Tampa Trip report
My wife and I are in Tampa right now. Today is our anniversary. Im also here to catch a couple baseball games and do some sight seeing. I lived most of my adult life in the Dallas area and Im a big Texas Ranger fan. They happen to be in Tampa this weekend which is why we picked Tampa for a long weekend anniversary getaway.
I dont have much time for poker but I did want to check out the new poker room at the Hard Rock. I had only been to the old Hard Rock room once and I wasnt impressed at all. To be honest, I wasn't impressed by the new one either. Its shiny and new of course, but it seems soulless to me. Its just a big rectangular room with 4 rows of 11 tables each. For me, the tables are too close to each other. It was very loud and impersonal. The lighting was atrocious in some spots. I seriously could barely see my cards at the 2nd table I played at. There are shadows everywhere on the table from not having enough lighting coming from different directions.
I started at a table where DeathCabForTootie was playing. We met and got to talk for a couple mins. He seemed like a nice guy. That table was pretty bad so Im moved quickly. When I talked to him later he said the action was really good after I left.
My new table was the most nit filled table I have seen in a while. These guys were just not going to put any chips into the pot. Normally I would run a table like that over but I was big time card dead. I literally played 4 hands in the 2 1/2 hrs I was at the HR, which obviously made my time there less than memorable. There were 2 guys at this table from Maryland bitching about about how bad this game was and how good the games in Maryland are. I'll be at the MGM National Harbor for 3-4 days in Aug so Im looking forward to that.
Lastly, I put my name on a table transfer list toward the end of my session. They literally called 20+ names for 2/5 without calling me for a transfer. I finally got fed up with my table and cashed out and just as I got my cash, they called me for my transfer. SMH. No offense to the people who live in Tampa, because this is the main room that is available to them, but I think most people who have played poker in other rooms around the country would agree that this place kinda sucks.