Casino de Montreal<\/a>. \u00a0They both looked interesting, so my wife and I decided to take the five hour drive north to\u00a0see what poker was like over the border.<\/p>\nMontreal itself is an interesting city,\u00a0having both a typical modern business district and\u00a0a very quaint\u00a0Old Town, replete with interesting shops and plenty of good restaurants. \u00a0The infrastructure, though, has taken a beating from the harsh winter weather, so driving can be a pot hole dodging thrill ride with\u00a0highway construction projects suddenly dropping roads into nothingness. So if you are staying downtown, as we did, I suggest leaving your car in the\u00a0hotel garage as much as possible. You can get to the Casino Montreal via a free shuttle bus with several downtown stops, and there are taxis aplenty.<\/p>\n
[bctt tweet=”If you are in Montreal, check out either or both of these rooms” username=”PokerTraining”]<\/p>\n
If you are accustomed to Vegas casinos or even some of the large East coast venues, the Casino de Montreal will not blow you away. It is moderate sized, nothing fancy in design or atmosphere. However, it will fill all of\u00a0your\u00a0gambling needs. Its outstanding feature is the dinner buffet on the top floor. Now, I’m not a buffet person normally, but we read some decent reviews of the place and took a shot, and boy did it perform. This summer I thought I was going to need medical attention\u00a0due to the massive amount of shrimp cocktail and quality prime rib I was able to ingest prior to a 7:30pm tournament. The buffet is not cheap, but reasonable and worth every penny.<\/p>\n
The tournament we played that evening (and again a couple of nights later), had\u00a0about 80 players and the quality of play was fairly wide. \u00a0The biggest challenge was adjusting to the face cards: Kings are Rs (Rois), Queens are Ds (Dames), and, my personal favorite, Jacks are Vs (Valets). Figuring out whether you have a Broadway draw is a challenge, to say the least. \u00a0Although the dealers are kind to English-only speakers, as were most players, the very sociable atmosphere is generally conducted in French, so I had\u00a0to leave my keen table talk assessment skills behind.<\/p>\n
The room felt a bit cramped, but service was consistently solid and the tournaments well run. It may be that I feel kindly disposed \u00a0to the Casino de Montreal as this summer\u00a0I took home the largest share of an\u00a0ICM equity chop with the 5 final players\u00a0our first night and participated in an even money chop with the final 8 players on the second. Last year, my wife carried the load and moneyed both times we played at this casino as well. Amazing how profitability can influence your assessment of a room!<\/p>\n
Each year\u00a0we also played in a tournament at the Playground Poker Room. The Playground can be a challenge to get to and from if you hit the construction schedule at the wrong time. The bridge construction over the river is an ongoing nightmare. As you approach the Playground, you have little indication of \u00a0what awaits, as it looks like a large storage facility and the surrounding\u00a0area is pretty humble. Inside, however,\u00a0it is a true\u00a0treat for the avid poker player: two large rooms with about 80 tables between them. The ceilings are high, space between the tables considerable, and the seats very comfortable. There are even phone chargers built into the tables, and lights alerting the waitresses to all of your food and beverage needs. Best of all for me, it’s all poker, with no slot machines or other table games to distract.<\/p>\n
The tournaments we played were very well run, dealers were skilled, and the table service prompt. The quality of player was much stronger than those at the Casino de Montreal, and play was more focused with less chatting. Face cards are back to English, and the dealers also use more English than those downtown, but the players still spoke mostly in French. Perhaps my assessment of venues is not totally driven by results, as in neither year did we make a dime at the Playground, but loved the experience both times.<\/p>\n
So, if you are in Montreal, check out either or both of these rooms\u00a0for a different kind of poker experience. They\u00a0are definitely worthy of your time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poker’s sprawl in the United States is substantial, with about two-thirds of states having some form of legal card room. Our neighbors to the north are not short of poker options either, with a strong casino presence in several provinces. Of course, some notable Canadians have also turned into pretty good poker players, with Daniel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176,175,89,174,173,8],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada","tag-casino-de-montreal","tag-daniel-negreanu","tag-montreal","tag-playground-poker-club","tag-poker"],"yoast_head":"\n
I Think My Rois Beat Your Valets - Advanced Poker Training Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pokertraining.com\/poker\/blog\/think-rois-beat-valets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Think My Rois Beat Your Valets - Advanced Poker Training Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Poker’s sprawl in the United States is substantial, with about two-thirds of states having some form of legal card room. Our neighbors to the north are not short of poker options either, with a strong casino presence in several provinces. 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