Seminole Casino Immokalee

Located 20 miles east of Fort Myers or Naples and 60 miles west of Fort Lauderdale in the small town of Immokalee (pronounced "imm-OCK-uh-lee"), a formerly ramshackle and small Indian casino is being renovated into a state-of-the-art medium-scale casino. Prior to Dec 2008, this casino didn't even offer blackjack, but now it has a 16-table poker room and many tables of blackjack and other card games as it expands from a "small slot machine place" to full-fledged casino.

Games
Just getting started, so only very low limits are currently available:

Limit hold 'em:
 * 2/4 (played with $2 chips, though the small blind is still only $1)

No-limit hold 'em:
 * 2/5 blinds, 100-500 buyin

Game Info: As you might imagine, at these low limits, most players are fairly bad or inexperienced players. They seem to fall into one of three categories: Categories your opponents and win their money.
 * passive rocks who call preflop with almost anything, and will call the turn with any pair, but usually fold the river, and never bet or raise unless they have a huge hand.
 * chasers who call preflop and on all streets with almost anything
 * aggressive youngsters who raise on draws or bluffs, and reraise with nothing even against large fields of rocks.

Rake: 10% of the pot, max $5, plus $1 for the jackpot once the pot hits $20.

Posting: New players do not need to post to enter the game.

Shuffling: All tables are hand-shuffled.

Wait Time: Varies greatly due to low player count; can be as much as 30-60 minutes if there is no current seat available.

Jackpots and Promotions
Standard bad-beat jackpots.

Atmosphere
As is becoming more common in Indian casinos, poker is being given a decent-sized area but still feels somewhat disconnected from the rest of the casino. This is often a plus, but at Immokalee, it strangely ends up feeling isolated. Perhaps the large number of tables yet small number of players much of the time contributes to that overall impression. The poker "room" is set off from the main slot machine area by a low half-wall and is open above, so slot players can easily become railbirds. While there is no smoking in the poker area, with the open half wall quite a bit of smoke drifts into the poker area from the surrounding casino, so you'll have to get through it.

With only low limits being offered, you get a strange mix of players here as well, ranging from the retired rocks whiling away the hours to young hotshots who want to play the way they see on TV. In general, a good player could profit nicely from visits here, but at low limits, that profit is also quite low.

Neighborhood: Remote-ish area in a small and poor town. Not the most hospitable place to wander around outside, but security at the casino proper will keep you safe.

Parking: Soon to be hundreds of spaces; in December 2008, the parking lot still torn up for construction due to the casino expansion.

Tables and Chairs: Standard 9-player tables. Felt is nice, soft, relatively new felt with good padding and a clean commit line. Player chairs are customized metal-frame fixed-leg chairs with nice padding. Nice carpet helps muffle some of the noise.

Service and Comps
Semi-frequent cocktail service (standard casino cocktails).

Fairly frequent visits by a wandering masseuse offering massages.

Links & Info
Visited by MarkT 06:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)