This page is where I will post trip reports from various casino trips and other poker related excursions. I live in Athens Ohio, Home of Ohio University. So my trips will be based in and around the midwest with occasional jaunts to Las Vegas and locales furhter beyond.
Some work that I was scheduled for abruptly cancelled and I found myself with a few free days. I checked the weather and it seemed like a reasonable forecast for Niagara Falls in early January so I packed up the car and headed for the Falls. The nice thing about Niagara Falls is that there is always plenty to do besides poker. This makes it more reasonable to bring non-poker players along. Niagara falls is a fun place, with or without poker.
It is pretty easy to find affordable hotels in Niagara falls in the winter. I think we actually found the best deal at Expedia but some other sites that are helpful are NiagaraHotelDeals.com and Niagarafallshoteldiscounts.com. We ended up getting room at the Brock Skyline hotel right across the bridge in Canada. It was an easy walk to the Seneca Niagara casino on the US side, we were attached to the Niagara Casino on the Canadian side and then we could take a long walk to the Fallsview Casino on the Canadian side. Note that at this time only the Seneca Niagara casino and the Fallsview Casino have poker rooms. Direct links to the poker rooms are Seneca Niagara Poker room and the Fallsview casino poker room.
Seneca Niagara
The poker room was decent. It had about 14 tables. The blinds went from $2-$4 on up for limit and they had $1-$2 no limit tables. The wait was longer for the no limit tables so I mostly played the 2-4.
Overall the Casino is not very ornate. You in no way feel like you are in Vegas. No big deal if all you came here for was poker though.
The mood was casual, the dealers were competent the players were friendly. The competition seemed to be avid poker players or perhaps I was just unlucky, I did well my first session and rather poorly from then on. It was nice to visit a Brick and Mortar cardroom to play with real folks instead of online. Unlike the time I played in Vegas, there where no drunks and no one that seemed to be a tourist who was just playing poker for the fun of it. This folks all seemed to know Poker as well or better than the dealers.
Tournaments:
Seneca Niagara has regularly scheduled tournaments. Tournaments are fun enough that even if you fail to place in the money they are a worthwhile activity. I played in the $30 " I survived now cash me out" tourney. It was a $30 buy in and the waiting list fills up quickly so arrive early before the set signup time to get a seat. The tourney allows for rebuys and addons so consider it to be a $100 entry fee. I had lost all that I cared to lose up till that time so I vowed not to rebuy or add on. This gave me a distinct disadvantage, although I did alright without a rebuy the addon would have come in handy.
The way the "I survived now cash me out" structure works is that if you make it to the last table you can cash out if you are in last place and get real money for your remaining chips, minus %25 that goes to the winner.
Fallsview Casino
The Fallsview Casino launched the debut of their Poker Room on the last night of our stay. The sign up sheet stretched on and on and the wait would have been hours. So I was not able to play this room. The casino however was really nice and the poker room was rather nice. The whole casino is designed to resemble one of those new-style Vegas casino/shopping experiences. So it was fancy, ornate, and nicely decorated. The poker room therefore had nicer chairs tables and the like. Once again if those things matter to you then Fallsview has them.
