Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood New Poker Room
The lesson I learned from the three sessions at the Seminole Hard Rock – Hollywood poker room is that it’s certainly more likely to be profitable to play during the morning sessions midweek, if you can swing it. In the morning, the crowd skewed a LOT older (makes sense, midweek after all). The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino of Hollywood, Florida announced on Monday that they are making changes to their poker gaming offerings. The ballroom of the property will become the new home to the poker room, with 40 cash game tables on offer. New offerings include 638 upscale guestrooms in the first-ever Guitar Hotel, 168 luxury guestrooms and unique swim-up suites in the adjacent Oasis Tower at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, and 465 newly redesigned guestrooms in Hard Rock Hotel for a combined room count of 1,271 throughout the resort. Book The Guitar Hotel at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Hollywood on Tripadvisor: See 112 traveler reviews, 304 candid photos, and great deals for The Guitar Hotel at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, ranked #42 of 80 hotels in Hollywood and rated 3.5 of 5 at Tripadvisor.
Series headlined by $2 Million Guaranteed WPT NLH Championship,$1 Million Guaranteed WPTDeepStacks opener kicks off poker action
The2019/2020 Seminole Hard Rock Poker season continues Jan. 9 with the LuckyHearts Poker Open (LHPO) at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood,Fla. Primary events kick off with the $1,100buy-in WPTDeepStacks (Single Re-Entry Per Day) opener featuring a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, whilethe series culminates with a $3,500buy-in WPT NLH Championship boasting a $2million guarantee. In addition to awarding two of the biggest prize poolsduring the LHPO, the $1,100 buy-in WPTDeepStacksfinal table on Monday, Jan. 13, and $3,500buy-in WPT NLH Championship on Wednesday, Jan. 22, will live stream onWPT.com.
November’sSeminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” saw a record-breaking 988 entriesin the series finale, making it the largest Championship tournament in RRPOhistory. The players generated a prize pool worth $3,161,600, eclipsing theguarantee by more than $1 million.
Followingits $1.5 billion expansion unveiled in October 2019, Seminole Hard RockHollywood is home to a new 45-table Poker Room with an eight-table semi-privatearea for 24/7 cash action. The Poker Room will have more than 50high-resolution televisions broadcasting live sports, in addition to a privatecashier cage for accessibility.
Otherhighlight events in this year’s 2020 LHPO tournament schedule include:
- $2,200 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) $200,000 Guaranteed, Thursday, Jan. 16
- $25,500 High Roller No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) $1 Million Guaranteed, Monday, Jan. 20 –Tuesday, Jan. 21
- $5,000 Eight Handed No LimitHold’em (Re-Entry) $200,000 Guaranteed,Tuesday, Jan. 21
Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood is offering poker hotel rates during the series starting at $174.30 per night. For more information and to view the series schedule, future tournament details and make hotel reservations, please visit SHRPO.com.
About Seminole HardRock Poker
Seminole Hard Rock Poker encompasses four major poker series heldannually at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. InAugust 2013, the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) was introduced to pokerplayers around the world and featured a $10 million guarantee championship, thelargest guarantee in history. In addition to the SHRPO, Seminole Hard RockPoker series’ includes the Seminole HardRock Lucky Hearts Poker Open (January), Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown(April) and Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll” Poker Open (November). All fourseries fall under the SHRPO umbrella with tournament news, live updates andchampionship live streaming. Visit www.SHRPO.com. Join the conversation at#SHRPO, and tag us @SHRPO.
About Seminole HardRock Hotel & Casino Hollywood
SeminoleHard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood is the flagship casino resort of HardRock International, owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. This world-renownedentertainment, gaming and hospitality destination unveiled a $1.5 billionexpansion on Oct. 24, 2019. New offerings include 638 upscale guestroomsin the first-ever Guitar Hotel, 168 luxury guestrooms and unique swim-upsuites in the adjacent Oasis Tower at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & CasinoHollywood, and 465 newly redesigned guestrooms in Hard Rock Hotel for acombined room count of 1,271 throughout the resort. Additional amenitiesinclude the lush, “Bora Bora” style lagoon with private cabanas and butlerservice; a 42,000 square-foot Rock Spa® & Salon; a 13.5-acre recreationalwater experience for swimming, kayaking and paddle boarding; 19 dining outletsand 20 bars and lounges; an expansive gaming floor with 3,100 slots, 195 tablegames and a 45-table poker room; 120,000 square feet of premier meeting andconvention space including a 38,000 square-foot, carpeted exhibition hall; anda 26,000 square-foot retail promenade. The highly anticipated Hard Rock Liveentertainment venue with a 7,000-person capacity, will showcase A-listentertainers, comedy acts, Broadway performances, sporting events and livebroadcast productions. The integrated resort is located on 87 acres of theHollywood SeminoleReservation along State Road 7 (U.S. Highway 441),and is 10 minutes from Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport and 30minutes from downtown Miami and Miami International Airport. For moreinformation, visit us online at www.seminolehardrockhollywood.com,call 800-937-0010 or follow us: Facebook: SeminoleHardRockHollywood, Twitter:@HardRockHolly, Instagram: @HardRockHolly.
The Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida is a poker player's dream. I drove to this East Coast poker destination while staying in the middle of the state in Lake Placid, while visiting my Dad and his wife. It's about a two-hour drive from there. Fortunately, however, there are over a million people living on the east coast of Florida in the West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami area who can visit here in 30 minutes or less. It's well worth the trip.
The Hard Rock casinos are the latest jewels in the gambling crown of the Seminole tribe of Florida. They have three of these huge and beautiful facilities – two on the east coast and one on the west coast in Tampa. This is in addition to three smaller rooms, including Immokalee and Brighton, that I've already reviewed, which have been around for about ten years.
The best adjective I can think of to describe the Hard Rock's poker room is 'snazzy'. There are 50 new tables, tastefully laid out in a beautiful, softly lit, nicely carpeted room. The ceilings are enormously high, giving the room almost an open-air feel. The chairs are well padded and very comfortable (but no wheels or height adjustments). The chips are new, as are the cards. This is poker at its best.
Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood New Poker Room Set
The games are great, too. Florida law does not permit limits higher than $5, nor no-limit games with higher than a $100 cap on the buy-in. Nevertheless, within those confines, the games are dynamic.
They have no-limit with blinds of $1 and $2, $2 and $5, and even $5 and $10 (yes, with only a $100 buy-in). For a short time, they tried to spread a $10/25 no-limit game with no cap on the buy-in. It went smoothly for three days or so, with pots into the five digits, until the state came in, with great fanfare, and shut it down permanently. Apparently, some Florida rooms have attempted to skirt the lawful limits by having players go all in on multiple hands in a row, until all players have $1,000 or so. But that's just a rumor.
In addition to the no-limit games, the room spreads $1/2 and $2/4 limit hold'em and Omaha-8. They 'offer' stud but never get enough players for a stud game (though the old Seminole casino literally across the street gets stud going, I later found out). They rake 10% up to a maximum of $5.
Unlike the other Seminole casinos I had visited prior to coming here, the crowd is young, vibrant, and full of gamble. Games run 24/7, so I had the pleasure, early on a Sunday morning, of playing with a few young folks who had been up all night playing poker and drinking. These were not the timid affairs of the no-limit games at Brighton or Immokalee. In my first hand, the player to my right raised blind to $25, 'because,' as he said, 'I have two green chips – hahahahahahahah.' I looked down and saw two queens and went all in after him. He called me blind with his remaining green chip as did a very attractive woman, dressed like a hooker.
'Why not – any two cards can win,' she said. She only had $50 or so. She turned over K-6. He turned over 6-3. My queens held up and I won a nice little pot.
The game proceeded much like that for the hour or so that I was there, with unbelievably loose and wild play punctuated with laughing. Unfortunately I didn't have any other quality hands during my time at the table – and I lost a little of it back trying to push a couple of guys off a hand when I was under-gunned. But I managed a $100+ win for my brief stay.
I also found out that the room runs terrific and fairly big tournaments. There's a daily bounty tournament with a $100 - $350 buy-in, depending on the day of the week. On Saturday there's a $500 tournament with one $500 rebuy. The house charge for that is $75. If you take the rebuy that's only a 7.5% vig, pretty small by most standards.
The poker room is non-smoking but there is no wall separating it from the rest of the casino, which is smoking. There's just a rail. Smokers lean on it while watching the action. My table was next to the rail. A player literally would stand up when he was out of the hand, smoke a cigarette at the rail, and then come back in when he was done. The smoke often carried into the room and over the tables.
The place is filled with young guys and gals – in couples and alone – vacationing and having a grand old time. There was an equal mix of what looked like older tourists, maybe grandparents with their kids and grandkids. The average age on this Sunday morning seemed to be about 40 or so. As is befitting a mixed-age crowd like this there are a lot of eating options. I walked into the most elaborate buffet I had ever seen – custom-made omelets, sushi, exquisite pastries, beef tenderloin, eggs benedict, baked Alaska, smoked salmon, stir-fried prawns in pepper sauce, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are also other restaurants on the premises, and a multi-restaurant food court with a full array of Mexican, Italian, Chinese, and standard American fare – none of it terribly pricey.
I'd love to come back. And unlike the other Seminole properties, this is a place that I could bring the wife and kids, who could find many ways other than poker to amuse themselves.
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino - Hollywood
1 Seminole Way
Hollywood, FL 33314
General phone: 954-327-7625
Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood Poker Tournaments
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