So I played at THR for a couple of days on my way to Crystal River. Won about $1200, although a third of that was a high hand promo (see below). My impressions:

- The 1/2 game was very soft; certainly far softer than the £1/2 games I normally play in London, but the $300 max BI would make the game tough to beat over the long run I suspect. It was rare for anyone to be sitting with more than $500.

- Maybe the game gets deeper / looser on Friday and Saturday nights, but I played Tue and Wed evenings, 8-9 hours at a time, and a lot of people sitting only on $150 or less, not exactly a nit-fest but very straight-forward, Level 1 play.

- Based on interaction with the dealers and staff, etc, there seemed to be 2-3 regs at all my tables. Only a couple of them seemed decent.

- Dealers were excellent. Very friendly and personable, helpful, no mistakes or anything that I saw.

- Having to leave the table to eat is unfortunate.

- High Hand promo is kinda fun ($200 top hand for the half hour, can't remember exactly but I think it had to be at least Aces full to qualify, if no winners in the first half hour bumps up to $400, and +$200 every half hour that no one claims it). I won $400 with quad Queens, which was kinda fun, I had my quad queens early in the 30-minute window so had to sweat out the last 20 minutes or so to see if it would hold up LOL.

- Tables are great. The location of the card room itself is not; it's like a 15 minute walk once you actually get to the casino, WTF. Do they hate the poker players or something?

- Players overall were nice, reasonably friendly although not all that talkative. One or two grumps, and one lady that was a horrible player and would loudly sigh/moan and complain about her 'bad luck' every friggin' hand. Lady, maybe if you didn't limp/call every single hand then check/fold when you miss or open shove when you hit you'd win some actual money.

Hope to get back in a few weeks once Irma-gheddon has passed. Hope the rest of the 2+2ers in the area are staying safe & sound.

Yes.


Sounds like she was just running bad. Everyone goes on unlucky stretches.

No, it is not. It is actually a 0 minute walk. The poker room has its own parking garage and set of elevators. You just parked on one of the garages that's on the opposite side.

It gets deeper late at night in general but also on weekends. Past midnight there are usually several 250BB+ stacks.

Yeah lot of regs, most are of the nit variety though and not too tough to play against.


Ha. Park at Draper Place Garage next time. Elevator drops right into the room.

I know a regular old lady just like this...wonder if it's same lady. She limps QQ+ then wins tiny pots or loses big ones and moans "why can't I make any money with QQ?" Uhh...maybe because you don't raise it and then only bet when you have at least an overpair? LOL.

Games are usually pretty quiet. Louder on weekends but not necessarily a good thing. I've seen two near-fights from drunken idiots yelling at each other on Saturday nights after one gets stacked by something stupid. Usually pretty chill but I'd like more conversation.

Trying.

Me too; have it currently as my desktop picture. "Table squared", where, who what? Not enough IQ, sorry, but I do understand and agree with the rest, although not sure about the bottle holders but I lack the experience to be a judge of that.

Has there been a change of leadership in this poker room?

Yes.

Any particular reason for the change?

My guess is they took a bath on the $500 for 50 hours promo in September.

Interesting. Thanks.

i would be very surprised if that wasn't funded by the jackpot drops.

Highly unlikely, the room was packed with huge waitlists pretty much 24-7 the entire month..... the promo rake on 40+ tables running 80-90% of the time, should have easily covered that even if 300-400 people ended up doing it... and even if for some reason it didn't the amount of extra rake made over that time, easily would have covered whatever they might have lost and them some I'm sure.... That being said, there was some other behind the scenes things I've heard, and that whole Racener drama and being buddy buddy with all those guys I'm sure didn't help either..

But does a guy who gets mixed up with that controversy get a job so quickly after the fact?

TBH I'm purely speculating at this point. But if the 500/50 promo was so great for the bottom line, why did they make it 300/75 and continue it through December?

What I did appreciate is Tommy was visible - he even came up to a table I was at and said he appreciated us playing there. I have NFC who the new poker room manager is. Maybe I've been numbed over the years by how the room has been run but I appreciated the added customer service touches.

I actually was in the poker room the day the 50/500 promo started, and they already said it was going back down to 300 the month after, it was just a one time thing to try and generate some buzz around the room... which it did, even if they did happen to somehow lose money on it (still think it's veryyy highly unlikely), it would be basically be the same as an advertising expense, as even people who normally don't even play poker, were asking me if I was doing it... so it definitely worked at creating a buzz.

As for the whole Tommy/Racener connection, once again, pure speculation, but going to guess after all that went down, and every random 2+2'er and Tampa poker player bringing things up, I mean that story BLEW UP nationwide in the poker scene with everyone tweeting the room, etc, I'm guessing some internal investigations started happening from some higher ups, how involved Tommy was, not even with Yayogate, but other potential things with Racener and his crew.. but guessing it would be much more that, than anything specific with the room, which seems to be going as good as ever since they opened it up.... Once again, pure speculation though, but would seem like a very awkward time to make the change, after the new room opened and business has been seemingly booming since then.

Tommy was let go cause upper management came down to the poker room that first Saturday in July when there were 100+ people standing around waiting for seats and Tommy was in Vegas. People were pissed the waitlist was so long and management was upset that Tommy wasn't there to deal with it or at least just be there. At least that's what multiple dealers/floor staff have told me.

The new director is Randy Kiefer. He actually came down to the room a couple of weeks ago and went to every single table and shook everyone's hand. He also put like $5 on everyone's card to buy them a drink. He's listening to all suggestions from dealers/players. I emailed him a few.

Good stuff, thanks for the update

Feels like that's "what management told people" reason as to why he was let go, but find it very hard to believe you're going to fire your longtime Poker director, who successfully got and opened a new poker room, that has been booming since the day it opened, because he was on vacation when there were 100+ wait lists... I mean, there's only 50 tables, and all 50 tables were in use, during slow season, sounds like a reason to give the man a raise, and it's not like there's much he could have really done if he was there anyways..... Not buying it, and if it is true, that might be the ultimate bad beat.. but definitely not buying it and would guess there's a lot more behind the story that us or the dealers will probably never know....

I totally agree.

not sure what you consider "long term" but tommy was only there for a few years. Henry was there before Tommy and Henry was a ghost in the room. Tommy came from Borgata but has always been more of a tourney director as Tab's 2nd hand man at Borgata than a poker room manager in Tampa. IMO, he (and the room) made some very poor ambassador decisions with Racener who doesn't even play there and Natasha who cheated on her husband of just 3 months and both just had poor characters decisions outside of the poker room. Wally, however is a great dude, friend to all and is a true example of representation both in and out of the room even if he is solely a tourney guy.

Originally from Buffalo, but i'm living in St. Petersburg for a little bit so I thought id check out tampa hard rock. I am not exaggerating when I say that within 30 seconds of sitting down 3 older/middle aged men start getting into an argument, because one of the guys folded out of turn... Like seriously getting bent out of shape because someone folded out of turn. This was in a pot that couldnt have been more than $15 at the time.

About 2 min after that fight, 2 of the men started to take it out on the dealer, telling him he needs to be more aware of the cards and to control his table.. wtf? All 3 of those guys left soon after.

Next up ....2 middle aged snow birds talking to each other about how being away in the military was better than being with their wives (trying to be discrete with that comment, but I was sitting directly next to them.)

The only reason i stayed is because there were two drunk middle aged women who were clearly the fish at the table. Passively calling with anything, folding when they have the option to check, calling $20 raises with j2 suited etc..

My overall take away is that the players in Tampa are far worse than where I normally play in New York. A decent number of regulars, but even the regulars were just nits with little to no creativity. Anyone who says making money playing poker is dead needs to visit Florida casinos, and more specifically hard rock tampa.

Fwiw, I've been a regular player at Tampa HR for years and I've almost never seen anything like that happen. So I wouldn't draw any big conclusions from that one experience. Seems flukey to me.

Agree about the regs who are nits with no creativity though.

I asked one of the regulars next to me if that was a regular occurrence and he said it wasnt, so you are right its probably just a fluke. But, I still think Florida games are way livelier than New York games with more interesting characters....or maybe a lot of people are just drugged up?

LimpDitka, question, did these guys seem to know each other (not friends, but just familiar with each other from the poker room)? I play at THR probably five times a year as I am from another part of the state, and what I find in the more off hours (Monday-Thursday) is that it is the older crowd that shows up and they know each other and have history where they just repeatedly annoy each other. They are often just disagreeable nits.

I know that when I go, there's probably five or six regular players that, when I see them at the table, I'll just pass on that seat even if it means waiting a bit longer because I just don't want to deal with their drama only to see them play two raised pots an hour.

Hello, I will visit the Tampa area soon and want to check out this poker room. However, I can't find this room on my Bravo poker app. Do they not use the Bravo software for manage tables and waiting list?