Seneca Niagara and Turning Stone

[Slow Play Ray]

Seneca Niagara - I didn't even know this place existed. I got sent to Niagara Falls for work and they put me up in a hotel directly across the street from it...aside from the actual work part, it made for a great business trip. Anyone else ever play there? Not a bad little card room at all - not too crowded, set WAY off from the rest of the casino (read: annoying slot machines). Lots of locals though, seemed like at any given point at least 6/10 players at my table all knew one another. Also, I learned that I hate playing with ceramic poker chips.

I also stopped for my 1st visit to Turning Stone on my ride home. Didn't get to play poker, but checked out the room real quick - seems nice, but much smaller than I expected. For some reason, since they're another "only game in town" like Foxwoods, I thought the room would be of comparable size. All-in-all a really classy casino thought. I did get to play a little blackjack and make a couple extra bucks.

[bigbeardedbryan]

All the Seneca casino poker rooms use those crappy ceramic chips, which just barely beat using $1 and $5 stacks of nickels. I play Niagara occasionally but Allegany more frequently; both rooms are chock-full of local fish but you're lots more likely to have a decent game selection at Niagara (unless you're looking for 2-4 or 3-6HE, as those are the only structured games you'll find at Allegany).

I don't know whether it's the really awful knockoff cards they use or a lack of training, but with very few exceptions the dealers generally struggle mightily to get cards to the players. Last time I was there, I saw a card shatter during a shuffle, which was odd.

[Slow Play Ray]

Interesting. I thought all of the dealers were actually quite adept (then again, I am used to Foxwoods, home of the dealer who can never get just one card off the top of the deck and spends an obscene amount of time attempting to separate them). The cards did suck though, there was one deck all of the dealers refused to use, they didn't rotate decks and kept leaving the same one out for one another.

Best piece of advice I heard at Seneca Niagara: "low cards are always better than high cards for calling a raise"