OCALA GAINSVILLE POKER ROOM

 

From our Meadowcrest winter home in Crystal River, Florida, I drove an hour or so to the Ocala Gainsborough poker room and booked a night in Ocala at the Ocala Cove Motel so I could play poker for a couple of days.

Elizabeth was hosting a zoomed authentic movement meditation weekend. Had I stayed home, I'd have had to be very, very quiet for the entire weekend. I can be quiet for an hour or so. Then I have to sing or bang cooking pans or both.

So this was a perfect time for a poker road trip.

THE MOTEL

THE ROOM

I marvel how much I am beginning to crave a more upscale room.

There was nothing wrong with this room.

Plenty of room. I did not have that cramped feeling I have in some motels.

The wall in the bathroom shows some damage, perhaps at the base. Otherwise, well kept.

Fine AC. It did blow on me at my desk, but I just turned it off and back on later.

A nice stuffed chair just under a reading lamp.

There are no pans or dishes or silverware, but there is a nice little kitchen sink that makes cleanup easy.

I always bring my own dishes. Silverware, ceramics.

I know kitchen stuff gets stolen by some guests, and is not worth retrieving, but there are ways to both service the customer and protect the motel. In one motel in Biloxi, at the front office, I could get a box of pans and silverware and dish soap just by leaving a deposit.

That seemed smart.

Even if they just collected up plates and cups and pans from a thrift store, it would be fine. I was in Biloxi a week; I had brought nothing with me.

The wall flower art prints here in Ocala were pleasant, if boring. Not all the walls were decorated. Motel art being what it usually is, I'm not certain having bare walls is a bad thing. Most bare walls beat the aesthetics of motel wall hangings.

The paint was clean and seemed fine.

The television worked great and it had my favorite no commercial TCM although I did not watch much TV.

My neighbor had his on at 4 AM.

I could not be so inconsiderate.

Wonderful desk, unusually long and with good looking electrical hookups. Really two desks, one pulling out from under the other and perfect for my computer with room to eat as well.

Plenty of electrical options in the room. Generally cheap rooms have few electrical options. Not here.

However, remember to see that the desk electrical outlets are plugged in the wall. I did not remember until my computer went blank.

Comfortable bed. I am just not fussy about beds. This one seemed fine. I did not fall asleep early. I guess the excitement of the day kept me awake. I woke up at 5:30AM, but none of that was the bed. It was just me.

But still a part of me wants an upgrade.

Decadence stalks me.

This room at $87 was $60 cheaper than the next level room I could find in the area.

So, I figure that is $60 saved for gambling.

And I am comfortable.

Still......

I remember when I first started gambling and I'd get those $15 on sale and run down rooms, like at Las Vegas Club downtown in August, and board discussion friends would ask how I could manage to stay in them. I told them that I had camped all my life, and so hot running water and an actual bed and no tent to put up seemed a luxury, especially at below campground prices.

With my sons we had camped in an old canvas tent that had a damaged zipper, so to go to the bathroom at night, we undid about half a dozen clothes pins, and then we had to put them back just so, or someone was going to get wet feet if it rained.

We were quite the laughing stock of the campground, until a huge storm came, picked up the lighter popup tents and rolled them through the forest.

Canvas doesn't move as easily as nylon.

I remember hiking 6 miles into the White Mountains of New Hampshire with my son's class, pitching a tent, sleeping to the quiet of creek, catching little trout, brining them in the salt and plastic milk carton I'd brought, building a smoker from the stream rocks and having smoked trout.

It felt grand.

I remember in my own teen years, sleeping with no tent in a mummy sack on gravel at Arrowhead Camp Ground in Delevan NY. No padding.

And now?

I'm annoyed if they don't put real glasses out.

Truly I am an old man.

Oh, at Ocala Cove Motel they put out no glasses or cups, even cheap plastic ones.

That does seem odd.

Perhaps if I had asked.

I generally travel with my ceramics, so I sipped my tea from a large Chinese cup decorated with a fine large blue carp.

There is no coffee pot at Ocala, and I did not bring my folding hot pot and coffee cup filter. I thought tea and NA beer and coconut seltzer would be fine. And it was. Sam Adams “Just the Haze” this trip.

I'm fussy about coffee now too. I don't much like any motel room coffee pots or coffee blends. Schenectady Rivers has good coffee, but not in the room. They make it at the bar. Great blend.

I prefer to bring and make my own.

On the way up from home I bought a cup of small coffee at K gas station. The styrofoam top of the cup was so fagile, that it bent down when I topped the cup and ripped, and I had hot coffee all down the front of me while driving.

I'll not do that again.

I'll use my travel mug. I had it. Too lazy to grab it.

As a bedtime snack and for breakfast I had a huge assortment. I brought no-salt potato chips, apples, hard boiled eggs, chorizo, cheese, crackers, rice cakes and settled on peanut butter in these crunchy diet friendly rice cake pop bits. Very good.

I went off diet on Sunday. I always liked the Iron Skillet, just a diner up near I-75 from the casino, but it has gone downhill and I did not get a good meal. They were out of half their steaks, out of onion rings, out of meatloaf (which I wanted) I should have walked out.

I had chicken fried steak.

I won't have that again, nor will the Iron Skillet have my business.

It was an easy ride from the Casino to the motel. I did not have to go on the 70 MPH route I-75 but took a parallel route that in parts went through wonderful horse fields. Ocala is known for its horses.

It also went directly to the Motel.

It is one of those motels where you park right outside your door and there are NO STAIRS.

In the room is a microwave and a full refrigerator which worked to keep things cold.

Every thing was clean, but there were some issues.

Getting on the internet was a puzzle I could not solve. The fellow from the office came and he had some trouble, but finally it loaded, so I just left it loaded for the over night. Even so, it kept disconnecting and reconnecting.

This fellow is not always in the office. When he is here, he is very helpful.

Late at night, I would have been on my own.

So, that is a downside. Managers are not there 24/7.

I was wondering what I would do if my key did not work and I was rolling in from a poker game late at night or early in the morning.

I also did not like the signage. I missed it in the daytime and it was unlit after dark.

I arrived at 2:30 for a 3 o'clock check in, but he told me that I would have to wait as they were still cleaning.

I had read that sometimes they overbooked. So, I asked him if I had time to go for a meal. He said I had been assigned a room in the back, but I asked for one in the front because I thought I might be coming in late at night.

Finally, he told me to come with him. He checked room 4 in the front and it had been cleaned. So, he booked me.

One strange thing is that when I had come into the parking lot, I parked right in front of room 4 which was to be my room. That and the day's poker does make me question randomness. But then, “Anything that can happen, will happen, given enough time.”

2 minutes from the Ocala Cove motel I went to a Longhorn Steak house and had a grand meal. There was a bit of wait, but I loved this cut called Outlaw Rib Eye which is not an eye at all, but a rib.

LEGENDARY STEAKS COMBOS | Menu | Longhorn Steakhouse

I paid a bit more and had some really tasty brussel spouts as my side. The bread was very good. And the small salad was also good with good gobs of blue cheese.

In the supermarket the other day a woman turned to me and showed me a piece of steak for sale.

“They want me to pay $25 for this,” she said.

Steak is so expensive that restaurants seem to compete with the grocery store.

The grocery store piece was smaller than the cut at Longhorn, which could not have been more tasty, and the Longhorn steak was cooked medium rare, and REALLY was medium rare.

My water glass never got empty. The service was just great.

I took some of the meal back home.

This motel is in a busy section of Ocala highway, but the road traffic did not bother me. Perhaps it is quieter in the back, but I wanted to not be in the back based on a comment I read that a woman felt a bit alone there when coming in at night.

THE POKER

As the casinos phase out limit and low stakes games, I have to play 1-2 NL. Here in Ocala the buy-in is $60 to $300. It attracts a wild mix of players.

They used to have a 1-1 NL game. Gone.

In ten months they will move to a new location, near the Ocala airport.

On Saturday the poker room was open early, but on Sunday not until 11:30AM.

My first playing was Saturday morning. I got there at about 9:30 AM and the table was full of old guys, regulars, who played tight and conservative. Then came in some loose players who just got slowly fleeced.

I just got lucky.

I caught a straight flush in hearts and later quad 3's. Both paid high hand bonuses of $200 each, and I could put that money in my pocket rather than risk it in play. For the 3's I had a caller who would call $50, twice. I had 3-6 of spades in the big blind. I did not know that the award would be only $100 if I only could play one card in my hand. I just got lucky. The river was a 5 and that was worth $100. It was hard to know how to play the hand, and hard to know how I might have played if I had known that a river card over 6 would cost me $100. But this kid next to me was just the kind who was not going to fold.

I think now that I should have put him all-in. He might have called.

I bet $50 twice, and he called. It turned out this time he had a full house.

My quad 3's were only worth money if no one had a bigger hand for the next three quarters of an hour. So, it was wiser perhaps to get the money from my opponent.

Yet the odds of someone beating these quads when there was just one table competing were very small.

Earlier I caught the heart straight flush on the turn. I had flopped a straight playing a one gapper. I have been reading about one gappers on this site.

How to Play Suited Gappers in Cash Games - Upswing Poker

I think mine was 5-7.

I did over bet the river a bit against two old regulars, and so they gave it up. However, I was thinking one might have an Ace or King high flush and call, or even a queen, thinking I was trying to push them out.

It was so odd that most of my biggest pays were on hands that I would not play if they had not been blinds.

Small cards.

I never got a decent pocket pair above 9 all the time I played.

And my A-high card hands were generally folded after the flop unless a preflop raise on the button got me a free card.

So that morning I bought in for $120 and cashed out a bit shy of $700.

Then I went to check in and eat.

I got back around 5:30 PM and had to wait for a game.

They started a new game.

My old limit poker self loved to be starting a new game because there would be loose players who just bet until their money was gone. However, I did not like playing this new NL game because every third hand someone went all-in preflop.

That is bingo, not poker.

I mean who goes all-in on the flop with a pocket pair of Deuces? That player caught trips on the turn.

But seriously, all-in on a pocket pair of deuces?

And he had already established a table image of being very lose, so he had two callers and should have suspected he would have callers.

That same player was pretty annoyed when he went all in holding 2-5 that had flopped deuces full of fives only to find I had 2-6 from the big blind and it was also a full house.

I did not like the constant all-in bets preflop.

I like to be able to be a bit in charge of the pots and to see the flop before I bet much.

So, I quit and headed back to the motel.

I had bought in for $100 and cashed out for $198. Fine.

Sunday poker was not as lucky.

Poker did not start until 11:30, so it was a long wait in the room and I was still there an hour early.

I took a walk by a horse.

Lost $160 and quit at 3 PM.

Missed two high hand draws. Three people hit at the table, but one cancelled the other and one had a low kicker. Aces full.

I liked the game.

NIGHT DRIVING

I made my after dark drive on that Saturday night.

I did not like it.

My AC was not pumping out cool air.

I did not like that.

I could not open any windows but one with my driver's side buttons.

I did not like that.

The next morning I studied the manual a bit. I got it to work. Now if I can just remember how to do it. I can't read the dials, so I have to know what to do.

I had not brought glasses to lessen the glare of night lights.

I did not like that.

I DID like getting in my room and writing a bit, and then having a fine sleeping time, even if it was a bit short. (Aren't they always?)

DRIVING HOME

I-75 was not too bad. However I did ride along fro a while tucked in between two big trucks.

On route 200 I always seemed to have a tail gater. I was following a car at a few car lengths, but those behind me did not always give me the same spacial courtesy.

However, I was happy not to be driving in the dark.

I arrived home twenty minutes before Elizabeth wrapped up the meditation dancing. So, I walked the loop here and opened another can of Sam Adams, Just the Haze.

I unpacked, we told out mutual stories, Elizabeth tried my left over Longhorn steak, and we watched old sessions of Monk, one that featured Willie Nelson.

My final gambling score for the weekend was plus $650 give or take a few dollars.

Next year the Ocala poker room is moving to some place near the Ocala airport. It will be only an hour drive, saving 20 minutes. It will be easy to just drive up and back in a day.

So, thanks for reading this long report.

It was a very good trip except for night driving and that Iron Skillet meal.

************************

Joe from the Travel To Vegas Board left this response:

Thanks for the report, @Dewey089 ! It really took me back as 30 or so years ago, that place was a favorite haunt back when it was Ocala Jai Alai! I was a student at UF, and at the time, was really enthralled with the sport of Jai Alai. Yeah, as your picture shows, it is really out in the middle of nowhere (Orange Lake, FL), about halfway between Ocala and Gainesville. It was only a 20 minute drive for me. At the time, it was literally in the middle of a cow pasture. You could hear the mooing from the parking lot!

They had a short season for live Jai Alai -- maybe 2 months, but in the off-season they would let amateurs onto the court (cancha) to play. During the second semester of my sophomore year, I'd be down there once or twice a week. I wasn't very good, but really enjoyed playing. That is, until one night when the pelota took a wicked bounce and shattered my thumb!

I have driven by it once or twice since, as it lies along one of the routes we take driving to Tampa, but I haven't set foot in it since the mid-90's. It's sad to hear that it will be gone soon.

It's funny that you mentioned the Iron Skillet at the Perto station. I had the "pleasure" of dining there once. I was with my sister, and we were heading back to Gainesville from Ocala. She was hungry, and although I had already eaten, I figured I could go for some dessert. I ordered the cherry cobbler. Now, I have had good cobbler and bad cobbler before, but this one took the cake, so to speak, as the most disgusting cobbler of all time.

It had a gelatinous texture, and tasted like cardboard. After one bite, I sent it back. The conversation with the waitress went something like this:
Me: "This cobbler is horrible."
Her: "Yeah, all of the customers have been saying that."
Me (thinking: why the heck didn't you mention this when I ordered??): "I'm going to have to send it back."
Her: "Would you like something else instead?"
Me: "What do you have?"
Her: "We also have blueberry cobbler."
Me: "Is it better than the cherry cobbler?"
Her: "Not really. It's about the same."
Me (): "No, thank you."

To this day, it is still a running joke in the family. "Where do you want to eat?" "How about the Petro?!"