going to Niagara as a single guy or a small group of young single guys? Never even seen that. All the time in Montreal. I am actually old enough to remember Niagara pre-casino. It had it's core tourism but overall the city was an economic mess. The falls weren't bringing in the money. Kind of why they put a casino there in the first place.

There are tourists and technically I am a tourist, coming from Toronto. But I remember reading that most of the tourists in NF are actually from Southern Ontario and there are relatively few international tourists. From personal experience, I recognize several faces when I go play poker there. Lots of regulars. Not a tourist driven Poker room even if it's a tourist driven town.

The rake is high in Montreal but Niagara's $14 per hour session fee is no picnic. The poor play in Montreal makes up for the high rake.

You can drive elsewhere to play poker in Niagara. Cross the border to Seneca mainly and Seneca is a good place. The other American casinos are too far away and I wouldn't travel 2 hours if I wanted to make it as a serious full time player. Cost of gasoline and lost time at the tables. And of course that entails certain real life PITA factors. Losing money converting back and forth to US/CDN. Frequent visits put up alarm bells at the border crossing and sometimes long wait times at the border. And sometimes they will detain you for a while and check your car.

Best thing to do would be to move to Montreal for a few months and play and then move to Niagara falls and play and see how well you do. Even if you did better in Niagara, it would have to be enough to justify losing the qualities of a world class city like Montreal.

I don't know I saw many young single male tourists on Friday and Saturday nights in the summer on the Canadian side, but this was back in the poker boom of the early 2000's. I really haven't played on the Canadian side in years.

Seneca is strictly a local casino less a few tourists in the summer.

Keep it in mind if you were to play as a pro or semi pro in Niagara in the winter the tourists will be a trickle even on the Canadian side and any day that is a bad snow storm the tables will be nearly dead. But on the US side on bonus days your odds of getting a high hand promotion will be extremely high as many times the casino will only have two full tables of 1/2 200 max.

The Canadian side gets people from as far as Toronto. Buses come down daily and drop patrons off at Fallsview. Now there is even a shuttle between both Canadian casinos. After this bad beat goes, the qualifier will become quads dueces+. So the bad beat will become huge. That attracts a lot of recreational players from all over southern Ontario, and from the States.

Anyone know how many runners is expected in the 1k in October... 500?

I was wondering the samething. I was also wondering how many runners people expect for the $3k?

No guaranteed PPs.. first time they are running the series.. not part of a poker tour..

Impossible to tell. Certainly more than 0 and certainly less than comparable events from the WPT series.

I expect good turnout and really looking forward to the series.

The 1k during WPT usually sells out right? Anyone know if the 1K next weekend looks like it might? I am assuming it wont but just want to make sure I don't need go before Friday to buy in.

you should be fine, 100% wont sell out its just not as big as the feb one.



i personally sattied into the 3k main.

Bravo showing day 1a starting with 460 players.. is that accurate? Or does it include entries for 1b? If it's just 1a looks like turnout is going to be huge and way higher than I expected...

That was for both 1A and 1B of the $921.50 + $178.50 tournament. I saw 262 players remaining in the first level on Bravo, but it showed 477 total entrants.

There were 1,521 entries in the February $1,100. With the 50% increase in the admin fee, there will be less entries and the total rake may exceed the first-place money.

With poker disappearing in almost all of Ontario’s 73 casinos, there is so much demand and almost no supply that it will still be a decent field. I think Bravo was later switched to show only for 1A as there are now 428 entrants as of level 6.

For the $475.30 + $74.70 Turbo, it shows 108 entries. There are six cash game tables running.

Wow 16% rake wtf

thanks, I realized they updated bravo shortly after I posted. Still a really good turnout.

And yes, the rake is basically theft. They know players in the area can't pass on a $1000000 prize pool, and they are 100% taking advantage of it.

I passed mainly because of the rake. Starting days of Thurs/Fri are non-ideal but I would have likely taken a day and played today, but chose instead to use an extra day for Montreal next week.

i sattied into the $3000 buyin main. starts tmr not too bad. not many regs happy about rake but that ALSO means that it should be soft af with toronto non-regs. ill post tmr how many showd up.

wow 1,126 players total for the $1.1k?! damn nice. hope the turnout for the 3k is good too.

Anyone have the structure sheet of the $300 100k on nov 8-10? Are the structures actually worse than the 250s at turning stone? I think it’s kinda pathetic this place doesn’t list a structure on its website for bigger mtts but maybe I should just lower my expectations.

They've been running the exact same structure for years. It's this with 20k starting instead of 15k starting. http://senecagames.com/images/niagar...ent-2--200.pdf

Thanks bizzle. Not a big fan of the structure but might go there for the 300 100k gtn Veterans Day weekend. I’ve never been to Seneca Niagara so interested in checking it out.

I was entry 233 into the 1A of the 1100 yesterday, if anyone is curious as to how many seats remain.