Calder Race Course will open a 29-table poker room Friday, featuring comfortable chairs, longer-than-usual operating hours and easy access to playing the ponies.

The horse racing track, at the Broward-Dade line, is also adding slot machines, sometime early next year. They are also transitioning their name. It'll be Calder Casino & Race Course.

The poker club will be called the Studz Poker Club (perhaps named after our veteran horse writer, Tom Jicha?) and is on the first floor of the grandstand at the west entrance -- kind of a link between the new casino and the existing track. It's the first attempt at poker since having 12 tables in a dumpy room in the early 2000s -- a poker room that closed in 2004, just as poker began to boom.

The poker room manager is Chris Trabue (pictured at left), 37, who worked 11 years for Isle casinos, most recently at the Isle Pompano Park. He hired 92 dealers (including Robert Grimsley, right, from San Diego) from 380 applicants -- all of whom he brought in for auditions, because as he noted, it's about the people.

"We want the people to feel like they're at home," he said. The dealers came from all over, including cruise ships, Arizona, Connecticut and local dealer schools. They're been training since Oct. 5 at Calder.

He also had a hand in the chairs -- and as a guy with a balky back, I gotta tell you, he did well. They're made by Gasser Chairs, the "gaming industry leader for ergonomically comfortable seating solutions." Soft, yet structured, I guess would be my comment.

Because Calder has two racing permits -- the other being the old Tropical permit -- they can stack them to get around the state's 12-hour limit on poker rooms. So Calder will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. on weekdays, then will go 24 hours on weekends, meaning you can play all night Friday and Saturday. Mardi Gras and Dania, both with two permits, also have longer hours. Gulfstream, the Isle and Flagler are limited to 12 hours.

The longer hours come in handy for late-night tournament players: Calder will have a 1 a.m. tournament weekends nights, with a $200 buy-in, starting with 5,000 chips. There are 13 other tournaments: Monday through Friday is a $100 at noon, and another one at 7 p.m. -- $150 on Mondays, $120 on Tuesdays, $350 on Wednesdays, $60 on Thursdays. There's also a $100 at 6 p.m. Friday, a $550 at 11 a.m. Saturday (with 10,000 chips) and a $120 at noon Sunday and a $250 at 7 p.m. Sunday. All but the $60 start with 4,000 to 6,000 chips. There's also a bad-beat jackpot.

Players can book tournament seats through PTSeats.com. There's also a player's club setup that combines poker with the upcoming slots, and a comp system, Trabue said. Amenities include 31 TV monitors, tableside food and beverage service, massage service, and pari-mutuel wagering on live and simulcast Thoroughbred racing.

The minimum age is 18, the same as in the rest of the state. Calder, near the Land Shark/Dolphin/Pro Player/Joe Robbie stadium, hopes to get post-game patrons, as well as regulars from either side of the Dade-Broward line. The address is 21001 NW 27th Ave., Miami Gardens. Find more details at www.calderracecourse.com/poker.

For more, see a video shot by our SouthFloridaLive.com TV crew.