Sunday, January 20, 2013

Above: Derby Lane has a great poker room seen here.

When I play in poker tournaments at the Tunica casinos, there are tons of tourists. They are there to gamble and most have no chance to win. Yesterday, I was the tourist and like them, I didn't win

I traveled to St. Petersburg FL to play at Derby Lane and to meet blogger Neophyte. -- it's always fun to put a face with a name. We had a good time playing in the 8 p.m. tournament. There were 58 players who paid $97 to enter. First place paid $1549, the levels were 20 minutes, and we started with 10K in chips. As luck would have it, Neophyte and I were seated at the same table, two seats apart!

We both advanced past the second break, but missed the money. Neo busted around 20th and I went out in 14th place.

With a short-stack, it folded to Neo on the button who bet half his stack. The big blind called and the flop was K-Q-x. BB checked and Neo moved in. The villain thought and thought and finally called and showed A J. Neo turned over 6-4 offsuit. No problem, the turn was a 4 and Neo was back in business.

Calling off his stack with 6-4 looks silly, but when you are low on chips you have to do something because you are bleeding to death anyway. I liked the play.

My busto hand: It folded to me on the button and I had seven big blinds. My hand was K J and this was an easy shove. The big blind woke up with A-K so I was drawing thin. The flop had an ace, the turn was a 10, so I needed a queen on the river for a straight, but didn't get. Bad shove? See my comments in previous paragraph.

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Derby Lane has greyhound racing and poker. It's a lovely facility and was a joy to play at. The poker room and tournament were well-run, the dealers were good. I've player poker all over the U.S. and this would be towards the top of the list.

Above: They'll let anybody enter tournaments at Derby Lane.

Images taken with my P&S.

4 comments:

  1. What a bunch of handsome guys they have there at Derby Lane. You can tell that the classy people come out and play poker there. It was great playing with you Mojo, hope to do it again sometime soon. Hope we both have better luck and cards next time.

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  2. Where was the picture taken? There is a prison in the Tampa area of which I am unaware? I wouldn't mess with those tough looking characters.

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  3. Re the Neophyte's comment above: Not sure if "handsome" is the word, but lacking a proper alternative, I'll go with that! Glad you had fun in Florida. That's our middle name. Florida Fun Florida.

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  4. You musta had your 'mojo' on that weekend.

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