Now hearing rumours of a June open for the Woodbine poker room. Take that with a massive grain of salt but the guy seemed pretty sure about that timeframe.

That rumor has been going on since mid 2000's hasn't it?

Has anyone been to Niagra and Playground Montreal lately? Wondering if the rake at casino niagra creates more action compared to the insane rake of Playground.

The session fees at CN makes me want to play more hands.

The rake at PG makes me order a meal every 45min.

Lol. I can move to either city and Im weighing the pros and cons.

PG:
Montreal is awesome and more things non poker to do.
Cheaper real estate / beautiful women
Casino is open 24/7
Wait lists aren't that bad unless its 8-10pm fri+sat.
Way more tables/players
Multiple different games always running.

Niagra:
Rake that incentivizes action
???

I can only think of the 1 thing that CN does better without actually being to either of the casinos in multiple years.

Niagara area rent is closer to Montreal than Toronto and if you stay in Niagara you won't have nearly as much miles on a vehicle and have no traffic jams beyond accidents or road repairs.

Also the guys that give action don't care about rake. Anybody that is rake averse is at least a marginal loser to a marginal winner in the game, those aren't the guys you need to beat up on to make money anyway.

I lived in Niagara, for the purpose of poker, and I don't recommend it over PG. PG is by far the best poker room in Canada.

For the poker or for general living?

I know if you don't like outdoor things or want diversity in terms of eating choices Montreal has it over boring Niagara Falls but poker wise I can't see Montreal being better beyond the fun element.

Also downtown Toronto is only an hour and change away and you can enter the core and leave in off peak hours so you don't need to get caught up in maybe the 2nd worst traffic congestion after Los Angeles.

I was there for one year, because I wanted to go to Fallsview and CN as a regular. It just wasn't for me in the long-term. IMO other than the falls and Lundy's Lane on Fri/Sat - Niagara Falls is a dreadful town.

This is true. But should also factor in that casino niagara is like a 30 min drive to downtown buffalo. A decent amount to do in buffalo with a nice nightlife. And ironically even though you're traveling to a completely different country buffalo is closer to niagara falls than the playground poker club is to Montreal (when you factor in traffic). But yeah the falls are pretty boring if you aren't traveling to buffalo or Toronto regularly.

What's bad about Niagara Falls? Bad night life? Bad dating options? Miserable locals?

There is very little to do there on the US side, especially night life, outside of the casino. But as noted above, you're 30m away from Buffalo, which has a lot of cultural stuff and nightlife. (Bars are open until 4am.). The canadian side has a little more, but it's mostly touristy. Niagara on the lake is nice though, and toronto is 90m away.

Think of Vegas, but for people who have an annual family income of $50k. It's similar to Vegas downtown.

It's tacky beyond belief, and overrun by families with lots of kids wanting a vacation on the cheap. There's zero culture in any sense of the word. Fast food places, t-shirt and trinket shops, and one crappy mall (tho there is an outlet mall 15 minutes outside town). Also has a HUGE local drug problem, lots of meth heads, one of the two main roads is basically skid row (Lundy's Lane), there's just really nothing to do there. It's 1.5 hours to Toronto, 45 minutes to Hamilton (500k people) and 15 minutes to St Catherines (100k people). I think the main 'do something' option for people living there would be Buffalo, but then you have border hassles. I couldn't imagine living there.... sooo depressing. Maybe St Catherines, then you can still get to NF, but it's only 30 min to Hamilton.

Things might have gotten worse since 19' but around the casino is safe as the casinos aren't that stupid to allow panhandlers to run amok on the property but walking the streets you could run into sketchy people. I remember one evening running into a panhandler/shoplifter who offered to steal a 40 ouncer for half the cost of the bottle and was looking to buy drugs with the money(I passed) but he wasn't homeless as he rented a rooming house room. Now maybe somebody like this is homeless and possibly more dangerous and desperate as a flood of refugees have been moved to the area and housing low income people has probably become harder to do.


Hamilton has really improved in terms of entertainment options as richer people have moved the city to own homes or even to rent at one time about a decade ago it was a larger Niagara Falls.

lol. Still sounds safer than any major city in the US.

Yeah that's a given. The only local thing more depressing than NF ON is NF NY...

Any CN $1/3 regs here? I haven't played in Niagara in a very long time (since they opened the new poker room at CN).

Looking to get back into it and curious to see what the action is there now. Does the timed rake at $1/3 make those games more loose now?

I recall the games during the week at those stakes being pretty nitty and filled with weak passive regs during the week. Weekends were usually better at CN and the $2/5 at FV back in the day

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

CN is the best poker room in Ontario!

The games are still mostly nitty regs. Weekends open up a bit more, but still generally almost all reg-semi-reg. I expect more tourist traffic as the weather gets nicer of course. The increased rake will eat in to your hourly a lot more than it used to.

A lot of the foreign junket operators closed up during COVID and it doesn't seem like they've poured a lot of money to bring them back.

Is it no longer $7/hh at 1/3 and $8/hh at 2/5?

Thanks for the reply.

Will start going there again sometime this month

all of the above

Hey does anyone play the 10/25 NL game at CN?

Wondering what the max buy-in is and how big stacks usually get?

What is Saturday night like? Anyone know if 2/5 PLO runs and what its like? What about 5/10 NL on Saturday?

Anyone playing? I hear the games are better in the summer with tourists, just curious how it's been.

+1

Also curious to hear if there's are consistent PLO running at Fallsview or CN