I think timed rake, antes, and bomb pots are unrealistic and problematic. But I agree with you.

8 handed 2/5 with 200-500 buy in, replacing the current 10 handed 1/3 would be a beautiful improvement. I also hate promos, they attract the wrong players.

Imagine having a "fast-five-handed game" where house(and players) enforces minimal tanking. Playing 5 handed lets/requires you to play way more hands and the dynamics between players intensifies. It's the most fun I've had at a poker table.

Timed rake and ante's decrease nittiness and a mandatory $20 bomb pot every hand would draw gamblers in a big way imo though you might want to get rid of the $600 max bet. Why do you see these as problematic?

Oh I agree with you on everything. Also, who enforces the $600 max bet? Certainly in the Parq PLO and 2/5 games (I have about 2000 hours in those games, mostly the PLO) there is no max bet ever enforced. I think I've seen it enforced at cascades but I thought it was 700.

Why casinos ever got the idea that poker tables should be 10 handed is beyond me. It's not in their best interests at all. I think 5 is too few because if anybody takes a break the game is in Danger of breaking. I think 7 or 8 is ideal, as then 1 or 2 players can break and the game can still run.

Timed rake is great. Nits hate it. Anything nits hate is usually good for the game. And by nits I don't mean "good tag winning players' I mean those people who sit with min buy ins and play like it's the last dollars they have in the world. Those people are terrible for a poker room. Occupying a seat is not beneficial by default, those players do serious damage to the health of the room.

In San Jose at the M8trix and TheBay101 both poker rooms have a bomb pot to welcome every new dealer to the table. At 2/5 it's a 20, and 5/5 and 5/10 it was 40. I loved it but I don't know how that became the norm there, out of the 200 or so poker rooms I've played that was the only place this was standard procedure.

Antes are great too. In table games you don't get cards if you don't bet. 10 handed poker where 8 players get free cards is silly and never should've been invented.

I only said these things are problematic because they are big changes and our poker rooms are not run by people cañable of making such changes. But the small change that I am championing, the switch from 10 handed 1/3 100-400 to 8 handed 2/5 200-500 I think is something the room should be capable of, and for a small change it offers massive improvements.

As someone who thrives in a 10 handed low stakes environment (I'd prefer 12 handed, for realz), I'm still very wary of rocking the boat. If changes like 8 handed 2/5 $200 min BI / etc. would all of a sudden introduce a whole new group of fish to the player pool while somehow reducing the players I'd rather not have at the table, then I'd be more cool with the idea. But if the changes aren't too drastic (where they would risk killing the games altogether), then I just don't think it will have much (if any) affect in this regards; the player pool is what it is (and getting more difficult with time, as each new wave comes in far more knowledgeable than the last).

GcluelessplayerpoolnoobG

If you've been playing poker for 14 years, and you would prefer 12 handed over 10 handed, and you like nitty games, your win rate must be pretty low. I can't hate on you for being happy where you're at, trust me I get where your coming from, I started poker myself 14 years ago from nothing myself, and I also started as a full ring nit (although this was 20-30 tabling online). I grew as a poker player by constantly adapting, from online to live, from NL to PLO, back to online, to 5 card PLO, to 6 card PLO, etc.

I feel quite confident that your profits would be higher in the 8 handed 2-5 200-500 game than the 10 handed 1-3 100-400 game. Any decent players would be. If not, your win rate in the current games will probably only go down over time, and with inflation and increased rake, you should really support rocking the boat IMO.

I'm sitting at ~7 bb/hr over ~5000 hours at our 1/3 NL game. I think that's ok and hence why I'm all for the status quo (although fully admitting that conditions, such as increasing rake, are making it more and more difficult to maintain). Course, lol @ 5000 hour sample size (I recently posted in the LLSNL forum Winrates thread 1000+ hour samples of ~13 versus ~7 versus ~4 bb/hr). But playing a full table is totally in my wheelhouse (as the method I'm patient enough to employ works well on a full table), and on top of that I'm not quite convinced that much more (in terms of bb/hr) is within my realistic grasp.

But, in the end, it is all moot. I have about as much control over how things are going to play out as we all do, which is none at all.

Ggoodluckinpostzombietimes!G

Oh, I gotcha. Thanks for the reply. I think BCLC enforces the $600 max bet but I guess it's just for Hold'em.

Does anyone know if they're still planning to reopen on the 1st and will they be spreading nlhe right away? Tbh, I wouldn't be very surprised if they never brought it back in the Lower Mainland.

I don’t really know much but I’ve heard from others that they will not be bringing poker back at least when casinos first open again.

I’m like you and won’t be surprised if nlhe is dead in the lower mainland

https://604now.com/bc-casinos-opening-summer-2021-new/

This link seems to suggest the casinos may open fairly soon but won't allow touching of cards (which would eliminate poker for the time being).

I've always been a sky-is-falling kinda guy, but my guess is that there will be enough interest to get the poker game up and running again after the Covid dust settles (hopefully by the fall?). The big concern for me will be the state of the games, especially the rake (where it would shock me if it didn't jump to $10 soon after re-opening) and table size (I prefer 10handed for lottsa reasons, but who knows if it will remain that way).

GcluelessstateofpokernoobG

Ah, damn. Thanks for that. Touching chips and buttons is okay I guess, lol.

With rake at $8 and given they can't keep their own tips, I've decided to stop tipping all together including any promotional win.

Im going to Alberta for more poker theres no point in waiting here it’s not gonna happen until next year imho. Albertas games are killing it right now. So good from what I’ve been told.

Pokers dead in vancouver

msg me if anyone would like to join my homegames white rock area


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Do you know which casino has the highest stakes(excluding plo) or softest games?

What limits do you play?

My girl sent me an article for Elements casino that they’ll have poker ready…. im assuming its just the bullshit table game poker


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Oh, that's Cloverdale I think. They haven't had Texas Hold'em for 5 years or so.

what a ****ing joke


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Not sure how to send a message through my profile but would like to get involved in some home games seeing as how there’s no
Live poker to be had. I’m in the Vancouver area but can travel out to white rock. Let me know, thanks

I should preface this by saying that I have not actually played in a local poker room in about 2 1/2 years at this point, I had not been in a room for about a year when the pandemic set in. But, IMO .....

The sad truth is that poker in Vancouver casinos may be well and truly dead. The blame lies mostly with casino and poker room management that never really got what a poker room, and by extension the poker ecology, should actually be about.

What should a poker room be about? It should be about creating a welcoming and friendly place for new players and recreational players to go and have fun and enjoyable good times while they lose their money. That is what a poker room should be about, because those guys are the life blood of the poker food chain.

And I am one of those guys, perhaps I am more skilled than your average Rec because I play every day online and played live since I was about 12 years old, which was back in the 70's. But for me to get off my ass and get myself out to a poker room I need some real entertainment value, otherwise I'd just as soon spend the afternoon playing a few turbos or some PLO Zoom on Pokerstars.

The lack of any real Tournaments, (beyond a few hyper-turbo donkfests here and there,) is a mistake because tournaments are the biggest magnet available for drawing new blood and new money into the poker room.

IMO the rooms in Vancouver never really invested in the kind of customer experience that brings a fun player back. Wait list shenanigans took place almost every time I put my name on one and at busy times they seemed to happen minute by minute. The last few times I went out angle-shooting ran rampant and seemed to be entirely consequence free. To a lesser degree, obvious team play and collusion was going on unpoliced and unpunished. One of the last times I played live I sat down at a PLO game with a bunch of regs and for two hours not one single hand went past the flop if I was not involved. All in all a very unwelcoming environment for a guy that just wants to go out and have a good time.

Can the poker scene here be saved? I would venture that it probably can not. It is not a fun environment for the fun player around here, and you need the fun player to bring in fresh money. And the casino does not require poker. The truth is that the space the casino needs for a poker table can make way more money if they fill it up with slot machines or a table game. Remember the old room at River Rock, upstairs by the sportsbook? they put about 100 slots in there when they moved the poker across the street and they filled the room up with pensioners from Richmond and Surrey. The probably make 10x the rake off of them than they ever made off of a few $1-$2/$2-$5 poker tables.

Poker was always going to be a loss-leader, but it was a good way of getting people into the casino, and it was considered a prestige thing, like any casino worth the name should have a decent poker room. In this age of corporate ownership, the little things which improve the quality of life but do not turn up on the bottom line are falling by the wayside. I fear that the poker room as we know it is doomed to be one of those causalities.

I'd like BCLC to stop regulating poker(and stop taking proceeds from it) and disallow casino's from offering it. Then we could have separate establishments for poker. Any restaurant should be able to put some tables in and offer poker, for instance. Tables, chairs, chips, cards, expertise and camera's is all they need. Could require cashing in and out to be done on debit cards so security is not an issue.

Will this happen? Not a chance. Someone with an impulse to gamble might go and play poker, while if there are only casino's he'll have to go lose his money at blackjack and thus, the casino and government will get their piece.

This is not required. California and some other jurisdictions license card rooms, where poker is almost all they spread. Similarly the natives of Kahnawake do the same thing with Playground. No reason the provincial gov't couldn't issue a separate poker gaming license. My guess says this being Canada, is we're facing a wall of bureaucratic paperwork, general incompetence and nepotism, which makes novel solutions to problems more difficult here than south of the border. America moves fast and breaks things, Canada most certainly does not. I love Canada, we do so many things better than Americans. But on this point America has it down.

The main Ontario contracts, including the Toronto one, were given to Great Canadian Gaming, and not for a second do I believe that tender was transparent and fair. Great Canadian beating Caesar's, MGM, and whoever else to the most lucrative contract on offer in North America? Yeah right. Somewhere in my trunk I have a bridge to sell.

Any casino's in the lower mainland dealing texas holdem yet? or rest of BC. I think they're playing in Alberta.

Poker in casinos is dead in BC. No more. Best bet is to drove to AB like the rest of is or wait until border open for Seattle trip.


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AFAIK all casinos in BC are unionized, and dealers choose based on seniority what shifts they want. At Parq the current shift cycle goes through mid August, so no poker until then. Dealers will choose their next shift cycle soon, so we'll know then if poker is reopening at Parq anytime soon.

I assume the other casinos in LM operate in the same fashion but idk any details.

Thanks guys, I just phoned my local casino and they're not dealing it now but the lady said she thinks it'll re-start within weeks; for what it's worth(which is very little).