TR: Ebro Poker Room - Ebro, FL probably tl:dr

[People_Mover]

Before you start reading, if you are expecting monster pots and huge all in action, well, you've come to the wrong spot. But I'll atleast try to entertain you with some background information.

My wife's family lives in Panama City and although Panama City is perceived as the MTV Spring Break, T & A flashing, etc.., it's far from that. Once you exit I-10, it's a painful 40 minute drive to 231 before you even reach Panama City and another 20-30 minutes to the beach (which is actually quite nice). I'm a city boy and I've never laughed so hard when we went to the local bar by her dad's house and I ordered a Miller Lite and instead of bottle or draft, they say "bottle or can".

Ahhh yes, the panama city red neck bars where you can gladly sip on a Natural Light Can for 1.00 or Busch Light Cans if you prefer for 1.25. There's a good thread in the EL D forum regarding Karaoke bars and why people sing. Well, Panama City offers you nothing but the worst of it. I heard the poorest attempts at anything from Alice in Chains to Righteous Brothers to Elvis and Tim McGraw. All of it sucked. Even the "DJ" would break windows, but enough of that, on to the poker room.

Ebro Poker Room (or Greyhound Track) is located off Hwy 20 and 77. If coming from I-10, exit South on Hwy 231, then make a right on 20 and go down about 30-35 miles where you'll pass exactly ONE gas station. Make a right on HWY 77 and it's like the sky opens up when you see this stadium of a building - the Ebro Greyhound Track.

My wife and I got there around 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night and the parking lot was full. The dogs were running, but hardly anyone was watching. We paid the 2.00 each for entrance fee and you go up the stairs and to the right and the poker room is right there. There are about 30 tables and probably 27 of them were running. They offer 1/2NL and 2/5NL. I didn't see any mixed games going.

Remember what I said earlier about big pots? Well, Florida is the 100.00 MAX buy in state. My normal game is 1-2NL - 5/10NL on the internet depending on bankroll and how I'm running/taking shots, etc..I'm a 40K winner over 200K hands that are in my database, so although I don't claim to be a pro, as my wife would say, "poker has bought us some nice things". My wife rocks the .10/.25NL 6 max and she's a small winner over 6K hands.

I could lie to you all like everyone else does in their TR saying I won 8 million dollars and never had a losing session, and also hit a royal flush jackpot, etc.. etc..., but we lost around 400.00 between us. The play was actually decent for a 100 max game. At our table there was a good mix of 20 somethings and 40 somethings. (we are both 26) It's tough to play with 50 BBs though because you get committed pretty quickly and you're either all in or rebuying. The table itself is in decent shape, but there was something about the felt that I didn't like. It was a little "loose" I guess. The chip denominations are in 1.00 and 5.00 increments.

The first notable hand I played was limping 4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] behind some limpers. Flop A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Checked around, turn 2 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Some guy bets like 10, I call and one other guy calls too. River 3 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Dude bets 20.00, I shove for value (like shoving is a lot of money, but it was like 50 more) and he quickly flips A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] oops. rebuy.

The table was overall pretty fun and I learned a new quote, "HORSESHOE" This guy in the 8 seat kept calling the other guy a "horseshoe" and my curious wife asked him why he kept calling that guy a horseshoe to which he replied, "cause he gets so damn lucky all the time" (of course after horseshoe's J8 busted KK on a J8x board) The guy continues though, "but it sure hurts when that horseshoe gets pulled out of your ass!" We had a quick laugh and played a bit more.

I got AA once and raise to 15.00 pre in a straddled pot. The straddler calls. FLOP K 10 4, he leads 20.00 into me and I decide to just call with my monster 80.00 behind. (it's honestly a freakin joke) Turn 6 and he bets 25.00 and I put the rest in and he calls and tables K 10. awesome. River 6 though and he says nice hand. i just reply thanks and we move on.

The room was well lit, the people are nice. The servers are nothing to write home about, but hey, we are in the middle of the woods, so you can't expect Venetian type waitresses. They are open 12-12 and we stayed until they closed. Beers were 4.00 + tip and bottled water was 1.75. I didn't see any food nor were we hungry so we didn't eat.

Overall it was nice to play some cards and donk around a bit. The rake was 5.00 max PLUS 1.00 for jackpot. They had a 31K jackpot for diamond royal flush. We'll probably go back next time we are in Panama City, but it's sure nice to be back home in Orlando where they ask me "bottle or draft".

The end [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[MicroBob]

Nice report.

"although Panama City is perceived as the MTV Spring Break, T & A flashing, etc.., it's far from that."


Ummm, this is the totally dead time of year in Panama City. Almost zero tourists. Some of the business are closed for the season.
Feb-Apr and you can't even move on the roads here.
Even July and August are pretty crazily crowded and is still pretty insane. And that time of year really doesn't even compete AT ALL with Feb-Apr I'm told.

I'm not a big fan of Panama City either and think it's stupidly rednecky but if you're looking for party-time-USA then coming here in November is not going to do it because there's nobody freaking here.

[facepull]

we all know that the 100max buy-in stinks but if you adjust to it and play accordingly theres decent money to be had. im averaging 13 per hour so far after 5 months and i think that i can maintain that in the long run. many of the players after this time are still very very bad. the book professional no-limit hold'em is perfect for the structure of the current florida games.
if you adapt to the limitations of the game here it can be beat easily. my room does not have 2-5 just 1-2 no limit.