Outgrown your home poker game?

Have you outgrown your home poker game?

By David McClary

I canπt think of a store that wasnπt selling poker chips this holiday season. They were everywhere, and with good reason. Home poker games and tournaments have exploded. Given that there are at least four televised poker circuits, itπs easy to understand the popularity. Private poker games are great, and some of the very famous Texas Rounders like Doyle Brunson, Bobby Baldwin, and ≥Amarillo Slim≤ Preston even became independently wealthy playing in them. But if you have been playing in a home game and would like to try something new, then a casino card room may be for you.

A casino card room has some great advantages over a home game. One of the best is that itπs always open. There isnπt any waiting around for one person to show up or closing up early because someone needs to get home. There are very well run card rooms at the Seneca Niagara and Seneca Allegany casinos as well as the Seneca Gaming in Irving. Poker has also been recently added to Fallsview and Casino Niagara across the border. They have games running around the clock at a betting limit that beginners can afford.

The biggest difference between a casino poker game and the game you may play with your friends is that your friends arenπt there. This sounds obvious but has some great advantages. Betting heavy into your buddy in a home game may cause tension and a checkraise may lead to shouting matches or worse. At the casino, the person next to you is most likely a total stranger. Whatπs more, they came to the casino for the same reason you did so there isnπt the worry about hurt feelings. This isnπt to say that a casino card room isnπt a friendly place. Itπs quite the opposite. Poker is fun and most people at the table are having fun. They just arenπt worried about the person next to them giving them the cold shoulder on the ride home.

One major change that televised poker has brought is that everyone seems to play hold πem. If you grew up in the South or West this is no big deal, but until a few years ago poker on the East Coast meant seven-card stud. Good stud players may disagree with me, but hold πem is a great game for a public card rooms. Since you can count on nearly always having nine other players at your table, hold πem allows patient players to pick their spots. I tested this idea two weeks ago when I arrived at the Seneca Niagara poker room at 7 a.m. on a Thursday and found myself waiting for a seat at one of the two already full tables. If you are a traditionalist however, you can usually find at least one stud game during busy periods.

Each of the local casino card rooms is a great place to work on your poker skills and have a good time doing it. The staff members I have met are all friendly and helpful. The games are competitive and the atmosphere is fun. If nothing else, after a few visits, you just might become the shark in your home game.