Exploring the world, one poker room at a time - a wasy8 project

Grey Eagle Casino - Calgary, AB, Canada

My first stop on this project is at the Grey Eagle Casino, a casino on an indian reserve with a large 15 table poker room. My friend, who is also a HUSNG reg, talked me into playing the $300 monthly challenge tournament last Wednesday with him. We both played and swapped a small %. He busted about midway through, and despite it being my first ever live MTT, i finished 6/147 for $1750, plus an extra $100 in bounties. Was pretty disappointed with my finish though, since i was a dominant chipleader with 6th left. A combination of it being a fast structure as well as being really card dead and running badly when I actually did have cards meant that I busted earlier than I wanted to. Still a good result I guess.

How did I score my $1 chip if I just played a tournament? Funny enough, I just found it on the ground in the poker room during the tournament. Works for me. And even though my buddy didn't cash in the tournament, he did clean up in the cash games while waiting for me, so all in all a successful trip.

Cowboys Casino - Calgary, AB, Canada

I've been to Cowboys a few times now, since it's really close to my place, plus its awesome overall. The poker room/casino is also attached to a club, so lots of drunkies wander in from there too. The poker room is open 24 hours, and if you're around at 10am they give you a complimentary breakfast as well. I went on Friday and Saturday, and took home a profit of $2400 at 200nl over 2 sessions. Saturday might've been the craziest live game I've ever been a part of. Two players at the table were literally playing their entire hands blind, and were putting in 100bb almost every hand doing so. They were running super hot to keep themselves in the game for most of the night, but overall I held enough hands vs them to score a pretty monstrous profit of $1850 on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I can imagine Cowboys will probably be my go-to for live games when I'm not exploring other cardrooms. Highly recommended.

Awesome blog! Can't wait for more. My wife and I are planning to go to Canada next year (2014 actually) for 8-9 months. Still trying to figure out where we will go and what we will do exactly. But it seesm like I will definitely have to play some live poker! ♠_grin:

If you want to come and play in some casino's in Belgium, I will be happy to show you around

GL and HF!

Laurens

will follow ♦

This will surely be a blog to follow! Sick that you have so many casino's relatively nearby. My first casino trip will be in Prague, perhaps I can do something similar wherever I go. Thanks for the tip!

Casino Calgary - Calgary, AB, Canada

Casino Calgary is in the northeast part of Calgary, and part of a chain of casinos that also includes Casino Yellowhead, Casino Edmonton, and Casino Lethbridge. You get a loyalty card that collects points whenever you visit any of the casino, plus other bonuses for things like visiting all 4 casinos within 30 days. I won't be able to visit all 4 this month, since I'm going home to Winnipeg for Christmas with the family for two weeks, so I'll likely visit the others all in January or February.

As for the poker room itself, it seems nice enough. Its open 24 hours but I visited during a weekday evening when the games didn't seem particularly good. Encountered the first solid live reg I've ever played at 1/2 - he was aggro in good spots, betsized really well and was friendly and engaging towards fish. If you want to play live poker successfully, I think these are all really good qualities to emulate. Having him two to my left wasn't exactly ideal. However, right beside him, one to my left, was a player with the exact opposite qualities of this player. He was an old fuck who bitched every time he a) lost a pot, b) folded preflop and wouldve hit the flop, c) he thought someone else played bad. Constantly berating fish and being generally unpleasant. I really wanted to punch him in the face. Repeatedly.

All in all, these less-than-ideal playing conditions, plus being tired, meant I only stayed for a shorter session of about 3 hours and left with a small profit of $115.

Cash Casino - Calgary, AB, Canada

Cash Casino was actually my first stop of the night, before Calgary Casino. I learned a pretty important lesson here though - ALWAYS call the poker room before you show up to make sure games are running. The room was completely dead. Only a dealer sitting there watching TV. He told me 1/2 basically only runs on Friday and Saturday nights, and other than that its basically only their daily $40 tournaments. I guess with so many poker rooms in the city, they can't all be lively all the time. However this was pretty disappointing for a room that is up 24/7. I bought my $1 chip from the cage anyways and left.

There's another Cash Casino in Red Deer, and since that's the only casino/poker room in that city I expect it to be much livelier when I go there.

Originally posted by DeLau
Awesome blog! Can't wait for more. My wife and I are planning to go to Canada next year (2014 actually) for 8-9 months. Still trying to figure out where we will go and what we will do exactly. But it seesm like I will definitely have to play some live poker! ♠_grin:

If you want to come and play in some casino's in Belgium, I will be happy to show you around

GL and HF!

Laurens

Cool! I'd be happy to help you out with travel plans when you do come to Canada. There is literally so much to do, but if you're here for 8-9 months you should have plenty of time to visit all the major attractions.

Belgium would definitely be cool to visit. I'll let you know when I'm in that part of Europe. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Originally posted by NIVEKii
This will surely be a blog to follow! Sick that you have so many casino's relatively nearby. My first casino trip will be in Prague, perhaps I can do something similar wherever I go. Thanks for the tip!

A casino in Prague would be pretty sick, definitely a city that would be high on my list to visit.

Cheers and good luck!

This seems pretty cool, gonna follow And come to Prague

Originally posted by wasy8
Cool! I'd be happy to help you out with travel plans when you do come to Canada. There is literally so much to do, but if you're here for 8-9 months you should have plenty of time to visit all the major attractions.

Belgium would definitely be cool to visit. I'll let you know when I'm in that part of Europe. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Great, sent you friend request. Hit me up on skype when you're coming this way

Elbow River Casino - Calgary, AB, Canada

Elbow River is actually the closest casino to my place, but spreads basically only limit holdem, some PLO, and some mixed game stuff. They do spread some of the biggest limit games in Canada, and the 40/80 game runs regularly. Another 24/7 poker room in Calgary, but no NLH means I don't play there. I contemplated sitting down for a bit of limit poker, but was told there'd be a 30 minute wait for a game. Let's be serious, I'm not waiting 30 min to play limit poker. Bought my $1 chip at the cage and got outta there.

Nice looking chip though.

Two more casinos in Calgary to do, Century Casino and Deerfoot. Gonna try to hit up Century this weekend, and Deerfoot next week. Also wanna try to get to at least one of Lethbridge, Red Deer, or Stoney Nakoda before I go home to Manitoba for Christmas next Friday. All three are outside of Calgary (Lethbridge 2.5 hr drive, Red Deer 1.5 hr drive, and Stoney Nakoda 1 hr drive).

Cool blog, subbed ♠_love:

Deerfoot Inn & Casino - Calgary, AB, Canada

I've been to Deerfoot once before last night, but forgot to collect a chip. I think Deerfoot is one of the nicer casinos in Calgary, located in the southeast corner of the city. Another 24/7 poker room, and action is pretty steady all around the clock.

My game was pretty meh last night though - some competent young guys (albeit kinda nitty) among the few drunk fish that went in and out. Was super tempted to take a shot at the 5/10 game running on the table next to us, looked like it was an average age of 40+ at that table. I only ended up +52 after like 5 hours, but I honestly have no idea how I walked out with a profit. Was totally card dead for hours, and when I did play a hand, it felt like villain got there almost every time. Got QQ in vs JJ midway through the night for a 600bb pot, splashy Asian lady binked her J on the river. I really shouldn't complain too much though, I've run pretty well in live poker all year. (0 losing sessions in 2012, fingers crossed that the streak continues!)

Called Century Casino, and their poker room is apparently closed indefinitely. So it appears with Deerfoot done, I've gotten through all 6 poker rooms in Calgary. Tonight, I'm making the 2.5hr drive down to Lethbridge to visit their lovely casino. Looking forward to my first poker 'road trip'!

Casino Lethbridge - Lethbridge, AB, Canada

This was supposed to be a day trip to Lethbridge, at most a one night stay in a hotel and go home in the morning. It turned into a 5 day trip, where my car broke down and was forced to wait until I could get it fixed. $1100 car repair bill and 4 nights in a hotel later, I could finally get back to Calgary.

Lethbridge is a smaller city, a bit of a university town. Casino Lethbridge is located at the east end of the city, and is part of the ABS chain of casinos in Alberta. Their $1, $5 and $25 chips were from several different older rooms, hand-me-down chips essentially. The 50 cent chip was the only one that actually had their name on it, so that's the one I took home. If there was a game running it was usually $1/2, but they did get a $2/5 dealer's choice game going at one point as well. As to be expected from a smaller city, the games were super juicy and entertaining. It made up for the shitty casino food and the slow dealers. Probably wouldn't go back, but I certainly won't forget Lethbridge.

I'm going home to Winnipeg for two weeks on Friday. I might get to a casino or two when I'm back home at some point. If not, I'll make sure to get to them when I come back in May.

Nice Blog ♠_love:

Nice Blog

Hey guys, I'm back from Winnipeg. Got chips from Club Regent and South Beach, which are the two Manitoba casinos I've played at when I lived there. I would've updated while I was there, but internet was pretty shitty at my parents place and I couldn't images properly for whatever reason. So here's the trip report of the casinos I visited while home for the holidays!

South Beach Casino - Scanterbury, MB, Canada

I don't even know if Scanterbury qualifies as a town. The only reason people know Scanterbury exists is because of two reasons: a) the casino is there, b) you drive through it on the way to Grand Beach. It's basically a native reservation, and this is a native-owned casino. It's a decent casino though, with a tropical theme, a decent restaurant and hotel, and good games. It's about 30 min from my parent's house and 45 min outside Winnipeg so I've been here a few times before, but with mixed results.

Club Regent Casino - Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Club Regent is where I played my first ever hand of live poker (outside of homegames). It's in the north side of the city and when I first got into poker it was the only place you could play live poker. Since then South Beach and McPhillips (haven't played there yet) have opened their cardrooms so 'Peggers have options now. They also run a tropical theme here, with the whole roof painted as a bright blue tropical sky - a nice effect imo. I did read that Antonio Esfandiari played here once or twice and really liked it - so take that for what its worth. Always been a fan of Regent and will keep coming back when I'm in town visiting family. Unfortunately though they share the same chips with McPhillips so when I collect a chip from McPhillips it's going to look exactly the same as this one.

I've also booked a trip to Vegas for the end of this month, 7 night stay. Going to play at and collect as many as I can - target is 15, hopefully more. Outside of Vegas, I've decided that my goal is to play at every card room in Canada before the end of 2013 (excluding the 9 I've already played at). There's about 65 in total, so it should be more than achievable. Longer term for this thread, I want to play in at least one cardroom on all 6 continents before the age of 30. I'm 23 now. This thread will be epic and I am stoked for it.

this is the coolest idea ever.

Landed in Vegas tonight. Hanging out in Panorama Towers at my friend's place before I check in to Planet Hollywood for the week.

This is the view from his balcony:

Its not the best quality pic but you get the idea. Big grind week incoming with lots of chips/pics to be posted.