Action's Card House Live Poker Review: Ontario, OR

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We recently visited Ontario, Oregon, and played poker at two local live venues. This article will focus on Action’s Card House, a small social poker room located in the somewhat remote town of Ontario, OR. Although the room is small, it does boast consistent action and provides an excellent environment to play live poker. Read on in this Action’s Card House live poker review to learn all about this small, local cardroom and what it has to offer.

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Action’s Card House Location

Action’s Card House is located at 490 East Ln #9 in Ontario, Oregon. The room sits in a receded parking lot alongside a few other local businesses including the attached bar. The windows are almost entirely covered, so it isn’t possible to see play from outside of the venue, which is generally a good thing for player comfort and safety.

Ontario, Oregon is a small city alongside the East Oregon border. Ontario is about a 50-minute drive northeast from Boise, Idaho, and therefore is definitely the closest place for people in Boise to play real-money live poker. Despite the small population of around 12,000 people living in Ontario, Action’s Card House manages to have solid action and consistent play almost every single day.

Action’s Card House Poker Games

Cash Games

Cash games are offered almost every day at Action’s Card House. On Mondays, Action’s runs a $1/$2 No Limit Omaha game starting at 3:00 pm. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays Action’s opens at 5:00 pm and primarily offers $1/$2 NL Hold’em although other games and variations like an Omaha Hi/Lo button are often thrown into the mix. Tuesdays also list a $2/$4 Limit Hold’em and a $4/$8 Limit Omaha game.

On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays the action gets started at 12:00 pm with tables featuring both $1/$2 Hold’em and $1/$2 NL Omaha Hi/Lo. Higher stakes tables of $2/$5 or $5/$10 also run occasionally if enough players want to play.

The minimum buyin for all $1/$2 games at Action’s Card House is $40, and buyins are generally uncapped. Action’s offers generous promotions for cash games players, including a $50 quads bonus with a pocket pair, $100 high hands, splash pots, and monthly freeroll tournaments.

Tournaments

Action’s Card House offers tournaments five days per week. The tournament schedule is provided on their website and we will include it below:

Sunday, 1:00 pm: NLH Tournament, Buyin: $50.Starting stack of 10,000 with $10 dealer incentive for 5,000 chips.1 Rebuy allowed until the first break, $20 add-on at the break for an additional 10,000 chips.
Wednesday, 7:00 pm: Unlimited Rebuys, Buyin: $30.Starting stack of 7,000 plus $10 dealer incentive for an extra 3,000 chips.$20 rebuys give you 10,000 in chips until the first break. $20 add-on at the break for an additional 10,000 in chips.
Thursday, 7:00 pm: Mystery Bounty Tournament, Buyin: $60.Starting stack of 10,000; $10 dealer incentive for 5,000 additional chips.2 rebuys allowed until the first break. $20 add-on at the break for 10,000 additional chips.
Friday, 1:00 pm: NLH Tournament, Buyin: $50.Starting stack of 10,000 with a $10 dealer incentive for 5,000 chips.Unlimited Rebuys until the break and a $20 add-on at the break for an additional 10,000 in chips.
Saturday: 1:00pm, Tournaments: 1st – 3rd Saturday, Freeze Out, Buyin: $100.15,000 starting stack with a $10 dealer incentive for an additional 5,000 chips.3rd Saturday will feature 1 optional rebuy costing $110 for 20,000 in chips.4th Saturday Boasts a Free Roll Tournament featuring a 10,000 starting stack with Unlimited Rebuys until the first break. $20 add-on at the break for an additional 10,000 in chips.Qualifications are 20 hours of cash play or 8 tournaments from the prior month.Buy-ins are also allowed for $50 with a $10 dealer incentive for 5,000 additional chips.

In addition to the daily tournaments, Action’s makes a point of putting on special events with significantly larger buyins and prize pools from time to time. A good example of this is the January Deep Stack Tournament which will feature a $300 buyin and at least $10,000 in guaranteed prize money. This tournament will take place on Jan. 21, 2023 at 1:00 pm.

Action’s Card House has also run special satellites to propel members to play at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and other large events like the Poker Round Up Events at Wildhorse Casino and Resort.

Promotions

Action’s Card House features a number of solid promotions partially due to its partnership with Caesar’s Entertainment. Through this partnership, Action’s Card House is able to reward dedicated players with excellent comps at Caesar’s properties in Las Vegas. You will be able to earn 1 point for every hour of cash game play as well as 1 point for every tournament entry. The points can be redeemed for swag, hotel stays locally, and more.

Another unique promotion offered at Action’s is a monthly freeroll tournament on the 4th Saturday of the month that usually boasts at least $1,000 in guaranteed, house-added prize money. To qualify for the freeroll, you’ll need to play eight tournaments or 20 hours of cash games during that month.

Poker Room Feel and Environment

Action’s Card House boasts a professional and sophisticated feel especially considering its location in such a small town. The room is primarily red and black, and the walls feature portraits of professional poker players, including Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Antonio Esfandiari.

Action’s Card House has an ATM on site near the cage. TVs plaster the walls so you can always keep an eye on your favorite sports while you play poker. There is also a small table with free snacks, like chips and candy, as well as free coffee. There are plenty of other beverage and dining options that you can purchase from the table through the adjacent bar, which we will cover in slightly more detail below.

Dining and Beverage Options

In addition to the free snacks and coffee provided at Action’s, there is a bar next door called Action’s Sports Bar. Action’s Sports Bar serves plenty of affordable, quality food that you can enjoy at the bar or in the poker room. Action’s Sports Bar also boasts Off-Track Betting and Oregon Video Lottery Terminals where you can enjoy Vegas-style slot machines.

Other Important Information

One other important thing to take note of is the unique manner in which cash games are handled when it comes to charging rake. Raking games is illegal in the state of Oregon, so instead, Action’s Card House is a social poker room. Rooms in larger metropolitan areas like Portland tend to employ a daily membership fee as opposed to charging rake. At Action’s, 10% of every cash game pot up to $5 will be converted from standard chips into unique, plastic ones.

The player who wins the hand will then be able to choose if they’d like to donate those chips back to the house. If the player doesn’t want to pay rake, technically they are entitled to keep and cash out those chips. We would not suggest attempting to do this. The loophole in the law works in this small town because everybody is on the same page. It is likely that attempting to keep any of the converted chips would result in issues or at least a bit of animosity.

One other interesting note is that Action’s Card House has been live-streaming cash games via its Youtube channel. The game only features one overhead camera and there is no access to hole cards, but it is still pretty cool to see a small poker room jump into streaming its games.

Action’s Card House History

The Devil’s Poker Room

Action’s Card House used to be called The Devil’s Poker Room. The Devil’s Poker Room seemingly only first opened for business in 2020 or 2019 at the earliest but unfortunately, we weren’t able to find too much information about its history. We do know that the name was changed to Action’s Card House sometime in early 2021.

Player Opinions of Action’s Card House

The general consensus is quite positive when it comes to player reviews and opinions of Action’s Card House. We always like to see what other, real players have to say. Feel free to peruse a few real player reviews below:

As you can tell from the reviews, Action’s maintains a pretty solid reputation for operating professionally and offering excellent live poker. Most of the drawbacks to this room are simply due to it being located in a small city, but considering that fact, Action’s Card House boasts premier live poker action especially for players who may live near Boise, ID, or in the Treasure Valley.

You Can Play Online Poker Now

We would certainly recommend visiting Action’s Card House if you live near Boise, Ontario, or plan on visiting the area anytime soon. With that being said, you don’t need to wait as there are numerous options to play online poker from the safety and comfort of your own home.

Here at Professional Rakeback, we specialize in providing detailed information regarding online poker and the best sites to play poker safely online. If you reside in the U.S. and wish to learn more about your options for playing poker on the internet, please feel free to peruse this extensive article covering our top recommendations for US online poker sites. For more info on how and why playing online poker is legal, browse over to this page about the legality of internet poker games.

Other Live Poker Room Reviews:

The Lodge (Round Rock, TX)
Texas Card House (North Austin, TX)
Shuffle512 (Austin, TX)
Canterbury Park (Shakopee, MN)
Beau Rivage (Biloxi, MS)
Borgata (Atlantic City, NJ)
Tropicana (Atlantic City, NJ)
Turning Stone (Verona, NY)
Tioga Downs (Nichols, NY)
MGM Grand (Detroit, MI)
Golden Nugget (Downtown Las Vegas, NV)
Mandalay Bay (Paradise, NV)

Source: https://antiquewolrd.com
Categories: Stamps