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• Poker Room Review: The Poker Room, Seabrook, NH

  March 04, 2009

  With Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun located all the way down in Connecticut, one might be inclined to make the long haul from the likes of northern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and southern Maine to find a quality poker room. Instead, I suggest traveling a much shorter distance to the Seacoast area of New Hampshire to find The Poker Room tucked away at Seabrook Greyhound Park. Located in Seabrook, NH and once known only for its seasonal greyhound racing, The Poker Room at Seabrook Greyhound Park aims to provide another form of gambling to the public: poker.

  Home to the New England Poker Championships, The Poker Room provides a weekly schedule filled with single-table and multi-table tournaments ranging in buy-ins from $30-250. You can also find limit cash tables boasting $1-2 and $2-4 games of Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha H/L, Stud, and Stud H/L. Once in a while, you’ll even stumble across a group playing some Crazy Pineapple or mixed game combination. And if the poker itch doesn’t grab you, there are blackjack and roulette tables spread around the room as well.

  You might be questioning yourself about the legality of poker and table games in New Hampshire. Well, it’s not completely legal, but The Poker Room is set up to aid local charities in fundraising. A portion of all the tournament buy-ins are withheld for the given charity sponsor. The Poker Room does guarantee a payback of 75% on all tournaments, with 80% payback coming from certain special events. When it comes to the cash games, NH recently passed a new law stating that the maximum bet for a poker game or table game to be $4. This may not seem like a lot, but it is double the $2 maximum from the old law.

  The room itself is set up quite nicely. It’s actually broken up into two rooms. When you walk in and go left, you’ll find the cash tables, black and roulette games, along with the single-table tournaments. If you were to go right, you’d enter the tournament room where as many as three of the daily scheduled multi-table tournaments may be running. In each room, you’ll find plenty of space between tables so you won’t feel cramped and there’s an abundance of televisions around each room showcasing sporting events, horse racing, and greyhound racing from all over. The dealers may not be the quickest or most efficient in the business, but they get the job done quite well and understand how to keep excellent control of the game. You’re also allowed to order food and drinks while at the tables from one of the waitresses on duty, which is nice until someone gets their greasy fingers all over the cards.

  Even though the room opens during the afternoon every day of the week, you’ll find the majority of the crowds file in around 5:00 or 6:00 PM. Many come to play the nightly tournaments, which always seem to fill the tournament room close to capacity. On the weekends, the fields are a little larger with a special $150 buy-in tournament scheduled every Saturday as the “Main Event.”

  With a quality floor staff and decent structures when it comes to tournaments, I’d say this room is a must for the avid player in Northern New England. The play itself can be very weak, but the prize pools are worthwhile as long as you’re not looking for life-changing scores. I live in New Hampshire myself and have frequented The Poker Room at Seabrook Greyhound Park many, many times. I highly recommend stopping by and giving some of the games a go if you’re close by. I will remind you though that the dealers work for tips only, so you should feel a little bit more inclined to tip well if you happen to take down one of the events.

  For a complete list of all of The Poker Room at Seabrook Greyhound Park’s tournaments and other information, please check out the room’s website at http://www.seabrookpoker.com.

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