Reviews of poker rooms across the country
Harrah’s Cherokee poker room is not a “we’ll just stop by” experience. Tucked into the Great Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina, it requires a clear intention to visit. As we were driving back east through Tennessee we decide to make this our intention.
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The vibrant New England poker scene offers a wide variety of options in a very small geographic footprint. In less than 4 hours you could drive from the room (with 10 or more tables) furthest north, Lebanon Poker Room, to the one furthest south, Foxwoods. The region’s largest city, Boston, sits dead center of the poker action. Drive a little more than two hours north and you are at the Lebanon Poker Room, 90 minutes south to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and then 90 minutes due west to the newest large casino venue, MGM Springfield. Three poker rooms in southern New Hampshire are within about an hour North of Boston as well. Additionally, Encore Boston Harbor reopened in February 2022, but with such restricted hours (and only 12 tables), it is hardly an actor in the market.
In short, there are a lot of options for the New England poker player. So how does one decide where to play poker in New England? Some of it comes down to personal taste. You may just select your favorite rooms, as we did recently. But if you have specific criteria for your preferred game, there’s data available that can help guide your decision.
We have long had a decent idea which venues have the most active cash games, and which tournaments draw the largest fields. But, as data analysts by trade, we decided to take a more statistical approach to our investigation. During Fall 2021 we used PokerAtlas and Bravo Poker to track cash and tournament activity for all New England sites which provide live data on either site. On weekdays, we collected numbers at 8pm each night for cash play, and tracked tournaments after the registration period closed. On weekends, we tracked cash both at 2pm and 8pm and the number of entries for all tournaments.
The Caesars Palace poker room is relatively small compared to the massive edifice that surrounds it. However, it’s very conveniently located mid-Strip and offers at least 4 tournaments every day. On our Vegas trip last fall, we decided to drop by between events at the Rio and our new favorite Resorts World Las Vegas.
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Recently we wrote about the Resorts World Las Vegas, which holds the newest poker room on the Las Vegas Strip. Now we review the poker room at the Sahara, one of the oldest remaining casinos on the Strip. The Sahara sits at the very northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard, near the Stratosphere, and hosts a small but charming poker room. Read More
The Sandia Poker Room is part of a full-service casino in Albuquerque New Mexico that sits at the base of the Sandia Mountains. The casino’s locale maximizes both convenience and natural beauty, making a trip to the poker room a low-stress event. The poker room itself enhanced that relaxed feeling and offered some excellent perks.