Florida is officially open for poker.

Tonight is the first night that Florida's new poker laws will take effect. Tonight at midnight Florida will become a top 3 or 4 poker destination in the United States. It has been a long time coming, and the change has needed to be made.

For more information you can check out Real Poker in the State of Florida (updated)

I will be there at midnight, only this time when I buy into the 5/10 I will be fully stacked. I have been playing in Florida for a long time, and there has been talk about this change for years. It is still unreal to me that it is happening and it really should be interesting to see how this goes. Good luck to anyone else that playing in Florida soon.

Yeah, I also have been playing in Florida for a while too (southern). I'm really excited about the new laws and I hope that other states can follow suit with similar laws and regulations. Kinda sucks though because the last thing we need is more annoying tourists

Sounds good for all the Pros down that region. A big step for Poker in the United States.

Im excited. I'm newer to poker but been exploring live cardrooms and recently the Tampa Hardrock Casino. Great poker room there btw..

I live in Sarasota just south of Tampa, and go to school in SW Florida where theres a few more small cardrooms and a seminole casino.. maybe things will get mroe interesting now

Was reading the article in the Sun Sentinel. I am excited to see how the pros react...maybe some will be making a move to sunny SoFla. Will be fun to watch.

Just got back from a short session tonight.

I got to the Hollywood HR around 10:30 and got my name on 2/5nl, 5/10nl, 1/2 plo, 2/5,plo, 5/10plo, 10/20 limit and 20/40 limit. They starting calling the higher limit games at about 11:15 and had people in the seats before midnight came. The big game at the time was 10/25 and a 10/20plo (not positive on the plo, i heard them call the players). I got seated at 2/5 first. It was mostly regulars so I left when called and got on a brand new 5/10 at about 12:30. Just kinda played until it started to die.

I need to give the HR credit, they handled tonight pretty well. It was very packed around midnight but they got people to their seats and were offering games to a lot of different needs. I had one issue at the first 2/5 I sat down at where the dealer was letting people by in from her bank and then getting fills. A few of us talked to the floor and they agreed that the initial buy ins should be from the house cage. When they opened the 5/10 the initial buy ins were forced to come from the cage. Not sure if our convo with the floor had any effect, I have a feeling its a dealer thing.

As far as the bigger games go the 10/20 and 10/25nl were both going and had huge lists. There was a 20/40 limit game that looked super soft. There was a 10/25 must move at first, not sure how long it lasted. I saw a few people trying to get a 40/80limit and 25/50nl but I'm not sure if they ever went, just heard the names called. There was also a decent list for 20/40 stud, and 75/150limit that didn't get started.

All in all, decent start. There were very little action from rec players because of the weird time. I only heard them call one 1/3nl game and within a half hour they were calling open seats. Tonight seemed like a feeler for most people at the new limits, and it was mostly regulars. I'm sure Friday and Saturday will be when the real madness will start.

How is the hollywood HR?
i wanna take a trip there becuase I love the tampa one.. how does it compare to tampa?

finslly! SOON POKERT WILL BE LEGAL IN ALL STATES!

It's not called The Sunshine State for no reason. This is gonna be the place to be, always has, always will.

wouldnt you know it would go through after I recently moved from Melbourne .I hit the ships out of Cape but only a few bars around when i was there.atleast i know how much it will cost to move back...Have fun yall

I want to see the World Series Of Poker in Florida before even thinking of taking the poker world seriously.

This needs to be done in all the states. It won't happen because of the Indian casinos and the influence they have on the states.

Thank god!

im debating going to the Tampa HR tonight to play

I was thinking of playing at derby lane but there .50/1$ tables have the sb at 1$ and BB at 1$ to eliminate using 50c chips..we'll see

I have actually never been to the Tamp one. But I was sitting with some kid today at the 5/10 that was telling me it was pretty similar. Different kinds of people, but good action. You should check it out, I would but there is no reason to drive so far for me. There are few CCers that go there a lot, they could probably offer more insight.

So far the action at the Hollywood HR has been good but worse than expected. The high stakes stuff is going pretty well and there have been some big hands and high profile people the last two nights.

There are still a ton of 1/2 nl with the old $100 buy ins, that is effecting the 1/3 nl with the real $300 buy in and making it kind of dry. There have been some decent looking stacks on it, but from my limited play it seems like its not doing as expected. The 2/5nl has been very popular and seems to be super juicy. I have spent most of my time playing this game and have been involved in some pretty sick action. The 5/10nl is kind of dwindling already. There are still lots of people playing it but its interesting to see some of the regular guys that used to play 5/10 starting to see they can't afford it and are moving down.

Not much in the form of limit games yet. And the games are still mostly being played by the regulars. Once the WSOP is over i'm sure there will be a second wave of card players in the rooms. The games are mixed, and there are more card player type people than there used to be. Not as much rec plays as there has been in the past at the higher limits, which I guess is expected.

From what I see and hear the high limit stuff is pretty sick. 25/50nl game was running today, there has been a 10/25plo and nl that runs pretty constantly too. Both have no max on buy ins and there have been some pretty big stacks (supposedly Jerome James lost 45k yesterday).

All in all, its been a nice start after a few days. I have put in about 30 hours since the change and am up, doing well so I'm happy with it. Wish there were more rec players to loosen some of the games up, but they have been good enough as is. They will start to filter in as time goes on, and by the winter when the snowbirds are down it should be at its peak.

sooo, finally made it to the Tampa Hardrock tonight.. bought in at the $1/2 NL holdem table at 11pm with $40... played for 3 hours.. walked outta there with $180. SOLID. good night.

ALSO.. saw a table hit the bad beat jackpot tonight.. $190,000. lucky fellas..

great night at the hardrock.

wow that's crazy that they hit that, cuz the jackpot is for all the hardrock's not just the seminole one.

Thats gotta be great for the professionals.

ya everyone else in the room just kinda turned and looked over there with this like "ohh you bastards.." kinda look on their faces

I was playing at the Hollywood HR when that jack pot was hit at Tampa. When the call came over they announced it and the room was not very happy. The Hollywood HR has had the worst luck with the bad beat jack pot since they made the mega pot. It has only been hit one or twice there I believe.

Tampa has hit it like 7 times and the seminal one across the street from the hard rock has hit it around 5 times. It was 390 like a week and half ago. Would be nice.


What did you think of Tampa?

..u were there last night when it was hit at tampa? lol

tampa is amazing. its busy, really clean, VERY nice stuff.. tables, chips, everything. the dealers are great there, fast and fun. TONS of tables, but last night i hhad to wait about 40 mins maybe to get onto a table. got there at 10 and started to play around 11ish.. the line was huge to just even sign up. but it was awesome.

LOTS of fish... lol. one guy was drinkin a bit.. bought into my table 4 times, and lost each of his $100 buy in each time. within 25 mins each time.

loved it.

I hope this will encourage the WPT, NAPT and WSOP Circuit tours to consider Florida as a legitimate destination possibility. I think Florida would be a solid stop for any of those tours.

This is very cool news. Makes me a little bitter I don't live in FL anymore. I'll be sure to visit, though!

Hope my parents go on holiday to Florida soon. Ill deffo tag along, rent a car and play in teh casino

aWow no mention of Sarasota..where I live?

One of the floor managers was talking to me about this today.

I asked them where they were going to have tourneys now that the upstairs is all high stakes. She should me that the Hollywood HR (might be all the HRs) just signed a deal with the WPT.

She told me the hard rock cafe inside is being fitted with cameras and that they might create a tourney room there when one is needed. This is all hear say, and she might just be telling me something she heard. Either way it seems the tourneys have taken a back seat for the time being.

There was a $350bi, $30,000 guarantee, 100 person max, winner take all tourny this morning and they only had 56 or so players (forget the exact number, but it was mid 50s.)

Are there any rooms near orlando?

The wife has a conference and I would go along if I could play poker the whole time.

The only one's that I know of that would be close to Orlando would be Tampa (70 miles west of Orlando) or Daytona Beach (about 70 miles east of Orlando). Someone else may know of something closer for you.

I live in sarasota.

I'm actually going to one eye jacks 2night