Main Line (727) 812-3339 Poker (727) 812-3339 ext. 214 Tournaments: ext 216. Now, as rooms and casinos are beginning to open, one segment of the game – tournament poker – is slowly beginning to emerge from its slumber at Florida's Derby Lane Poker Room. Now, as rooms and casinos are beginning to open, one segment of the game – tournament poker – is slowly beginning to emerge from its slumber at Florida's Derby Lane Poker Room.
The COVID-19 outbreak and resulting shutdown of society has resulted in changes across the board. Poker, on a live basis in a casino or card room, has been closed for the last two months. Now, as rooms and casinos are beginning to open, one segment of the game – tournament poker – is slowly beginning to emerge from its slumber at Florida's Derby Lane Poker Room.
$150 Tournament Set for Sunday Afternoon
Derby Lane Poker Room St Petersburg Fl
Derby Lane, located in St. Petersburg, FL, has been running cash games for the past week with precautions for its players. They are enforcing a mask rule on both the employees and the players and play is limited to six handed across the floor, but there are no partitions between the players to separate them into cubicles. These rules will also be in place as they get ready to have their first multi-table poker tournament since the COVID-19 outbreak.
The tournament is a $150 buy in event that will be limited to 80 players. $135 of the entry fee will go into the prize pool and, for an additional $5, players can get a 5K top-off to their initial 20,000 chip starting stack. Levels for the tournament will be 20 minutes, meaning that the action should wrap sometime in the early evening on Sunday night. At 80 players and $135 players per pop, the prize pool would be $10,800, presumably with the six handed final table divvying up that booty.
Because the tournament is limiting the number of players that can come to the felt, there is going to probably be a rush to hitting the cage to register. To combat this, Derby Lane will be opening the registration for the tournament at 9AM on Sunday morning, with the tournament kicking off at 1PM. What isn't clear at this point is what Derby Lane will do if they don't get enough players to support the tournament or, on the good side, what will happen if they have more player support than the 80-player limit allows.
Tournament Poker Slowly Coming Back?
Derby Lane is moving forward with tournament poker, something that many thought would be a long way off with the rules being enforced on poker across the States of America. The limited players at the tables – as low as four players in Las Vegas and six players in most locations – plus the extra distance between tables (limits multi-table usage) doesn't exactly lend itself well to multi-table tournament poker. But some are trying to bring back the format of poker in some manner.
One of Derby Lane's competitors in Florida, One-Eyed Jacks Poker Room at the Sarasota Kennel Club, has had tournaments scheduled since they reopened on May 22. There is no indicator on their website that these tournaments have been conducted, however.
The news in Las Vegas has not been quite as good. Still closed nearly three months after Governor Steve Sisolak shut down the entirety of Nevada's casino system, the poker rooms have some stringent rules being put on them before they can reopen. Under the current system, which will have casinos reopening next week, poker rooms can only have four players per table, putting a tough decision to the rooms throughout Sin City.
Will the poker rooms open if they can have only four players per table and fewer tables in action? Only one room has committed to opening at this point, The Venetian, which has said it will offer both cash games and single table tournaments. These single table tournaments have been rumored to have a $100 buy in, making it a pricey way to get your tournament fix.
Derby Lane Poker Room Hours
The 800-pound gorilla in the room is the running of the WSOP, however. Poker's most prestigious event has been on hold since it was postponed in April and no indication has been given that Caesars – or, perhaps more importantly, health officials in Nevada – will allow for the large throngs of people that the WSOP brings. While an 80-player tournament in Florida may not seem important, it is a creeping return to tournament poker that might be the impetus to see what the WSOP can do.
One of the most popular destinations for poker in the state of Florida is the Derby Lane Greyhound Track, located in St. Petersburg. The fifth largest live poker rooms in the state (generating over $8.8 million in gross revenues for fiscal year 2015-16), the poker has been somewhat overshadowing what was supposed to be the draw of people, the greyhound racing schedule and horse racing simulcasts offered by the track. But could there be a new reason to head to the poker room soon?
The Tampa Bay Times' John Romano is thinking outside of the box, at the minimum, in a column he penned earlier this month. Romano looks at the situation that the local Major League Baseball franchise, the Tampa Bay Rays, finds themselves in as to building a new home in West Central Florida. 'There is one important factor (for the Rays) that cannot be overlooked (as to a new site),' Romano writes. 'The perfect site does not exist.'
Romano points out that the Rays would love to move to a downtown Tampa ballpark (the 'downtown ballpark' fad hasn't yet faded in baseball, where the new construction can have all the amenities of a new stadium but can include enough idiosyncrasies – such as non-symmetrical outfield grounds, smaller foul areas, etc. – to make them unique). The problem with that, as noted by Romano, is that there is nowhere downtown to build such a stadium. St. Petersburg would like to build a new stadium in their downtown area, but Romano cites the horrendous attendance record for the current stadium, Tropicana Field, as the reason that cannot go forward.
Romano puts forth a surprise – Romano calls it a 'wild card' – choice in the lands of the Derby Lane Greyhound Track and, by connection, the Derby Lane Poker Room. Romano notes that it is close to Hillsborough County, the major population center for the area, and was looked at as a previous site to build. 'So, would Derby Lane's owners sell?' Romano asks. 'In the right situation, yes.'
While the greyhound track might be in danger, Romano thinks that the poker room would survive the cut. Due to the decline in greyhound racing in the Sunshine State, the Florida Legislature has considered several bills that would 'decouple' the racetracks from the poker rooms that operate on their grounds (under current Florida law, a poker room can operate only at a racetrack that offers an active racing schedule or simulcast operations). If the laws were changed, then the land around the Derby Lane Poker Room could be sold and the land used for the baseball facilities.
This isn't out of the realm of thought. The current football stadium being built in Los Angeles for the recently-returned Los Angeles Rams (and potentially the San Diego Chargers should they be unable to negotiate a new stadium with San Diego politicians) is being built on the grounds of the old Hollywood Park horse racing track in Inglewood, CA, which was closed and destroyed in 2013-14. The Hollywood Park Casino and Poker Room wasn't a part of the destruction, however, and earlier this year was reopened. High stake roulette. It is planned to be an integral part of the new 'Los Angeles Entertainment Complex' (which will include the football stadium) when it opens for business in 2019.
Derby Lane Poker Room Reviews
Romano figures the likelihood of the Rays moving to the Derby Lane Poker Room anytime soon as highly unlikely but not out of the question. 'How enthusiastic are the Rays going to be about recommitting themselves to downtown St. Petersburg when it has become obvious that Hillsborough fans are not driving that far?' Romano asks. 'Will Rays owner Stu Sternberg be willing to spend a boatload of his own money if there is little political clout to fund a stadium in downtown Tampa? Derby Lane is still a long shot and it is far from being a perfect site…but which site is?'
