Tampa Casino Tour

I don’t know if you have ever tried to use internet search engines to discover if there are poker rooms in a city you are about to visit, but the results when I try it are always disappointing. The promising links appear to be casino listings, but are actually spamdexes (spamdices?).

So as a public service I thought I’d list three Tampa card rooms I managed to track down:

Silks card room at Tampa Bay Downs
11225 Racetrack Rd.
Tampa, FL 33626

22 poker tables
“open live racing days, noon to midnight”
The facility has horse racing and poker. Admission is $2. The card room is on the 2nd floor. The 12:00 multi-table tournament was inexpensive enough (at $32+3) that I decided to play, but I finished out of the money.

T.L.s Card Room at Derby Lane
10490 Gandy Blvd.
St. Petersburg, FL 33702

45 poker tables
“open Monday through Saturday from 12:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.”
The facility has greyhound racing and poker, but the greyhounds weren’t running the day I was there. Admission may be $1 on racing days. The card room is on the 3rd floor. The ring games have a single $2 blind, which is odd but not unpleasant.

Seminole Hard Rock Casino
5223 North Orient Rd.
Tampa, FL 33610

50 poker tables
“casino open 24/7/365″
The casino has lots of bingo slots and poker. Reviewers seem to agree that the slots are some of the worst in the world, but I didn’t try them myself.

The three card rooms have a lot in common. They all offer 2-2 limit hold’em, 2-2 limit omaha hi/lo, 2-2 limit seven card stud, and no-limit hold’em tournaments. They all rake 10% up to $5. They are all non-smoking.

The $2 bet limit in ring games is evidently state law. Therefore they also offer “action” versions of the 2-2 limit games, in which each player must ante $2. This way the pots have at least $20 pre-flop. I was doing far more pre-flop folding than any of my Tampa opponents, so I stayed clear of the “action” games.