There are 10+ rooms down here and you've obviously not played in all of them since you've only been here for less than a week, so which rooms are you referring to? I know that you've posted that you're playing a tourney at the Isle, so I assume that's one of them. What others have you had problems with and what are they doing that's terrible?

Well I don't know if I would use the word "terrible" but on average south FL poker rooms seem a bit behind the big NE rooms and LV rooms. Of the top of my head:

5+2 rake
always 10 handed tables
still using wider cards that are harder to pitch fast and more exposed cards
counting their own bank and doing fills way too often
a much older crowd that plays very slow at times
on average pretty weak customer service

As I write this I don't think we can blame it all on dealers/floor as some of these are based on what FL players will tolerate(i.e. they just don't seem to care about rake and many freak out if a table ever get 7 handed or less....). I also feel like the poor customer service is a south FL thing as it doesn't seem limited to poker rooms

Always? See, this goes back to my earlier response to the other poster who complained about all the rooms being run terribly (whatever that means). You have to be careful with using words such as all and always. For example, in two of the three rooms I play in most frequently (Magic City & Hialeah), the tables are nine-handed, not ten. So, so much for your complaint that all the rooms have ten-handed tables.

Interestingly, you left off two of my major complaints about playing in SoFla: horrible comps and having to pay for your drinks. (Keep in mind that I moved here from Vegas.) Magic City doesn't even give you a penny, and I believe that Gulfstream only gives you 40 cents unless you play a certain number of hours/month.

And, of course, I'm definitely no fan of the $5 + $2 rake.

I've played in more than 10 this week.

Hileagh(sp) was by far the worst even though the action is great. There were dealers speaking in spanish to players with cards, dealers talking fish into leaving after luck boxing a $3K pot, and just general ****ty floor staff.

The Isle was by far the best, though still pretty meh as quite a few dealers were clueless.

¡Beinvenido a Miami!

"Live-game dealers, please take a moment to count your banks."

Has anyone played in any other room that does this as much as they do at the Isle? Between that and constant short-stack buyins and big-stack color-ups and players making their first buy-ins at the table (despite a room rule against that), this room gets only about 65% of the hands dealt that it should.

yeah man, I hate to say it, but get use to that.....Spanish is spoken down here much more than English is, especially in Hialeah. Soon you'll need a passport to enter Hialeah, lol

Agreed, while isle is the nicest room I only go there now to play in their tournament series due to all the above reasons.
The 1/2 games generally have less action than other rooms and there is definitely a lack of money on the table, it is not uncommon for half the table to be under $100 and maybe only 1 or 2 players over $150.

It seems like when some players win a big pot or 2 they color up as you noted and those chips are destined to never go in a pot unless they have the nuts.

I've actually found it to be as bad, if not worse, at Magic City.

How did you manage that?

Or more interestingly, why?

If I'm at a restaurant, no problem, if I'm playing for thousands of dollars it's unacceptable to speak to a player with cards in another language. That's standard at every single casino in the **USA**.


I sleep an avg of 4 hours per night normally, so it wasn't that hard. As to why... I'm a degenerate and that's the whole reason I came down.

I stand corrected and come to think of it at least the 5/10 is 9 handed

I have never played magic city and i gave up on hialeah after the new about them stealing from MTTs(we can add that to the list)

It seems to me that some people just like to complain about everything.

5+2 rake is not bad compared to what Ive seen reported other places
10 handed tables? Who cares? Half the time there are 1 or 2 people taking a break anyway.
Wider cards? Give me a break. Who cares? I recently counted for 50 hrs and I was dealt 41 hands per hour. The cards arent slowing down the game.
Older crowd? Its S. Florida what do you expect?
I havent had any problem with customer service. Maybe people who complain about everything get worse service?

Or maybe people in South Florida are so used to awful service they don't know how bad it is?

I noticed a huge downgrade when I moved from the midwest and it's even worse down south. On avg, everything is much worse customer service wise, though.

You're not going to catch me bitching about rake, but dealers constantly making mistakes is a big deal and it happened A LOT down here.

Maybe there is just so many rooms that the good dealers are spread thin throughout, but it's noticeable.

+1

I said a bit behind Overall I am happy to be playing poker in south FL

that said--
other than underground/club games I don't know anywhere that charges more than 5+2 rake do you? And many places charge less.
The wider cards are much harder to pitch fast/accurate and much easier to make mistakes with. This is why all the big NE rooms and LV use them(there are way more exposed card in south FL!).

maybe you run better than me

yeah, I agree. They're about the same in that regard.

Agreed rake sucks down here, the other thing about the rake is how they take it, it's not 10%, it's something like $1 on 6, Jackpot 1$ on 10, $1 on 15, $1 jackpot on 20, the max rake of $5 only requires like a $45 pot. Smaller pots, percentage wise are raked higher down here for sure.

The only positive thing about the jackpot drop around here is that it should affect you less since it is mostly given out for high hands that range from $100 to $1000 ore more on certain days. You are much more likely to get some or closer to all of your jackpot drop back through high hands as opposed to BBJs. Also while the JP drop sucks, during promos where they pay out more for the HH you do seem to get a fishier crowd and people who play hands horribly trying to hit a 1 outer.

I have seen multiple times where there is set over set on a flop with 2 people who have a $200 stack, they both check down the hand trying to win a $300 high hand, river board is scary and the higher set wins like $30, where they could have easily stacked the other guy if they played the hand straight up.

That's true. I always bet my sets HARD & I can't tell you how many times the other players say "oh man, why don't you just check it. You only needed one more x!?!?"

The high hands every hour definitely are awesome for action. The rake is worth it to me just because of the above mentioned player types. Some of these rooms could probably charge me a membership fee to play there and I'd happily pay it lol.

And some are worse than others. Magic City is downright ridiculous. In a 2/5 game, if UTG (or anyone) raises and everyone folds, including the blinds, The house rakes $3 and pushes the remaining $4 to the raiser.

I dropped my wife off at FLL this morning, so I took the opportunity to play some 2/5 over at Hard Rock for the first time in quite awhile. Turns out they're 9-handed as well. (I had left them off my list because it had been so long since I was up there that I wasn't sure if they played 9 or 10-handed there.)

On a related matter, I was surprised to find only 3 cash games running when I got there at around 11:30am (two 1/2NL & one 2/5NL). While I was waiting for a second 2/5 table to open, I took the opportunity to check Magic City's website and I saw that 11 cash games were running at the same time. I'm sure this difference is due to the fact that Magic City has a $1,500 high hand promo going every morning from 10-noon, but I was still surprised that Hard Rock wasn't busier. Fortunately, I only had to wait for about 15-20 minutes for the second 2/5 table to open.

Shhhh

Hi,

I have some questions regarding South Florida since im planning to move there from Norway. I'd really appreciate some good information.

How are the games these days? Running every day? Stacks at the tables? Tight? Soft?

Also, we are looking at town houses/condos. Any tips for okay areas where u get ur pennies worth?

Thanks.