Unless it's changed, I think it's 3 courses, which would usually mean 9 hours.

Niagara-on-the-Lake certainly is a beautiful town. I have the impression that it is more expensive than just about any other border town though, and you'll definitely want a car to get you to proper shopping. Niagara on the Lake is tiny (< 15,000), and with little industry beyond tourism and winemaking there isn't much affordable rental housing.

Also, Ottawa can be nearly as expensive as Toronto, and has harsher winters than Toronto (but if you are only here for < 6 months starting soon, do the winters really matter?). OTOH, you can definitely live downtown in Ottawa without a car or even a bus pass. Plenty of amenities within walking distance of acceptable rental accommodation. And there is a casino with a poker room a short cab ride away across the river in Gatineau. An added bonus of living in Ottawa is you might get to meet the legendary Henry17!

Consider also Niagara Falls proper. I think it is cheaper than Niagara on the Lake, bigger (> 80,000), with a lot of more affordable rental housing, and you can walk to the Casinos. Same for Windsor, pop > 200,000, which has the mildest weather outside of BC and high rental vacancy rates. The warmer weather may not be an advantage in summer though, and Windsor may be a bit too far from SC for you.

Definitely check out Kingston. It is a border town of over 150,000 population at the other end of the Rideau Canal from Ottawa. Parts are almost as scenic as Ottawa. It is also a college town (Queens University, Royal Military College, St Lawrence College), so it has lots of young people and affordable housing. Living there without a car is practical. St. Lawrence College offers part-time, distance and online classes, so you might want to check it out wrt a student visa. Climate is similar to Toronto. The casino beyond nearby Gananoque has little or no poker however, and you'd probably need a car to get there. Kingston is closer to SC than any other city or town mentioned so far in this post.

Brockville is the only closer border town in Ontario that I'd consider mentioning and it is much smaller(<25,000?).

What about Montreal? It is has similar climate and cost of living as Ottawa, (except housing is cheaper), is much bigger, has a booming nightlife, has a transit system that works (at least in the central part of the city), and has a casino you can get to without a car. Not everybody there is French.

Money Sense Magazine named Ottawa-Gatineau best place to live in Canada for 2011, Kingston 4th, Windsor 26th, Toronto 88th, Niagara Falls 107th and Montreal 123rd out of 180 locations. Their criteria might not be the same as those of a visiting poker player.

Rough guide to 1BR monthly rental prices:
Windsor $600
Niagara $700
Montreal $700
Kingston $800
Ottawa $900
Toronto $1000

Remember that the Canadian dollar is about 5% above US right now so inflate those costs by about $50 for US equivalent.

Expect most other costs to be greater in smaller centres and Montreal.

Resources:
Settlement Guide
Best Places to Live
CMHC Rental Market Reports

http://www.immi.gov.au/visawizard/#vw=%23a_results

Working Holiday Visa – Takes a week to process when you do it online... Also you have 12months to activate it...

Visa Basics

This visa is for people aged 18 to 30 who are interested in a working holiday of up to 12 months in Australia. This visa allows you to supplement the cost of your holiday through periods of temporary or casual employment. You can study for up to four months on this visa.

You must:

· be aged 18 to 30 years (inclusive) on the date you apply

· hold a passport from the United States of America

· not be accompanied by dependent children at any stage during your visit to Australia

· have not previously entered Australia on a Working Holiday (417) or Work and Holiday (462) visa

· meet educational requirements

· have functional English.

More information about eligibility

Application forms and booklets


Online application for a Work and Holiday visa

Form 1208 Application for a Work and Holiday visa (259KB PDF file).

Application checklist Work and Holiday visa (subclass 462) (48KB PDF file).

What to do before you apply


Please make sure you have read all the relevant information before lodging an application.

More information about the Work and Holiday visa

Location


When you apply: Outside Australia

When the visa is granted: Outside Australia

Where to apply


· Online: Online application for a Work and Holiday visa

· Paper applications:
Australian Embassy, Washington, United States of America

Cost


Visa application charge

· Work and holiday visa charge - 240 US Dollar (AUD235)

The visa application charge must be paid as part of the visa application process and is generally not refundable. There may be additional costs associated with your visa, such as medical examinations (if required).

Visa application charges are subject to adjustment on 1 July each year.



Accepted methods of payment

· Credit card

· Money order

· International money order

· Company cheque

· Bank-cashier cheques

· Cash - the exact amount in US dollars is preferred

Note: Cheques should be made payable to the 'Australian Government'

The visa application charge can also be paid in Australia for an applicant outside Australia.
More information about fees, charges and methods of payment

Length of stay


12 months

Work rights


You can do any kind of work in Australia. However, you can only work with the same employer for up to six months.

Note: Permission to work for an employer beyond six months may be granted in exceptional circumstances. Where permission is granted, it will generally be for a short period of time (less than one month).

More information about obligations

Bringing family


You cannot include family members in your application for this visa.

Pathways to permanent residency


This visa is not a pathway to permanent residency.

Sponsorship required?


No

Skill requirements


No

About this summary sheet


This summary sheet contains customised information, specifically related to the information you supplied about your age, purpose of visit, nationality and lodgement location. The web links on this page will contain more detailed information about this visa but will not have the localised content displayed above. It is therefore recommended that you keep this page open while you browse the website so that you can return to this page easily.

More information about the Work and Holiday visa

This isn't a loaded question because I honestly don't know the answer for sure (maybe a non-us player can answer).

When I played FT or PS, I seemed to win most of my big pots off Americans. Not to say they're aren't any non-US donks--they are everywhere. However, most of the soft money comes from USA recreational players, so wouldn't a US player moving overseas see a big drop in win rates?

One more question...what country is easy to get established in without having like 10k in the bank and a job....are there any? (i'll answer before the trolls ask....no I wont move to Iraq)

Thanks.

Thanks for this post, it's definitely worth a read for anyone who is seriously looking into the move.

Just about all I have to add is that if you don't speak French, moving to Montreal is fine, but you might have issue finding extra work (if you're not a full time pro), and I wouldn't recommend owning a car there. I know a tiny bit of french (although not much) and I could still never figure out the damn parking regulations.

Other than that though, it's a great city. If it was closer to my family (Michigan) we likely would have picked it over Ottawa.

Is parking a pain on the Plateau or just downtown?

It was everywhere. Maybe I was just unlucky. It seemed like every street had three different (often conflicting) signs about when and where you could park... it felt like I could get out of my car and there would be a ticket under the windshield before the automatic locks even clicked. Had my car semi-towed (moved a block away and had a ticket added) two different times in the winter.

Once I even got a ticket when I was parked right under a sign that said there was parking allowed, because there was another sign down the street that contradicted it that I didn't see. (That one, I actually took pictures and filed a complaint about, but I never heard anything back before I sold the car and moved to Korea, so I guess it worked out?)

All in all, I was so much happier just using the transit system. Can't count on the buses to run on time to save your life, but the subway system is good. (Seems horrible compared to Korea where everything is faster, on time, and lol 70 cents a trip, but you can't have everything.)

The only reason I ever had my car there was because I lived in upstate NY at the time, and taking a Greyhoud Bus over international borders is roughly equivalent to being rage ****ed in the ass by Satan right after he's had to witness a particularly warm and heartfelt Easter Sunday.

This is true, except perhaps if you are looking for a job that requires no contact with the public, in a technical role, in a small company.

It snows a lot more in Montreal and Ottawa than in the other places listed in this thread. This signficantly affects parking in the wintertime in both cities.

The simple rule is: don't park on the street after a major snowfall, until the street and sidewalks have been completely cleared. Also parking overnight on the street during winter months is a no-no in some areas, but there may not be signs up to that effect.

Of course, the locals don't follow these rule. They know what to look out for. When snow-clearing operations are going to be held on a street, work crews will come along ahead of time and plant temporary signs, on short sticks, into the snowbanks. Usually these will specify a 12-hour period (7:00 to 7:00) when parking is disallowed and cars will be towed out of the way of the ploughs or snowblowers. There may be only one sign per block, but it applies to the whole block. Where overnight parking is banned in wintertime, they might not bother with the temporary signs for overnight clearances.

That's not a bus schedule. It's more like a guideline.

My experience is that buses are a bit more punctual in Ottawa, but the routes are more generally useful in Montreal. The Montreal Metro (subway) is great. Snow on the streets will render bus schedules totally useless, but this only happens a few days each year. For some reason, the Metro doesn't seem much affected by the weather.

I should mention that Montreal has the world's largest undergound environment. I'm not talking illegal, I mean below ground level. There are miles and miles of underground walkways, connected to the subway, lined with stores. It's like a ginormous underground shopping mall. If you live and work in the right buildings you can go through a whole day of eating, working, shopping, and partying without ever going outside.

new to forums - sorry in advance - Would like to know exactly what is "to build a bit of a posting history before you can use PMs" ??? I read the help section quite a few times and emailed forum managers - got a reply from Ryan Beal giving me the URL to the "help section", which was no help at all. Are you allowed to explain in more detail when I will be able to PM somebody? I am very very impressed with your 621/627 posts about Canada, also FTP answers 5/5, but all show your total posts as 867. Don't they go up in numbers as you post more???

I had wished to get in touch with Benjamin Barker (314) so I signed up and still cannot get in touch with anybody by PM. Maybe I should get another email address thru gmail to post on the site so someone I wish to talk to can get back to me.

There should be a way for newbe's to get to a manager and they can forward their request to the 2 + 2 member. I had a place for Benjamin in Montreal and could have picked him up at Platsburg or the border, but that was time sensative and has passed. The next time I might be able to help for a place in Montreal would be July 1st I think.

I should probably read up on how to interact in forums, but would want to know before July 1st. Thanks

It's so people can't sign up then immediately start spamming commercial PMs

It means that the ability to use PMs is granted based on an algorithm which is in part a function of the number of posts you have made on 2+2. AFAIK, the actual algorithm is not published. I get the impression that there are other factors as well, which might include things like post frequency, post length, duration of membership, infraction history, etc. I'm just guessing about these.

Like I said to CaseQuarter, make some useful posts and you will eventually be granted PM privileges. You might tell us why US Players may want to consider Montreal, or what you can do to help them move there. Ask questions or give advice (depending on your skill level) in an appropriate poker forum. Get involved in a discussion in Politics. If you play at Casino de Montreal, go to Bricks and Mortar and talk about the Montreal live scene. In short, the site wants you to take the effort to become part of the 2+2 community before they give you the advantages of community membership. As BigPoppa implied, there are a lot of commercial interests who try to abuse access, so this requirement is a reasonable measure.

I'm only guessing, but my guess is that a few shorter posts wll work better than the half page monsters I am known for. OTOH, very short, no-content posts will not be helpful.

I should point out that if you are a leasing agent or running some sort of business which you hope will make money from your posts here, your 'help' is not too likely to be appreciated by the site.

Why, thank you!. The information you see about a poster is always a current snapshot, not a historical record. IOW, that numbe isn't the serial number of the post but a total of my posting history. Now that I have posted this, you will see that my post count has gone up.

Posting your email address is not encouraged, IDK if it is against the site rules. If you do post an address, I'd suggest obfuscating it, perhaps like:

m y a d d y at X.nospam.com
where X = G + mail

While it would be great if the management would do what you suggest, this site has far too many users for the admins and moderators to have the time to help out individual cass like that. They do have the ability to override the PM restriction, but they only do so in very extreme cases. For instance, they recently allowed PM prileges to a FullTilT Poker representative after only one post. But that's because he is here replacing a another site representative whose job it is to help out players, and the company has a proven track record here. There are many sites that don't get that privilege, and an unknown individual isn't likely to either.

Of course they have the ability to pass on a message, but asking them would be something like asking your MP to use his House of Commons free mailing privilege to mail a letter to your aunt in Halifax.

Welcome aboard, and join in!

Thank you very much for your time and effort to explain everything, as I was getting frustrated. I was also wondering where u r located, as posting at 2:11 am means you really are located in front of your computer lol

An important detail includes passing the health and character requirements.

This will involve an appointment with a DIAC approved doctor in the U.S. (may be several hundred miles from where you live to the nearest one). It's a screening to be sure you don't have tuberculosis or sexually transmittable diseases, as well as a general physical, blood tests, illicit drugs, etc. If you can't pass a routine drug screen, don't lie about your lifestyle preferences on the written part. Of course you pay for this too, although it was less than $300 U.S. back in 2007.

You may be asked to provide your FBI record as well as a clearance from your State Police. At minimum you'll be providing a clean record for your past ten years of life. You're possibly okay with certain misdemeanors, but could easily be refused for a felony. Getting the FBI record can take 3-4 months, and you'll need to get a specific form which your local police department can then take your fingerprints on. This will all be explained to you after paying the non-refundable application fee for your subclass 462 Visa.

It's essentially a program for High School graduates age 18-30 and single, who have a work skill in demand. You'll need to show a minimum of $5,000 for an indeterminate length of stay. Expect this to be more like $12,000 if you intend to remain the maximum one year. Lastly, don't expect to be making travel plans within 4-6 months of completing the application. Don't be disappointed if you get turned down, as you should have been doing something productive while waiting for a decision. Definitely get it in writing from one of the major banks such as Commonwealth, NAB, ANZ or Westpac (used by Stars) that you will be able to not only open an account with your U.S. passport, subclass 462 Visa, and major U.S. credit card as ID, but also have incoming wires. You'll have six weeks to use your U.S. passport for this purpose before the banks stop counting it as most of your points.

Hey thanks for the info. Have you gone through this ordeal already? It seems like you are very familiar with it. I might start undergoing this process myself in a couple of months time. Is there anything else that might pose as an obstacle along the way? Thanks

NP.

I'm based in eastern Ontario, but have been known to travel. What I do doesn't tie me to a desk on a 9-5 schedule, so don't make anything of my posting times.

Short answer is yes, I successfully migrated to Australia a little over three years ago. Details are posted early ITT. I married an Aussie girl. Many of the Visas have common requirements, which is why I can draw on personal experience.

Does anyone know of any Full Tilt players from the US that have moved to Canada after black friday and been able to cash out any money or use FTPs?

Your avatar made me laugh! The border is a movable state of mind after all.

Has anyone shipped a monitor? I'm wondering what the best way to pack this thing up is. Or maybe I should just buy another in New Zealand, maybe not worth all the costs?

There was a thread in BBV where this guy bought (or made?) a bomb proof case to carry his 30 inch monitor in, you could search for that...I think it was like $300 or something tho.

Prolly not worth it unless youve got a pimp monitor cuz I imagine shipping one is pretty expensive, and monitors are pretty cheap these days.

I was wondering the same thing myself.

I've read various posts of people moving and sending info to FTP. However, I don't recall anyone getting their account unlocked or claiming they have had a successful withdrawal.

It's about $100 per item for "excess baggage" with most U.S. airlines. You just have to pack well and use plenty of bubble wrap. I brought three cases of wine overseas this way, without any problems.

Here's a link to a company who makes custom boxes that are specially designed for air travel. I picked up this one for 150$ to ship my 27" monitor. Just going to check it with my reg. luggage, as airline allows 2 checked bags for international flights. Another company makes a carrying case for LCD Monitors up to 24" and you can just carry it on the plane with you. It's around 60$
Here are the links for both.
http://www.roadcasesusa.com/products...-ATA-Case.html

http://www.cyberguys.com/product-lis...categoryid=456


Now if I can just find a way to safely/ cheaply travel overseas with my desktop computer. Anyone with thoughts?

Hello,

has anyone gotten a copy of their utility bill yet? thats the last piece of the puzzle i cant seem to figure out, nobody will give me one! and all my offers of paying upfront have been shutdown

Here goes - Montreal - "Moe - ray - al" - Food and Women - And I am not sure in which order. The food at the local restaurant is normally amazing - while Downtown it is awesome - The Chalet Bar-B-Que chicken the best in Montreal - pizza - poutine - bagels - smoked meat - The Biftec - Magnon's etc. , etc. People come from all over and have a list of places to eat before they leave. And the Women Downtown Montreal - 4 or 5 out of 10 are beautiful, amazing, outstanding, fantastic, terrific, etc. Just to stand on Ste. Catherine Street and watch them all go by is something else.

The Jazz Fest - Comedy Fest - Shows at the Bell Center - Olympic Stadium - F1 Race - and a whole lot more are World Class Attractions.

The Jazz Fest has outdoor shows that are free, with from hundreds to thousands to 100,000 people watching them. I think you could Google it to see some of the pictures of the various shows, or this years schedule.

The French people are very Jolly and Friendly, and will try to help you out.

I will post this now, as I have started this 3 times, loosing it twice.