I've been to the Rivers poker room a number of times since moving to Pittsburgh earlier this year. This is a very solid poker room with lots of offerings for both the tournament and cash player.

• Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Tournaments
• Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Room Review
• Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Room Reopening
• Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Room

Rivers Casino Poker Room is the largest poker room in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is one of the best places to play poker in the region. The room holds 30 tables and is open 24/7 for non-stop action. A schedule of Rivers Casino poker tournaments, including time, buy-in, blind structure, and more. You also can find Rivers Casino phone number, address, and website info. Information and Reviews about Rivers Casino Poker Room in Pittsburgh, including Poker Tournaments, Games, Special Events and Promotions. Attention Poker Rooms: Get your Real-Time Live Action on PokerAtlas! Rivers Casino: Bad Poker room. See 845 traveler reviews, 63 candid photos, and great deals for Pittsburgh, PA, at Tripadvisor.

Overalls the room is run very well. On the cash side, the dominant game is 1/3 NL with the occasional 2/5 and PLO games. They also have 4/8 limit occasionally along with some higher limit games during special events. They also run a number of hourly hot seat and splash pot giveaways that encourage players to stick around. I have rarely had to wait for a table here. The management has done a nice job with their dealer scheduling and if the waiting list grows, there is almost always another dealer available to open a new table.

On the tournament side, they run about 2 tournaments a day and the structures are quite good. They also run special tournament events every other month. Even their standard tournament offerings have good chip stack and blind structures.

As far as the competition goes, the players run the usual mix from pretty good to pretty horrible, from nit to maniac. As far as personalities go, almost everyone I've played has been pleasant to share a table with (even if they're a bad player).

When I first started going there, I found the dealers to be spotty and prone to mistakes. Over the last few months, however, the dealers have improved to the point where I think they're among the best I've seen. They're friendly, knowledgable, and know how to control a table. Kudos to both the dealers and the management for making the effort to get better. Most rooms don't do that.

Food is ok and nothing special, although the rivers buffet is supposed to be excellent. Comps are also only ok, but that is out of the poker rooms control. Another reviewer mentioned the room being dirty. I have not seen that. Perhaps he caught them on a bad night or the problem has been fixed.

If you're in Pittsburgh or if you haven't been here in a while, check this place out. They have good cash offerings, excellent tournaments, and good promotions around both.

The Rivers Casino and Resort sits, appropriately enough, on the banks of the Mohawk River in Schenectady New York. The Rivers is a rarity among casinos, one that did not allow dreams to overwhelm practicality. It is a small casino encompassing all of the key features of a bigger casino: a hotel, several decent dining options, and all the slots, table games, and poker options that one could want. It is also a relative newcomer to the scene, opening in early 2017. We found The Rivers Casino Poker Room to be an excellent addition to the poker options in the Northeast.

On this trip, we stayed a couple of nights in Schenectady at a hotel about a mile from the casino. We did not spend much time exploring Schenectady, but enjoyed a nice lunch at a small restaurant called Bel Cibo. There were a lot of closed storefronts downtown and many buildings in need of significant renovation, but there were signs, including The Rivers, that Schenectady is a city making efforts to return from tough economic times.

Setting and Non-Poker Amenities

The Rivers is a full-service casino and has all of the typical gaming options available in most casinos. There are also a couple of off-track-betting kiosks in the large bar/music venue area. The gaming area is one single large square room. It is about the easiest casino we have ever had the pleasure to navigate.

A group of six restaurants ring the gaming area, include a steak house, burger place, Asian, and Italian pastry/dessert spot. Heather had a $4 chocolate shake at Flipt, the burger place. It was a darn good shake, especially at that price. I had an excellent cold roast beef sandwich at Johnny’s To-Go. Johnny’s offered an array of good looking, inexpensive quick options: pizza, pasta, salads, sandwiches, and soups. Prices were very reasonable.

But what sets the Rivers Casino apart from all other casinos we have thus far been to: it is completely smoke free. Yes, you are not allowed to smoke anywhere inside this casino. For those of us hardcore non-smokers this is a godsend. Most poker rooms within casinos are non-smoking, and most casinos have some non-smoking gaming areas. But the entire casino? Unheard of. The Rivers accommodates smokers with a nice tented riverside patio, complete with couches, tables, and ashtrays. I am not sure how this is handled in the winter, but nevertheless the interior air quality is a welcome break from other casinos.

Although we did not stay at the attached Landing Hotel, it had a very modern look. Many rooms clearly have a nice view of the Mohawk River. The Rivers also holds an event center that hosts music concerts, comedy shows, and other events.

Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Tournaments

Rivers Casino Poker Room Comfort

The Rivers Casino poker room is separated from the main gaming area by a wall and glass doors. The interior is attractive, has a new and fresh feel, and sports nice high ceilings.

When we initially started to play, the room was very warm and muggy. It seemed like the air conditioning had yet to kick in. A number of players complained and within an hour things started to cool down.

The tables themselves were big and well maintained with new felts, although a couple could have used a brushing off. Chairs were well-padded and comfortable. The lighting, however, was poor. Despite the overall bright feel of the sunny casino, the poker room felt dark and the flop was hard to see from the end seats. The chips were a bit dirty and there was a black tournament chip ($100) and dark purple ($500) one that were very difficult to tell apart.

Large TVs ring the poker room displaying tournament clocks and sporting events.

Poker Room Staff

The dealers at the Rivers Casino poker room were generally very good. There was one dealer who struggled with reading the board, but he was an exception to the overall high quality of dealing. Dealers also used automated shufflers during the tournament, so things moved quickly. The floors were on top of things. We were initially put at the same table, and the floor made an immediate adjustment at our request. When tables became unbalanced the floors quickly moved a player. In general, the poker room has a solid group of dealers and floors.

One downside of the poker room was that there seemed to be only a single waitress rotating through the room. She didn’t make it by Heather’s table at any point in the first four hours of the tournament.

Players at the Rivers Casino Poker Room

Players were fairly solid and aggressive. There were a few wild players calling everything, but these players were the exception. Most seemed to be regulars who knew one another. They were fairly polite and somewhat social, but clearly serious about their play.

Tournament Structures

Cash is clearly the priority at The Rivers, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays when there are no standing weekly tournaments. On the Sunday that we were there about 10 cash tables were consistently active with mostly 1-2 NLH games and a couple of 2-5 NLH games. There was a 3-6 limit game on the board as well.

Sundays through Thursdays The Rivers offers 1 to 2 daily tournaments. Looking at their current monthly calendar, they also regularly sprinkle in bigger deepstack events. In July for example, they end the month with a $600 buy-in $200K guarantee tournament.

The standing tournament that we played had a decent structure: $125 entry, 20,000 starting stack, 25 minute blinds, with a pretty gradual blind increase. The game had some interesting blind increases: wedging a 200-300 level in between the 100-200 and 200-400 levels, for example. The Rivers Casino poker room is on the cutting edge, offering the increasingly popular big blind ante. One less common tournament feature was that the big blind ante kicked in right away at the 100-100 level.

Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Room Review

The tournament that we played was also a “Survivor” tournament. All of the final 10% of players got paid $1,000. This structure plays to the strength of players who are better at tournament survival than building huge stacks. Heather was able to milk a small stack all the way to the money, taking advantage of other players who did not adjust their strategies correctly for this type of tournament.

Overall Assessment of the Rivers Casino Poker Room

The Rivers Casino poker room turned out to be an unexpected gem. Before our visit, we were unaware of its existence. We fit our visit in around a trip to see a show at the Williamstown Theater Festival and a visit to Turning Stone casino. We are very glad we did. The casino was small, but had good dining options and was fully non-smoking throughout all interior spaces. The tournament that we played had a nice structure, employed the big blind ante, and was well-run. The players are generally strong and personable, and are clearly there to play some quality poker. If you are in upstate New York, definitely drop by The Rivers for some cash play or to enter a tournament (although not on a Friday or Saturday).

• Comfort
• Tournament Structures
• Personnel

Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Room Reopening

Summary

Rivers Casino Pittsburgh Poker Room

The Rivers Casino on the banks of the Mohawk River in Schenectady New York is a small gem of a casino and poker room. The modest sized, but full-service, casino is fully non-smoking in all interior spaces. The limited set of food options nevertheless offers decent quality and value. The Rivers Casino poker room is dark, but offers large tables and comfortable chairs. The poker staff is solid and the tournament that we entered was well-run with a nice structure. Cash seems to be the greater priority of the room, as there are no tournaments on Fridays and Saturdays.