Betty and I jut spent a week in Florida visiting my 91-year-old mother. She is doing well, thanks.

We were dismayed to find that there are no longer any gambling ships or poker cruises-to-nowhere leaving from Southeast Florida. There used to be as many as four, with the St. Tropez being the newest just two years ago. They had an excellent 11-table non-smoking room. Where have all the players gone?

It seems many of them are playing $1-$2 poker in various B&M facilities, the largest being the Seminole Hard Rock Casino, which has a jam-packed 50-table room. With large rakes and jackpot drops, as well as generous tips, I find it hard to believe there are any long-term winners, but there sure are players.

And they smoke as well. Betty and I dropped by one evening. They do run some single table NLHE tournaments with $140, $250 and $500 buy-ins. Just as on-line, they pay three places. In the $140, they appeared to pay $585, $350 and $225, keeping $240 or $24 per person. Thus the buy-in is $116+$24, compared to $100+$9 on-line. And of course they expect tips. The play was bad enough that these tournaments might still be winnable by an excellent player, but I doubt it.

I played in two $250 events, but did not win anything (no bad beat stories on my website). Betty played in two $140’s and took third and most of first after a deal. Nice going, Betty!

I gave Betty a quiz which she got right immediately. At my table, a player limped under the gun with KTs. Several others limped, and after a K82 flop, the player bet and called an all-in raise (he had the raiser covered by a bit). The raiser showed 22 and the player lost. He then started loudly berating himself. What was he angry at?

Was he angry that he played KTs under the gun? No! Was he angry he called a huge raise with top-pair bad-kicker? No! He was angry at himself for not raising with his piece of cheese in a 10-handed NL game. You can decide what the Thought of the Week is from here.