Poker finally legalized in Quebec

[CasqueNoir]

Finally, legislators proceeded to legalize poker for its casinos here. (better late than never I guess)

There should be poker at the Montreal casino (and maybe the two others) in about two months according to the following link (in french). They're also talking about putting some machines for smaller stakes.

Cyberpresse

[redron85]

this is great news

[NoRiverRats]

Was going to post this as well. Great news. Finally. Only province in Canada with casinos without poker.

From reading La Presse and watching RDI I am not clear how they will do this. Both stories talked about dealers and poker machines. Any ideas how they are going to work this?

I have heard from employees at the Gatineau Casino that they were looking at alternatives to hiring more unionized dealers since they cost too much and poker doesn't bring in huge revenue. At one point I heard machines only, butthe news clearly states dealers and machines. Anyone have any thoughts/info?

[feelrich]

Pokertek tables for sure. Dealer tables for higher stakes maybe?

[NoRiverRats]

Pokertek tables haven't been a huge success, results are certainly mixed.

I have never played on one, but it seems many B&M players aren't too keen on them and given poker will be new to the Casino I'm not sure how many people will use them over a dealer run table, since the dealer can explain how to play.

Should be interesting. Can't wait.

[ArcticAction]

One issue that will be interesting to watch is how the casinos deal with the issue of French/English cards and language use at the table.

At present, the court cards that are used in Quebec casinos for pit games use the first letter of the French word for each figure. So ... squeezers will reveal not K/Q/J in the corner, but R (roi) / D (dame) and V (valet). Upon request, the casinos will furnish unilingual English-speaking players with a little cheat sheet (about the size of a blackjack basic strategy card) that has a "R = K ..." legend.

Unilingual anglophones will, at first, be at a distinct disadvantage vis-a-vis their Francophone counterparts ... in the early going, it would be easy to tell if an Anglo were holding one or more court cards by the way they needed to squint extra carefully to confirm their holding.

Also, given Quebec's strong promotion and defence of the French language, I cannot see that they would try to enforce a standard North American "English-only" policy at the table during hands (and nor should they, IMHO).

(Fellow Canadian 2+2ers will be aware that this policy is common in western Canada).

If the Quebec casinos have a French-only policy during hands, the tables will be awfully quiet, given the relatively large numbers of Anglohones from Ontario who play in the casinos (especially Gatineau), not to mention U.S. tourists. Matusow, Tony G, Hellmuth, et. al. might not be well-suited to such an environment, unless they are unheralded polyglots who can taunt in more than one tongue.

Alternatively, I suppose that the poker rooms could have some tables designated "English-only"; some "French-only" and some "English and French welcome."

Better start watching WPT re-runs of the Paris Aviation Club tourneys to review the terms for raise, all-in, etc.

[Jim14Qc]

About time. I'm so looking forward to playing live poker, should be a change from online.

Now just need to get that roll up high enough to play live 5/10 NL [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[jjshabado]

[ QUOTE ]

Unilingual anglophones will, at first, be at a distinct disadvantage vis-a-vis their Francophone counterparts ... in the early going, it would be easy to tell if an Anglo were holding one or more court cards by the way they needed to squint extra carefully to confirm their holding.


[/ QUOTE ]

Like the first three hands?

I am interested to see how they handle the language at the table issue. I think it will have to allow English and French. French will definitely be allowed, and I can't see them saying no-English.

[ronmacdonald]

tabanack that good news ssss deee

[xedin]

this is bad news for me and my job