Our interpid blogger, photographer, and poker pro, Chris 'Fox' Wallace is back with another card room review, this time from our visit to bestbet in St. Augustine, Florida. We just had to share this one, since Fox seems to love it here as much as we do. 

"I'm generally pretty hard on cardrooms in my reviews. Many rooms, especially those in Vegas or other places where they are in casinos, tend to be badly neglected by the companies that own them because they have trouble competing with slot machines and table games in terms of income per square foot. But as my review of the Texas Card House last month showed, poker can be amazing when you get it out of casinos and into a different environment. 

This month I'm visiting bestbet in St. Augustine, Florida with the PokerAtlas tour and it proves the point that I made with TCH. When poker is given it's due, and not competing for the most expensive floor space on the planet, poker rooms can do amazing things. 

Bestbet has done an incredible job with this room. The building is modern, and huge, and everything from the tables to the chairs to the programmable lighting (which they changed to PokerAtlas green just for us) is state of the art. 

This room also shows just how different it feels when poker is the main focus and you have tons of space. Just being able to walk between tables without bumping into chairs feels luxurious after the crowded conditions in most casino card rooms. 

And this room has everything. A full kitchen and bar, with excellent food that is reasonably priced, would save me $25 a day vs eating at my favorite rooms in Vegas. There are huge TVs everywhere on the walls, making it a great place to watch a sporting event. And the tall ceilings and diffuse overhead lighting make seeing cards on the table easier here than anywhere I have ever been. 

The staff has been fantastic from the top down. Everyone here is helpful, friendly, and competent, a far cry from some other independent rooms. Seeing the staff wearing PokerAtlas tour shirts from our visit last year is amazing. 

But you can probably guess what I really care about. How is the action? How much money can I make in this room? And the answer is yes. I bet you'd like some more detail than that. The small no-limit games run constantly and the action is fantastic. These games would make the Wynn blush, the Aria raise it's eyebrows, and the Bellagio pass out immediately from overstimulation. And there are regular PLO games and very frequent larger mixed games, which you know I love. 

The bestbet room in St. Augustine gets an A for "Almost good enough to get me to move to Florida." Of course my kid sister and my parents live in Florida, so I won't really be moving there. But I'll be back to visit bestbet again soon. Just don't tell my family I'm in town."