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.