Author: Paul

While most major Vegas casinos tightly hug the Strip, the Orleans Hotel and Casino is relatively isolated.  Positioned several blocks west of the south end of the strip, the Orleans must provide it all in order to draw players away from more central options. And it largely succeeds. Along with the standard gaming, hotel and upscale dining, The Orleans also houses a newly renovated multi-screen movie theater and a 70-lane bowling alley. In addition, it boasts a food court with staple chains such as Fuddruckers, Sbarro, Subway and Baskin-Robbins.   There’s even a sizable arcade for the kids.

The Orleans Casino is self-sufficient, and the Orleans poker room has a similar feel. The poker room is neither the largest or fanciest of Vegas rooms, but it gets the job done.

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The River Casino & Sports Bar in downtown Nashua, NH adds a quirky, unique character to the New Hampshire poker scene. This is forged by The River’s location and setting, but also by the competition. The River Casino moved a few years ago from Milford, NH to the more populated Nashua. At that time, it entered immediate competition with the newly opened, and more upscale, Boston Billiard Club Casino.

Lacking the seacoast draw of some New Hampshire competitors (Hampton Falls and Seabrook), the bucolic appeal of others (Lakes Region), or the closer to Boston Salem-based Chasers, The River has to leverage its strengths.  The feel of a small-city neighborhood bar pervades the River Casino with familiarity breading bonding among players.

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The Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York sits about halfway between Albany and Buffalo. While Turning Stone is in a less populated section of New York, the convenience of being right off I-90 makes it very accessible. Accessible is a good word to describe Turning Stone in general. This is a full service casino with many dining options, a full suite of slots and table games, and several hotels/inns.  Turning Stone’s moderate size and brighter than normal casino atmosphere give it a very welcoming vibe.

That vibe continues in the poker room. An airy room with comfortable chairs and exceptional dealers, Turning Stone’s poker room quickly vaulted to the top of our list.

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The Rivers Casino and Resort sits, appropriately enough, on the banks of the Mohawk River in Schenectady New York.  The Rivers is a rarity among casinos, one that did not allow dreams to overwhelm practicality. It is a small casino encompassing all of the key features of a bigger casino: a hotel, several decent dining options, and all the slots, table games, and poker options that one could want. It is also a relative newcomer to the scene, opening in early 2017. We found The Rivers Casino Poker Room to be an excellent addition to the poker options in the Northeast.

On this trip, we stayed a couple of nights in Schenectady at a hotel about a mile from the casino. We did not spend much time exploring Schenectady, but enjoyed a nice lunch at a small restaurant called Bel Cibo. There were a lot of closed storefronts downtown and many buildings in need of significant renovation, but there were signs, including The Rivers, that Schenectady is a city making efforts to return from tough economic times.

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