Trip Report - Biloxi Casinos

I'm back from vacation and ready to play some poker.

While I was in Florida, I took a short trip to Biloxi. The casinos there were demolished during Hurricane Katrina last year, but I was surprised to see that three had reopened: The Isle of Capri, the Palace, and the Imperial Palace. I stopped by all three and was amazed at how nice they were. The strip is still a mess, as is the rest of the town, but it was business as normal inside of the casinos.

The Imperial Palace has a very nice poker room on their non-smoking floor. This was good for me, but the smokers took frequent breaks to go downstairs. There were two types of tables available on a weekday afternoon: $1/$2 no limit and $4/$8 limit. The limits were a little high for me at $8, but I decided to play anyway because I have heard how loose they can be.

I bought in for $200 and played the first session at an average table. I had two maniacs to my left, and every time I limped in with marginal hands, they would raise (often with nothing). I kept thinking that I'd get a monster hand and take them down, but the monster never came. Over the two hour session, my best pre-flop hand was pocket nines in middle position, and my best overall hand was when I caught a flush with my middle connectors from the blind (it was beat by a higher flush when the 4th of the suit fell on the river). I left the table down $150.

During the break, I tried their buffet. It was certainly above average, and they had a few items that were very good: crab legs (2 types), the carved pork roast, the Cajun sausage balls, and the bananas foster on the desert bar (wow!). I would certainly eat there again.

After dinner, I went back to the poker room. The limits hadn't changed, so I thought I'd risk another $100 at a new table. This table was noticeably looser than the previous table. There were two older ladies decked out in their embroidered gambling clothes who had never played live poker before. They had played play money poker online, so they thought they were ready to win some real money. Over the course of an hour and half session, I never saw either one fold preflop! At this table, I started out on a losing swing (down about $60), but won three hands in a row -- all were boats -- to pull back ahead. I later rivered a nut flush to pull me ahead for the day. All told, I played about 3 1/2 hours and left up $2.

I heard quite a few rumors about the other area casinos. It seems that many of the out-of-work dealers like to spend their time in the poker rooms. The Grand Casino plans to reopen on September 1st in what used to be the hotel across the strip from their casino. When they first open, they won't have a poker room, but eventually they are going to open a huge room. All the buzz was about just how big it's going to be. It should be interesting.



After Hurricane Ivan a few years ago, I spent some time with clean-up in the Pensacola, FL area, but I wasn't prepared for the devastation they had along the Mississippi coast. The national news has moved on to other bigger stories, but it will be years before that area returns to normal. If you get the opportunity to help, please remember that they still need it.

posted by Kent @ 9:06 AM