The Lilac Club Casino Poker Room Review
The Lilac Club Casino poker room is the newest entry to the New Hampshire poker scene. Set in Rochester, New Hampshire, the Lilac Club Casino is half an hour northwest of Portsmouth, straight up Route 16 (the Spaulding Turnpike). It is also mere minutes from the Maine border. We visited the Lilac Club poker room for their Tuesday morning tournament and came away quite impressed with the facility, the staff, and the tournament itself.
Casino Setting
The Lilac Club Casino is unassuming from the street, to say the least. It sits in a strip mall between an Ocean State Job Lot and a Dollar Store, with a Papa Gino’s thrown in for good measure.
While there may not be much going on in Rochester itself, the casino is just 15 minutes up the road from the University of New Hampshire, not far from Portsmouth, under an hour from Concord NH, about an hour from Portland ME, and a little over an hour from Boston. There are innumerable small coastal towns within reach from northern Massachusetts, up through New Hampshire, and into southern Maine. For lake and mountain lovers, you can reach the lower regions of Lake Winnipesaukee in 30 minutes, and you can enter the White Mountains in just over an hour. This region is rich with diverse vacation settings.
Non-Poker Amenities
The Lilac Club offers a small but full-service casino with slots, table games, and a Sports Book. They host a full bar and a small restaurant, The Lucky Oak, which serves some excellent food and delivers to the poker room. The overall footprint is quite small, but nicely appointed. We were particularly happy with the tasteful decor and relative quiet of the main casino space.
While the casino is dim throughout, the decor is attractive, with interesting, thick carpeting. There are plenty of clean restrooms. The casino is also non-smoking, with a separate room for those who like to smoke while they play slots.
The Lilac Casino Poker Room Comfort
The 12-table Lilac Casino poker room is a large, attractive space with striped beige walls and numerous TVs. It sports an attractive floral carpet and modern light fixtures above each table. The poker room is separate from the main casino and feels like an oasis of peace and light. The lighting and airflow are excellent, and there is plenty of space between tables.
The tables are covered in a classic green felt with a padded rail, cupholders, and USB chargers. They even feature auto-shufflers which make for a speedy tournament deal. The chairs have wheels, are well-padded, and are extremely comfortable. The chips are new and attractive, and (hallelujah!) it is easy to distinguish among denominations. This feels like a poker room designed by someone who cares about poker. It is a pleasure to play in.
Poker Room Staff
The Lilac Club poker room has excellent staff. Floors are friendly and knowledgeable and did a great job balancing tables and otherwise attending to tournament needs. Unfortunately, the day that we played, the tournament was sparsely attended, but the floor ensured that tables were never more than one seat out of balance.
Even before the tournament started, the floor was attentive. He overheard Paul and me talking about being put at the same table. He popped into the discussion and said that he could reseat one of us immediately.
The dealers were quite skilled, fast, friendly, and clearly already familiar with the room’s regulars. When small mistakes were brought to their attention, they corrected the issues without any defensiveness. The waitstaff was excellent, circulating frequently, and happily taking and delivering food orders along with drinks..
Players at The Lilac Club Poker Room
The weekday morning tournament drew mainly older players who are available to play at that time of day. The play tended to be passive, and the players were quiet, some tending toward grumpy. I was the only woman playing in the room (both cash and poker), but there was some ethnic diversity. Again, this is a morning tournament in a relatively new room. Hopefully as word gets out, more players will fill out future tournaments.
Tournament Structure
As of this writing, the Lilac Club offers a regular tournament on Tuesday and Wednesday at 11am. The tournament has a $150 buy-in (with no dealer add-on) for a 30K starting stack and 20-minute blinds. There were 19 buy-ins by the close of registration, a few of which were re-entries. Frankly, the structure is currently among the best you will find in New Hampshire. While the ante started in the first blind level, blinds rose at a perfectly sedate pace: 100-200, 100-300, 200-400, 300-600, etc. By the time the final five players chopped about five hours into the tournament, stacks were still a healthy 20-40 blinds deep.
The floor indicated that the Lilac Club will be adding weekend tournaments in June. They also plan to start a bounty tournament and a ladies’ tournament in the near future.
Cash Game Activity
On this Thursday morning, a single cash table started at around 11:30 am. Interestingly, it was a 4-8 limit Stud-Omaha HiLo mix table (yikes!). Around 2 pm, a $1/$3 NLH table opened up as well and filled quickly. You can find weekly averages for cash play in the region in our New England cash poker tables. These have just been updated, and you can access average table counts for the Lilac Club and other rooms in the area by day throughout the week.
Overall Assessment of the Lilac Club Casino Poker Room
The Lilac Club Casino poker room was a joy to visit. While it is a small casino in a somewhat out-of-the-way location, it is attractive and comfortable, with good lighting and a pleasant atmosphere. The staff are top notch and the current tournament is well-structured. The room needs only some more volume to qualify as one of our favorite New England poker rooms.
For Poker Pilgrims news and alerts whenever we publish a new article, visit our Substack and subscribe.
-
Comfort
-
Tournament Structures
-
Personnel
Summary
The Lilac Club Casino poker room was a joy to visit. While it is a small casino in a relatively out-of-the-way location, it is attractive and comfortable, with good lighting and a pleasant atmosphere. The staff are top notch and the current tournament is well-structured. The room needs only some more volume to make it one of our favorite New England poker rooms.
