Planning a 6-month trip to the US to play full time, starting at 2-5 blinds.
I've been thinking about Vegas or Austin for the most part, but a friend of mine said I should consider Tampa as well.
He mentioned cheaper cost of living and a great casino (Hard Rock) that runs cash games 24/7.

This friend is not a poker play per se, very recreational, so I thought I'd ask your opinion on this forum to get reliable info about this.
What do you think?

P.S: just some general info. I'm saving up a 30 buy-in bankroll + 6 month living expenses for this trip. Gonna be playing poker 6 days a week, 8 hours a day (Yes, I can keep this up for months). Not really interested in night life, I'm more of a chill stay at home/go to the movies kind of person. So what's more appealing to me is a safe area, lower cost of living (rent mostly), and ideally a soft field in cash tables.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...l#post57871210

Tampakinish would be the one to ask, he's lived in both Tampa and Austin

At the Tampa HR I believe you can find at least one 2-5 NL game running 24x7. Busy times probably about 6-12 games running. The bigger action in the room is PLO. There are always 2-2 and 2-5 plo games running. Sometimes there are NL games higher than 2-5.

I would think the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area might be a better option.

way better

I play exclusively PLO cash games so I can't really tell you if the 2/5 NL Hold Em games are any good. I can say that the Tampa area you've got FOUR rooms to play at:

Tampa Hard Rock Casino - 46 table poker room - plenty of recreationals who are staying over at the casino and will find their way to the poker room, a number of great tournament series with big guarantees that draw in traffic as well. But also likely to have the highest concentration of professional players as well. But you'll find round-the-clock games 7 days/week

In addition there's other smaller rooms based out of dog or horse tracks that will likely have weaker competition, but also less game selection, more lower limit games and less traffic overall:

Tampa Greyhound Track (aka TGT)

Silks Poker Room (located at Tampa Bay Downs)

Derby Lane Poker Room - (located across the bridge in the St Pete area)


I have not played in the Miami area, I'm pretty sure you'll find more of the higher-stakes games there, but since you're interested in 2/5 Tampa should scratch that itch easily enough as well. And with four properties to choose from I don't think you'll have a hard time getting action.

GL and let us know how it works out! Be aware that Tampa the housing market was pretty nuts (we sold our house for 3x what we paid 5 years ago). EVERYONE is moving to Florida, so lots of competition for rentals and home purchases.

And overall the area isn't great for well-paying jobs, Florida is a state that leans more towards taking care of business rather than employees (i.e. you'll find less protections as an employee than in a number of other states, just in case you need to fall back from poker to get a part or full-time job should things not go great, payscales are generally not good in many industries compared with other areas of the country)

We recently moved to Austin and I play at The Lodge regularly. But the area also has lots of industry, tech, etc. that brings in high-paying jobs (so decent opportunities should you need to go to a plan B, AND as a bonus it also means plenty of folks with disposable income to lose to you on the felt)

Tampa hard rock is a good venue...2/5 NL always runs....But I think LA is a way better choice than Tampa for cash....yes the cost of living is higher but you will more than make up for it with the quality of games there..

How are the games in Austin nowadays? I was at The Lodge back in May for the Championship Series and the cash games were great. I have this theory that the games are better in Texas vs Vegas because there's no craps or roulette for the spew monkeys.

I'm like OP, rollin' up a stake and heading to Vegas. Or Texas quite possibly. I really liked what little I saw of Austin while I was there. Not a huge fan of the politics in Texas and no legal weed is a huge downside. Am I just remembering the games with rose colored glasses because I was on a massive heater, or are they really better than Vegas games?

The PLO streets are good, typically 2-3 games running most days. There are plenty of fish and maniacs, but also a decent amount of grinders and nits in the player pool as well, so sometimes you might wind up at a table that is terrible, sometimes a table with TOO much action (yes, they exist, unless you're rolled to just flip coins for thousands every frigging hand) but overall I've had a good experience with them over the past few months.

I can't speak to the hold em streets as I don't play that boring-ass game (two cards, pffft!) and I have no idea about cash games in Vegas, only been to Vegas twice, in 2007 and 2009, both during the WSOP. Everything I've heard is that Vegas isn't as good as Florida, Texas and maybe California on a regular basis year-round for poker.

i sat in probably the worst 2/5 game i've ever seen while waiting for PLO at the lodge. PLO was fantastic. my sense is the 1/3 plays better than the 2/5 most of the time and is probably as big as 2/5 in a lot of other places due to match the stack.

For sure I've had a session in the PLO streets at the Lodge where the first table I sat at was ALL grinders and nits, zero action. The only way you're were going to make money was to cooler somebody.

I got a table change to the 2nd game and it was the complete opposite, all the maniacs, so we were getting straddles to 40, 80, 160 and even 320 sometimes. The problem there was you had to be lucky as **** and run super pure because these guys would call anywhere from 200-600 preflop and you'd be going five or six-handed to the flop in those spots. So now there's already 1-3 grand in the pot and you just don't have any stack depth or room to play "real poker" anymore and you're just flipping a coin five ways for five stacks.

Which is great if you are winning, less so when you aren't.