The Canterbury Card Room
B and I are poker players, and one of the things we'd been most looking forward to about moving to Minneapolis was playing at the Canterbury. The Canterbury is a racetrack located about 20 minutes south of Minneapolis. Several years ago they legalized card rooms in Minnesota, and the Canterbury opened one. As a "card room," the Canterbury spreads both poker and table games such as blackjack and Let It Ride, but only the poker interests us.
Nationally, the Canterbury poker room has a very good reputation -- so much so that Wynn Las Vegas, the newest casino on the Las Vegas Strip, was hiring for its card room they hired a lot of personnel from the Canterbury. Pretty nice.
So B and I headed down there this past Saturday (August 6). I already blogged the details of the trip in my other blog -- for anyone who doesn't know, I started a poker blog about a year and a half ago called "Cheap Thrills." Below I'm cutting and pasting my posts on the Canterbury from my poker blog to this blog. These posts are strictly about the poker room -- B and I will be heading back to the Canterbury on Labor Day weekend, digital camera in tow, and I'll put up a separate post on the Canterbury racetrack complete with pictures.
First Post on the Canterbury from Cheap Thrills:
First Trip to the Canterbury. Cha-Ching :-)
So after a full month of living in Minneapolis, B and I finally got down to the Canterbury Racetrack and Card Room to play some poker. Although I was totally joking in my previous post about needing to win more than Mrs. Cheap Thrills in order to defend my masculinity, I am happy to report that I did come out on top in our little competition. I played $2/$4 and won $194, which is the most big bets I've ever won in a single session of live poker. B, on the other hand, lost money. Mwah ah ah ah ;-)
We got there at like 9:45am. This was partly because I'd heard from other Minnesota poker bloggers that the waits at the Canterbury can be really bad, and partly because we were meeting my friend from work, K, and he also insisted we get there by 10 at the latest.
10am seemed just a touch early there was no wait for $2/$4, and the one $3/$6 game was short-handed, but by noon waits were an hour+, so I can see how you'd want to be better safe than sorry.
I had planned to play $3/$6, but K was not comfortable playing above $2/$4, so I said what they hay and sat down at $2/$4 with him. B sat down at the short-handed $3/$6 table and very soon had her pocket aces rivered by T9o, costing her half her buy-in. I wont say that this put her on tilt (cause shed smack me), but it certainly did put a damper on her day.
I stayed about even at the $2/$4 table with K, while K slowly lost. He seems to be a very smart guy, but is a textbook example of how being good at no-limit tourneys can ruin you for limit cash games. He kept trying to raise people out with marginal handson the turn or river, and kept getting called (because people don't fold at low limits). Then he would raise with a really solid hand pre-flop, and get drawn out on (because people don't fold at low limits). Which led him to conclude that it's all luck at the low limits, whereas I feel that really it's just very different from both no-limit and tourney play. (It certainly requires more post-flop play than the average fast-structured NL tourney.)
Oh, and then I took a bundle off K with pocket Queens that flopped a set. Kinda felt bad about that.
Anyhoo, K busted out and left, but I stayed at the $2/$4 table. I liked the table -- it was mostly older guys there just passing the time. Visions of my future aside, I liked that they liked to play every hand and didnt like people who raised. Calling stations are my favorite type of player. Duh. Also, all the players were polite and one guy was pretty funny, so it was pleasant enough. (I think one big leak in my live game is that if there's one or more assholes at the table itcan really distract me.)
I must now document one of the funny guy's best lines. He was sitting between two fellow older guys and they were all joking about "being too old to take beats like this" and such. At one point, one of the play-any-two older guys got rivered and started whining about it, and the funny older guy said simply:
I proceeded to go on quite a run, which in a self-fulfilling prophecy led me to play well and with more confidence than if I had started out badly. Since I haven't ridden the online horse much since the move, it felt great to get a victory under my belt.
Oh, and I bet the ponies a bit too. I hit my exacta in the first race. The exacta box bet cost a total of $4, netting me $18 in profit. That was enough betting money to carry me though the day, ponies-wise. I know enough about horse racing to know that I'm not very good at it, and therefore I only bet small amount. Still, it was very enjoyable to handicap the races in between folds. I finished up $8 on the ponies.
All in all it was a really fun Saturday morning and afternoon. In addition to the win, though, a big part of our enjoyment came from how nice the Canterbury is. That will be the subject of my next post.
Second post on the Canterbury from Cheap Thrills:
As I hinted at in my previous post, I really liked the Canterbury. Maybe I'm just excited about being in a new state -- and maybe I'm just bitter about my last loss at Foxwoods -- but here I present:
The Top 10 Reasons Why the Canterbury Is Better Than Foxwoods
1. Better dealers. The dealers actually enforce the rules of the game, such as "show one, show all," and don't talk about what you folded during a hand, and no foul language.
2. Better floor staff. The floor staff is friendly and helpful -- for example, you can actually a get a table change to the specific table you want. At Foxwoods getting a table change always seemed not worth the trouble. Or maybe I'm just not pushy enough.
3. Nine-handed as opposed to ten-handed tables. With more space between the tables. If you're gonna sit for 5+ hours straight, the value of leg and shoulder should not be underestimated.
Tangent: Numbers 1, 2, and 3 have the same root cause: Foxwoods is just so overwhelmed by the crowds that the service suffers as a result. The same could be said about the entire Northeast, but I digress . . .
4. The ratio of polite Midwesterners to NYC hard guys is much higher. What can I say, I like polite people.
5. The Canterbury lists your first name and last initial rather than just your initials. This, coupled with fact that you can actually hear what's being said over the microphone, is a plus since it leads to people giving more creative fake names. On my first visit to the Canterbury I heard "Sparky," "Las Vegas Joe," "Mailman," and "Jackie Chan." Nothing to bust a gut over but anything that provides amusement while you're sitting there folding is welcome.
6. Chip runners. And track-bet runners.
7. Better food for less money. I had baked chicken with carrots, mashed potatoes, and a roll for $5. Unusually wholesome for a gambling establishment. You might be able to get a meal for less at Foxwoods, but it will definitely be fried.
8. Automatic shufflers. Most of the tables at the Canterbury have them, which means more hands per hour.
9. More TVs. About twice as many TV as Foxwoods for about half as many people.
10. Better wait service.*
Number-11-that-doesn't-really-count: The Canterbury is closer to our apartment (20 minutes) than Foxwoods was to our old place (1 hour).
*Because although you can *get* a drink more easily at the Canterbury, and non-alcoholic beverages are free, alcoholic beverages are not. Doh! However, I may have won at my first poker session at the Canterbury largely because there was no temptation of free drinks :-)
My own weakness for free, delicious beer aside, even if we count the Canterbury's lack of free booze as a triple negative, it's still up by 7 points over Foxwoods. Go Minnesota!
Oh yeah, an underlying assumption here has been the crowds at the two card rooms are equally fishy. At the lowest limits I think this assumption is valid but only time will tell.
Nationally, the Canterbury poker room has a very good reputation -- so much so that Wynn Las Vegas, the newest casino on the Las Vegas Strip, was hiring for its card room they hired a lot of personnel from the Canterbury. Pretty nice.
So B and I headed down there this past Saturday (August 6). I already blogged the details of the trip in my other blog -- for anyone who doesn't know, I started a poker blog about a year and a half ago called "Cheap Thrills." Below I'm cutting and pasting my posts on the Canterbury from my poker blog to this blog. These posts are strictly about the poker room -- B and I will be heading back to the Canterbury on Labor Day weekend, digital camera in tow, and I'll put up a separate post on the Canterbury racetrack complete with pictures.
First Post on the Canterbury from Cheap Thrills:
First Trip to the Canterbury. Cha-Ching :-)
So after a full month of living in Minneapolis, B and I finally got down to the Canterbury Racetrack and Card Room to play some poker. Although I was totally joking in my previous post about needing to win more than Mrs. Cheap Thrills in order to defend my masculinity, I am happy to report that I did come out on top in our little competition. I played $2/$4 and won $194, which is the most big bets I've ever won in a single session of live poker. B, on the other hand, lost money. Mwah ah ah ah ;-)
We got there at like 9:45am. This was partly because I'd heard from other Minnesota poker bloggers that the waits at the Canterbury can be really bad, and partly because we were meeting my friend from work, K, and he also insisted we get there by 10 at the latest.
10am seemed just a touch early there was no wait for $2/$4, and the one $3/$6 game was short-handed, but by noon waits were an hour+, so I can see how you'd want to be better safe than sorry.
I had planned to play $3/$6, but K was not comfortable playing above $2/$4, so I said what they hay and sat down at $2/$4 with him. B sat down at the short-handed $3/$6 table and very soon had her pocket aces rivered by T9o, costing her half her buy-in. I wont say that this put her on tilt (cause shed smack me), but it certainly did put a damper on her day.
I stayed about even at the $2/$4 table with K, while K slowly lost. He seems to be a very smart guy, but is a textbook example of how being good at no-limit tourneys can ruin you for limit cash games. He kept trying to raise people out with marginal handson the turn or river, and kept getting called (because people don't fold at low limits). Then he would raise with a really solid hand pre-flop, and get drawn out on (because people don't fold at low limits). Which led him to conclude that it's all luck at the low limits, whereas I feel that really it's just very different from both no-limit and tourney play. (It certainly requires more post-flop play than the average fast-structured NL tourney.)
Oh, and then I took a bundle off K with pocket Queens that flopped a set. Kinda felt bad about that.
Anyhoo, K busted out and left, but I stayed at the $2/$4 table. I liked the table -- it was mostly older guys there just passing the time. Visions of my future aside, I liked that they liked to play every hand and didnt like people who raised. Calling stations are my favorite type of player. Duh. Also, all the players were polite and one guy was pretty funny, so it was pleasant enough. (I think one big leak in my live game is that if there's one or more assholes at the table itcan really distract me.)
I must now document one of the funny guy's best lines. He was sitting between two fellow older guys and they were all joking about "being too old to take beats like this" and such. At one point, one of the play-any-two older guys got rivered and started whining about it, and the funny older guy said simply:
Don't you know that life is painful? And poker is like life.That's gold.
I proceeded to go on quite a run, which in a self-fulfilling prophecy led me to play well and with more confidence than if I had started out badly. Since I haven't ridden the online horse much since the move, it felt great to get a victory under my belt.
Oh, and I bet the ponies a bit too. I hit my exacta in the first race. The exacta box bet cost a total of $4, netting me $18 in profit. That was enough betting money to carry me though the day, ponies-wise. I know enough about horse racing to know that I'm not very good at it, and therefore I only bet small amount. Still, it was very enjoyable to handicap the races in between folds. I finished up $8 on the ponies.
All in all it was a really fun Saturday morning and afternoon. In addition to the win, though, a big part of our enjoyment came from how nice the Canterbury is. That will be the subject of my next post.
Second post on the Canterbury from Cheap Thrills:
As I hinted at in my previous post, I really liked the Canterbury. Maybe I'm just excited about being in a new state -- and maybe I'm just bitter about my last loss at Foxwoods -- but here I present:
The Top 10 Reasons Why the Canterbury Is Better Than Foxwoods
1. Better dealers. The dealers actually enforce the rules of the game, such as "show one, show all," and don't talk about what you folded during a hand, and no foul language.
2. Better floor staff. The floor staff is friendly and helpful -- for example, you can actually a get a table change to the specific table you want. At Foxwoods getting a table change always seemed not worth the trouble. Or maybe I'm just not pushy enough.
3. Nine-handed as opposed to ten-handed tables. With more space between the tables. If you're gonna sit for 5+ hours straight, the value of leg and shoulder should not be underestimated.
Tangent: Numbers 1, 2, and 3 have the same root cause: Foxwoods is just so overwhelmed by the crowds that the service suffers as a result. The same could be said about the entire Northeast, but I digress . . .
4. The ratio of polite Midwesterners to NYC hard guys is much higher. What can I say, I like polite people.
5. The Canterbury lists your first name and last initial rather than just your initials. This, coupled with fact that you can actually hear what's being said over the microphone, is a plus since it leads to people giving more creative fake names. On my first visit to the Canterbury I heard "Sparky," "Las Vegas Joe," "Mailman," and "Jackie Chan." Nothing to bust a gut over but anything that provides amusement while you're sitting there folding is welcome.
6. Chip runners. And track-bet runners.
7. Better food for less money. I had baked chicken with carrots, mashed potatoes, and a roll for $5. Unusually wholesome for a gambling establishment. You might be able to get a meal for less at Foxwoods, but it will definitely be fried.
8. Automatic shufflers. Most of the tables at the Canterbury have them, which means more hands per hour.
9. More TVs. About twice as many TV as Foxwoods for about half as many people.
10. Better wait service.*
Number-11-that-doesn't-really-count: The Canterbury is closer to our apartment (20 minutes) than Foxwoods was to our old place (1 hour).
*Because although you can *get* a drink more easily at the Canterbury, and non-alcoholic beverages are free, alcoholic beverages are not. Doh! However, I may have won at my first poker session at the Canterbury largely because there was no temptation of free drinks :-)
My own weakness for free, delicious beer aside, even if we count the Canterbury's lack of free booze as a triple negative, it's still up by 7 points over Foxwoods. Go Minnesota!
Oh yeah, an underlying assumption here has been the crowds at the two card rooms are equally fishy. At the lowest limits I think this assumption is valid but only time will tell.
posted by James at 7:34 PM
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