Tioga Downs Poker Room Review
Returning to Massachusetts from a very enjoyable week’s trip to Grand Rapids Michigan, we decided to finish off the last New York poker room we had yet to see: Tioga Downs. While this added about 40 minutes to our trip, it seemed well worth it while we were already out this way. Tioga Downs, by the way is the 101st poker room we have visited overall. Check out which 5 poker rooms are our favorite out of the first 100.
Casino Setting
Tioga Downs is only a couple minutes off Route 86 in Nichols, NY. It is almost exactly due south of del Lago Casino where we visited the week before on our way to Michigan. del Lago sits on top of the Finger Lakes, whereas Tioga Downs is a bit below them. Binghamton, a small city where one of the SUNY branches is, lies about a half an hour east of the casino.
The ride along Route 86, while not providing much in the way of large cities, is very picturesque with rolling hills throughout most of the ride across southern New York. As we said about del Lago, this is a great area for a hiking/nature vacation merged with poker. If you are willing to drive two hours from the Nichols area, you can also get to the Turning Stone and the Resorts World Catskills poker rooms. Turning Stone, in particular, is a favorite of ours. If you expand your vacation plans, Niagara Falls is three hours to the northwest, and New York City is three hours to the southeast. So you have a lot of vacation options in this part of the country.
Non-Poker Amenities
Tioga Downs offers a full-service casino experience with slots, table games, and a Sports Book. The casino floor is one long narrow winding room and is smoke-free. The overall atmosphere feels like “Old Vegas” as opposed to the newer modern casinos. Tioga Downs also sports a horse track and maintains a live harness racing schedule between May and September, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. Indeed, they were actively preparing the track on the Saturday we attended for racing that evening.
Tioga downs also houses a performance venue, but it does not seem to book much, as the next event on the schedule in mid-September was a late October Rod Stewart tribute band. Don’t miss that one! There is also an affiliated 18-hole golf course.
Dining options at Tioga Downs include the casino favorite noodle bar (Fin & Pho), buffet (ditto casino fav), a Dunkin/Baskin Robbins combo (which I am ashamed to say was our lunch selection), a more upscale restaurant (PJ Clarke’s), and various other bars and lounges. It does not offer the most varied or lavish casino dining experience. None of the restaurants here are very well-rated.
Tioga Downs is connected to its own hotel and spa which is well-rated on Hotels.com and seems very affordable, particularly midweek.
Tioga Downs Poker Room Comfort
The 6-table poker room at Tioga Downs fills a small area separate from the main casino floor at the back left of the facility. The room is tight and feels a bit dark, with deep red walls and beige carpeting. The lighting over the tables is reasonable, but the general feel of the room is dim.
The poker room features decently high ceilings. The tables are well-spaced, with plenty of room to maneuver between them. NIt is not a bad room for its size, but it is also not particularly unique or particularly pleasant to play in.
The poker room chairs have wheels, are adjustable, and are well-padded. They are pretty comfortable. The tables are branded and clean, but the felts are very worn. The tables feature a padded rail, auto-shufflers, drink cups, and USB ports.
The chips are clean and branded. Play is nine-handed, but the tables are large enough that everyone still has some elbow room.
NOTE: Currently the poker room is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Poker Room Staff
The floor was polite, but not overly friendly. When I arrived he said he would put me on the wait list and text me when a seat was available. Given that there were already 9-10 players on the list, I assumed the wait would be short, but after a half an hour no one had texted me (the text came 5 hours later). I happened to wander back by the room and saw that a second table was active. The floor did recognize me at that point and got me chips quickly. From what I could glean, the hold up on a second table had been waiting for a dealer to arrive for work.
The Tioga Downs poker room dealers were a mix of young and old, with the older dealers being a bit slow dealing and mistake-prone (e.g, making the wrong change, pushing a pot to the wrong player). They were generally quiet, not interacting with the players more than necessary to move the game along. The wait staff came around immediately after I sat down and seemed to bring people’s drinks quickly.
Players at the Tioga Downs Poker Room
The players at the Tioga Downs poker room reflected a wide range of ages and abilities. No women were playing, and all but one player was white. While some players were playing a loose passive style, others were highly aggressive, with large bets both pre and post flop. There were definitely several players who knew what they were doing. One player straddled both UTG and on the button in every round.
Players were serious for the most part, but there were a couple more social players.
Tournament Structure
As of this writing, the Tioga Downs poker room does not offer tournaments.
Cash Game Activity
On this late Saturday morning, the poker room was running one cash table of $1/$2 NLH. They opened up a second table about a half hour after I got on the waitlist. From our recent tracking of cash games (see our cash game activity update), the Tioga Downs poker room gets a max of one $1/$2 cash tables every day they are open except on Saturday where they get up to 2 tables. They rarely, if ever, get any other games going.
Overall Assessment of the Tioga Downs Poker Room
The Tioga Downs poker room is very small and relatively inactive. It has no tournaments and most days only gets a single cash table going, with Saturday expanding to a whopping two tables. Some of the dealers are perhaps past their prime and the floor seemed only marginally interested. There is not a lot to recommend in the casino at large either, unless you are a big harness racing fan. For poker players Tioga Downs is, a very skippable experience.
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Comfort
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Personnel
Summary
The Tioga Downs poker room is very small and relatively inactive. It has no tournaments and most days only gets a single cash table going, with Saturday expanding to a whopping two tables. The casino at large does not offer much either. In all, a very skippable experience.
