Hello all, hopefully this is the right forum.

I'm thinking of traveling to FL in mid-Feburary to visit some friends and after I am done with that, I would like to play cards in various rooms throughout the Sunshine State.

I'll be in Sarasota and would be renting a car. Can anyone give me info on which places to check out? BestBet in Jacksonville, Hard Rock in Tampa, Hard Rock in Hollywood?

Anywhere else? Also which games would be available to me at each casino?

Thanks very much.

Depending on how much time you have, I might do something like this:

Go South from Sarasota to Naples and play at the Naples/Ft.Myers Greyhound Racing & Poker. Its a hole in the wall dump but the action is pretty good.

Then head east across Alligator Alley to the Ft. Lauderdale area. There are 7-8 places you can play here.

The biggest are the Hard Rock and the Isle at Pompano Park (look on Bravo for what games are running). Hialeah has some sick 1/2 PLO action but its in a bad area that I wouldnt want to be in late into the night.

Theres also smaller rooms at GulfStream and Magic City but you wont be missing anything if you skip them. There's a couple rooms in Miami but I dont know much about them.

Heading North from there you can hit the Palm Beach Kennel Club. Its not on Bravo. The action is good any time of day. They have a crazy $5/$10 game with $100-$300 buy in. It sounds stupid, but its fun and the players are terrible and its a very profitable (but super high variance) game.

I would personally skip Best Bet in Jacksonville because its way out of the way if you are looping back around to Tampa which is what I would do. I played at Best Bet a couple times and its kind of meh. It feels like it was converted from an old grocery store. Its just a big open space with poker tables. The action was so so when I was there.

Either way, I would head over to Tampa from Jacksonville or Palm Beach. The Hard Rock is the obvious choice in Tampa but there are 2 smaller rooms that I liked better. Silks and the Tampa Downs. They are much smaller and less choice of games but the players were worse also IMO.

Then you are close to being back in Sarasota.

Thanks a lot for the information! I appreciate it

Mikestarr gave a good report. I'll add that Orange City is worth a visit if you're near Orlando.

Curiously, you mentioned Magic City, which ironically is the only casino within the City of Miami. Interestingly, it currently has more games running right now than Hard Rock (13 vs 12). For people who like to play in the mornings and afternoons, it's also the only place south of Hard Rock that has multiple 2/5NL games running throughout the day. As for other casinos in "Miami," you may have been thinking about Casino Jai Alai (which has closed its poker room) and/or The Miccosukee Resort, which although it has a Miami address, is on the edge of the Everglades about 20 miles west of downtown.

Although not in Miami, another room you failed to mention was The Big Easy Poker Room at the Mardi Gras Casino, which is only a mile or so up the road from Gulfstream. BTW, it too, currently has more games running than Hard Rock (14 vs 12). Not bad for a Wednesday afternoon.

Finally, I think it is laughable that you are warning people not to go to Hialeah late at night. It's not exactly in the middle of the ghetto. If you're afraid to walk to the parking lot after a session, you can always valet park your car.

I actually meant Mardi Gras when I said Magic City.

Not all poker rooms here are on Bravo, make sure you check Poker Atlas. Also, be prepared for languages besides English to be spoken at the table. You can try to object but it probably won't work. This is especially true at Hialeah.

If you DO go north of Orlando, BetBest Jax is pretty good. Cheap on the drinks, comps and the food stinks. The poker is pretty good.
Daytona is better. Great action, very seasonal and quite juicy at times.
I've not yet hit Orange City. I have, however, played a session at Oxford Downs, over near Ocala. Interesting. A heavy, predictable presence of limit games, since we are just outside the gates of The Villages. But, a healthy evening presentation of NL. I was with my wife, so I only played limit with her, but I'd go back in a heartbeat to try the 1-2 and 2-5 games.

Ah, okay. That makes more sense.

I was playing at the Isle last night. There was a conversation at the other end of the table so I couldnt hear all of it but a guy with a heavy Spanish accent said "I went to play at Hialeah the other night and I felt like I was driving thru a third world Country. And those guys were speaking Spanish but not the Spanish I know. Im never going back there again"

In EVERY room I ever played in (NY, NJ, PENN, MD) English only was STRICTLY Enforced as it should be.
If you would tolerate non english you might as well turn your highest hold card face up.
To the OP on your smart phone you can download bravo poker app.
It tells you what games on going on right now at like 95% of the rooms in the country.

In every room I've ever played in, English only was/is strictly enforced as well.

Except In Miami. Hialeah, Magic City, and Miccosukee (and now King's Court) don't enforce English only. They just don't. Probably because 70% of the players are bilingual, 20% only speak Spanish, and 10% don't speak any Spanish at all.

When you look at the statistics, it's actually generous of them to allow English at all!

Not only is it not enforced when players are speaking Spanish to each other, in many cases the dealers will converse in Spanish with the players as well.

There are exceptions of course. In fact, there are a few Anglo dealers at both Hialeah and Magic City that do not speak Spanish at all. When they're dealing, they are more apt to enforce the English-only rule.

You've clearly never played at Hialeah which might as well be located in Cuba. The population of Hialeah is 75% Cuban

OP is asking for Florida-specific advice. The number is more like 70% here and some not listed are worth a visit either because the action is great or the setup or culture is just so weird it will give you stories to tell later.

As you head north from Miami/FtL, I suggest a stop at Melbourne Greyhound. Very good PLO action in the evenings. Not sure if it's every night, but was good while I was there for a weekend tourney series. Also second Daytona Beach, lots of weak action from players trying to hit a high hand. Haven't been to the new Orange City room, but it's same management as Daytona.

Have fun!

There is a WSOP circuit event until Feb 19 at Seminole Coconut Creek, so depends on how mid of a mid-February you are talking about.

Good to know. Thanks

I was in Miami a few months ago and went to Magic City. I liked it, good 2/5 action going on a weekday evening. I wouldn't go out of my way to play there, though obviously other reasons to want to stop by Miami too, and Magic City is right in the city and was an easy trip from Miami Beach.

English-only wasn't enforced, but the Spanish being spoken, to my high school level Spanish ears, wasn't problematic or cheating. Just people shooting the ****. Most people there were at least bilingual and at least half were native Spanish speakers. I'm not really one to let that bother me unless I have some reason to expect something nefarious is going on, but if you are one to worry about that it may not be the room for you.

I had a lot of fun playing at Immokalee when my appointmnet cancelled on me in Miami and i was 1/2 way across alligator alley from the West coast. Its a smaller room, but I had a rockin table with the local nits going crazy! Zigzag girls at BJ were smokin.

Immokalee closed their poker room a few months ago.

What are Zigzag girls?

I was going to be a complete ass and just leave this LMGTFY link: http://bfy.tw/FvL5

But then I decided to redeem myself in advance and leave this video as well.

Ive lived in FL for 30 years, and mike's post is exactly what I would do.

Can anyone tell me what games will be running at Hard Rock Tampa tomorrow in the daytime? Thanks