The Poker Scene in Prague

With the EPT about to descend on one of Europe’s finest cities –the Czech capital Prague – now seems like a fine time to look at what’s beyond the Hilton Hotel venue where the big events will be played.

The Card Casino in the And?l district is well-known to players on the Czech Tour as well as the EPT, with tournament running every day. The Czech Poker Tour is actually in residence this week.

Cash games at 10/20Kc and 25/50Kc (that’s about €0.50/1and €1/2, similar in US$) run regularly, and the chances are that higher games will be available while both tours are in town until December 14th.

As the biggest casino in the city, Card Casino offers all the usual freebies to players; parking, non-alcoholic drinks and membership are all ‘zdarmo‘ and it’s easy to access being close to the And?l metro station on line B (Prague has the simplest Metro system to navigate). T

he Ambassador Casino has been around since 1992 and is as popular with tourists as with locals, being a non-stop hotel casino smack-bang in the centre of Prague at Václavské Nám?stí. According to their website blurb “You can have fun and play the following games in the casino: American Roulette, Black Jack, Oasis Poker, Pontoon, Cash Game.”

They really take care of you in the poker room cash games, with free soft drinks, beer and wine and, for regular visitors, you will even get hard drinks and cocktails. For early birds or late-night poker aficionados they’ll throw in a free breakfast too!

The Ambassador crew have a professional approach – as do their sister casino at the Hotel Panorama – and as they are used to tourists they are friendly also. They run a few tournaments during the week in addition to the cash tables (usually 3 or 4) with buy-ins at the Czech standard 10/20 and 25/50.

The ShowDown Casino is another favourite in the city centre, and has been described as maybe the best poker club in Prague.

Situated next to the statue of St Wenceslas (close to the metro A-line ‘Muzeum‘ stop) the ShowDown offers up cash games up to 3 tables all evening and night, with a table running throughout the day quite often as well.

Stakes are generally the usual 10/20 and/or 25/50 and they run tournaments every evening with decent, guaranteed prize-pools. One of the rooms run by Czech firm POKER KOU?INK, who also operate mobile casinos, the ShowDown is well-worth a visit – this weekend sees the usual Super Friday with a 500Kc (€20 or $20) buy-in, 25,000 starting stacks and 1 re-buy, kicking off at 7pm local time.

The ReBuy Stars Casino may not have the central venue of the others listed, but they make up for it by offering a wider variety of games, including the currently popular and always exciting Open-Faced Chinese poker variant. Located on the Metro B-line ‘Luka‘ station, they offer daily tournaments attracting between 40 and 100 players, 10/20 cash games in the evening and also a regular 4pm Turbo event every day. There are also bigger NLHE and PLO cash games, as well as a OFC Pineapple when demand is there.

The free taxi service is a bonus, as are the guaranteed prize-funds and chances of winning a BMW car! As always, the usual casino games are on offer here too if you get bored of the poker tables!