Thanks for the response. It is unfortunate that the games are dying at Woodbine. Do you have any ideas how they could attract new players? Or the main things they are doing wrong.

Hey guys, im thinking of checking this place out when I visit toronto. What are the games 2/5+ like? What are the skill levels of the players there?

The players need to educate and keep reminding Woodbine management that MTTs and SNGs attract a lot of players. The MTTs at Mohawk Racetrack, Western Fair, Casino Rama, Brantford and Great Blue Heron regularly sell out, then the cash game tables are a lot busier on tournament days. Anybody can see it for themselves at Rama this afternoon, August 25.

Snowball2 should go to Fallsview where there are up to 17 2/5+ tables, instead of Woodbine, or the above on a tournament day.

Stop worrying about if I'm a pro or not I really don't care what your belief about me personally is. The fact of the matter is that the poker pro machines were created for the cruise ship lines because live cards and dealers were not as efficient on a rocking boat. What the cruise ships quickly found out was that it was -ev to have pros taking all the money of other passengers on a trip that they were stuck on for 10 days. So what they did was adjust the algos to be more exciting but also extra random in distribution. I know this because I use to own an online casino and I use to have alot more flexibility in my random distribution then you would think. They are NOT rigged just written with a specific algo distribution.

Once the company had success on the cruise ships they tried to get into 3 live markets they FAILED horribly in 2 AC casinos, Montreal was a disaster and they tried one in Vegas and they were quickly abandoned.


The reason this room is failing is for the same reasons the other markets failed.

I can play there anytime I want but I choose to travel an hour a day because of the draconian management and the software.

I've read through the discussions on the last 4 pages and just wanted to throw my two cents into that into the hat into the ring.

I've played here about 10 times now. I love it. I thought I wouldn't like the electronic tables, and while I definitely PREFER cards and chips, the electronic tables still feel like real poker to me.

I stick to the 1/2NLHE and 1/2PLO tables (not a good enough player to go any higher) and never have to wait for a seat more than a few minutes, and don't remember ever being stuck at a short-handed table.

It's true that cellphone use isn't allowed at tables but I've seen people breaking the rule and getting away with it.

They don't allow watchers, which was a minor disappointment because I had a friend who wanted to watch me to learn how to play and they wouldn't let him.

I've been allowed to do table changes.

On SOME nights the drink service was really slow (like it was one waiter for the whole room), other nights it's been fine.

I usually play Wednesdays and Thursdays (I'm a business traveler who goes home to the US on the weekends) but I've played a couple times when I've been there on the weekend too. Overall, every time I go the other players at the table are very friendly (EASILY the friendliest casino poker room I've ever been in - consistently). As far as the competition level, I'm not a great player myself so it's hard for me to comment but I would call it "reasonable". I very rarely see flat-out TERRIBLE players who will bet or call with anything. I've definitely seen far worse players at other casinos. I've won, lost and broke even several times each.

I love it and will continue to play here every chance I get.

I played a couple hundred hours here last summer and remember there rarely being multiple 2/5 tables running... is this the norm now? Thing must have picked up since I left. I'm going to be playing there for a few weeks in November so this is good news.

Curious why this is the case.. I played 190 hrs of 1/2 there last summer at 52/hr which is roughly consistent with my Vegas 1/2 win rates when you prorate for the hands per hour advantage, so to me that's at least decent anecdotal evidence that there's nothing too out of the ordinary going. Again this was all last summer... Maybe OLG devised an evil strategy to artificially extend the life/bankroll of the bottom 80% of the player pool... the technology is capable of doing this since everything is tied to player number, I could probably write the code.

Basicallly I have reason to believe there is nothing wrong with the machines based on play last summer, but I know it's possible (and there is incentive to do so) to artificially extend life of bottom level players at expense of big winners. OLG isn't nearly sophisticated enough to even consider doing this IMO.

Someone told me last night WB will be starting 300$ tournies w/ 50 people 2 days a week in November.

Can Anyone else confirm?

I heard that rumor as well, the large televisions at the back of the room would be the tournament clock. Theyll likely run the tournaments in the morning and try to drive up traffic during the really slow periods

Weekend or weekdays?

I'm guessing weekdays, the room is busy enough on weekends. The SnGs tried to attact players during off peak times, I imagine they will try the same thing with tournaments

A couple more of the older daytime plays reconfirmed on Sunday, so I guess its happening.

I heard that they were gonna do it 2 times a week, a weekday and sunday.

I don't know when or how much they'll be, but they are going to start tournaments there soon. It's not just a rumor. One of the supervisors told me they'll be starting with a 50 player field. If that number doesn't change I'm sure they'll sell out fast. I don't care to play the tournaments, but I'm sure they'll be very popular. Hopefully if they sell out quickly the first couple times, they'll expand the field for you guys.

Yeah it'll hopefully attract some new players to the room. Always seems to be the same faces every night

How frequently do the SitnGos run on an average day? Is there enough interest for one to always be running or is there a lot of downtime between them? How is the distribution of the high buyin/low buyin? Is it mostly bigger ones or are the cheap ones more popular? I'm thinking of going today (Sun morning) at 6am. Will I have to wait long for an $80 tourney?

I just called them and they said the daily SitnGos haven't been running since September and they are in the process of implementing MTTs.

They could've updated their site at least...

Woodbine staff has been testing the MTTs.. (Just like they did before the STT started last year).

So they are closer to MTTs

An MTT will finally debut on Wednesday, December 17 at 11 AM. The buy-in is $230 with a maximum of fifty players. Hopefully, it will be like the SNG, and MTTs at Mohawk, Western Fair and Georgian Downs with a $10 admin fee ($220+$10). Unfortunately for me, I will be playing in a ~$25,000 freeroll invitational at Great Blue Heron Casino that morning.

The bad news is that the Woodbine $230 MTT has three times as much fees as its $220+$10 SNG and the other locations' MTTs. If Mohawk, Western Fair and Georgian Downs charged only $220 + $10 administration fee for their MTTs, it's disappointing that Woodbine would have 300% of the fee for the exact same electronic game that does not use any human dealers. It's understandable that Brantford would charge $30 or 13% for its $230 Deep Stack to help pay for an entire shift for eight tables of unionized dealers for around nine hours, but Woodbine's automated tables does not need extra workers whether it's a one-table SNG or a 5-table MTT.

Nevertheless, there is so much demand for poker tournaments in the GTA and most gamblers don't care about rake that the $230 MTT sold out with 50 players on a Wednesday morning with no outside publicity! Woodbine should utilize all the other empty tables not being used for a cash game on the slow weekday morning, then broken MTT tables will keep feeding new cash game tables for the entire day.

The Deep Stack has 15,000 starting chips with 30-minute blinds. The final five players or 10% win money into their account. With the fast electronic format, it lasted seven hours and ended after 6 PM. In contrast, the "King of the Cards" annual Championship at Great Blue Heron Casino with the same number of 50 players but only 5K starting stack, took 10.5 hours and ended at 9 PM. While bad players will always think that online or "Woodbine is rigged," the great advantage of electronic MTTs is that you get to play a lot more hands per hour compared to the mistake-prone GBH dealers who forget to collect antes or take a very long time to correctly count the big stacks for every all-in.

I got 13th in it yesterday

Cannon won(mid 40s azn shortstacker at 2/5,5/5)

Supposedly the next tourney will be > 500

If the tournament sells out, then why wouldnt they charge as much rake as they can? I swear, the only posts I ever see of yours always analyze rake. If you're having so much trouble beating these games that you need the rake to be slightly lower, then maybe you should be analyzing your own game instead of the rake structure.

Most of my report was not about rake, but it is one of the many IMPORTANT factors that determine how much you win/lose at poker. By analyzing my game, rake, structures, etc., I've never had a losing year in poker.

Most of your posts on this forum ARE about rake. Without trying I'm sure I can reference a bunch of rake posts by you. It's something that you cannot control, so I've never understood complaining about it. Within the GTA, there are several options of where to play, if you don't like Woodbine's rake, go somewhere else.

If other OLG casinos are running tournaments at 220+10 it is perfectly reasonable to question/complain when Woodbine runs 200+30.

Just because a bunch of players don't care or don't know any better, players challenging higher rake benefits all players. Are you seriously siding with casino on higher rake?

+30.