Not sure it ever opened.

Now with 3 major clubs on poker atlas you can preview how many tables are running and how the action is going in those clubs. You can measure whether it is worth going out to a particular club.

HOWEVER

It is a double edged / self fulfilling prophesy tool as well.
I have noticed that a club will show a 5k GTD tourney with 17 players at $80+20 that will run till the break and suddenly stop producing - this is a clear indication that the tournament never took place - management steps in and says - how many people want to play and if we get X number of players we will run it - and so it does not hit and the tournament does not take place - in the meantime you are seeing the huge overlay and rush down there to play and get the bad news and of course that will be the last time you will fall for that. I have seen this at least 5x so far.

Club owners - you need to stand behind your GTD and if it doesn't make - then re-evaluate your plan for once you create a mistrust in this industry - that person is gonna tell everyone they know about their experience - you put 100s of thousands of dollars into construction / personnel and commitment into this business and to worry about losing 1-3k on one event is just bad business. And to try to "trick" people to come out - it gonna leave a sour taste that will never go away.

That being said - poker atlas has one other fatal flaw...and it is THE TRUTH - if you show only 1 table running out of 20 - then players will not come out due to lack of action - this was the demise of Aces who never could get any action and it was widely seen and of course they slipped into nothingness in less than 2 months.

That being said - tournaments in Houston clubs are having a massive effect on the poker playing public - there are three camps on tournament play

a - the fun low level "bar style" typically with $20 buy ins with $10 rebuys and massive donk play for fun - it is out of the question for these high end clubs to offer this - this is not their audience and it is clear if you enter that you are not part of their "cliche" and
b - the serious $100-200 players that are hoping for a $3k plus cash - these players will play at least 1 of these a week and their tolerance for not cashing is not an issue and finally
c - the $500+ players - this is divided into two groups - the ones that will "take a shot" once or twice a year - save their money and go for the big one and the "i don't play for less than a $10-50k payout guys - these guys could play this on a weekly basis and it also attracts the best players in Houston and believe me we have some great players here.

What I see happening is the money is being sucked out of the community and the fields are getting smaller and smaller and the players who are not coming back are having a dramatic effect that the play is getting tougher and tougher - put on top of this that the club charges an entry fee ..a vig - which adds up to a horrible ROI but nothing can be done about it - to add insult to injury the clubs charge up to $3 for a water or a cup of coffee/soda and of course the waitress wants her $1 tip (or your next cup of coffee will have "foam on it" - I always remark - hey I didn't know you have a cappuccino machine in the back when i hear that grrrhaccckkkkkk sound just before it is brought to me.

The summer is a brutal time of year - it takes a lot to sustain the pace of poker which is a three month good / three month bad / three month good / three month bad roller coaster.

Clive so you want these poker clubs to just stop running poker tournaments so they can stop draining players that are gonna gamble somewhere no matter what? Oh ok you want them to go to your ****ty trashed house where you rake(rape) the F#@k out the pot and have done it for how many years? Oh ok you want them to stop going to poker clubs so they can play on your PPP poker site you advertised more than ****ing Mcdonalds advertises the McRIB. Give us a break Clive your no Poker God father, you really aint **** and you really dont know much just hear and add more to stir the pot! Ok yeah you go to FREEROLLS and act like you know everything about them Post Oak and Prime but you dont know much Id bet my house that if these places were really private membership clubs you would never be a member. Lay off the rooms doing there thing and just do your own **** we dont need a Clives Newspaper article on your opinion on here or on Facebook in every poker page. CLIVE hate to be the one to tell you but no one really gives a **** about what you think.

This post is silly. Why are you attacking the guy? Let him express himself. This is why this forum is here.

ty sir - all along i have said - I encourage each of these clubs - I have visited them and I know or have researched each and every owner - I have talked to them personally and had discussions both pro and negative about the market and the problems.

I have been in the industry pretty much longer than almost everyone in the market and I am also a long term type of person - in stocks I have been trading for 45 years - I don't look at things in a seasonal basis - to put it in perspective it is like climate change - that is about 100s if not thousands of years.

Each and everyone will agree..this aint 2005-2011 market and I don't think it is coming back. I think that before any regulation comes about - the market will decide where this all goes.

As far as "hoping these fail so that I can open my home game" - my home game saw a decline for 2 years before these places even opened - it has been slow and steady - currently I have 1 game a week and only wish to have 10 people I know to play.

Anyway - this thread has put out some good info - some good discussion - Every owner of every club I know is watching these threads - if incorrect info is posted about their business - I will call them personally and make them aware of the falsehoods smearing their good name.

Yes - I am a gadfly - I do like to see discussion and bring awareness and discussion for that is the only way things improve is to fix the problems rather than let problems get bigger.

That being said - any club that does not wish to have my business - any business that feels that I have stated something wrong is more than welcome to call me / message me or even come to my home and express than opinion.

thank you again and once again guys - lets not make personal attacks on people but lets see if we can have a discussion that improves our lives and not destroy this game we love.

Ok my apologies Clive I’m Sorry! But how much is the rake at your house game on fridays since there is no door fee or hourly charge?

there actually is a door and hourly item charge to our game

we call it APPEARANCE CHARGE - you charge us $20 to come out
and our hourly rate we PAY you to play starts at $5 for each hour and increases by $1 per hour after that

as far as revealing the house compensation - it is basically the same as the number of chairs around the table

How come you're so cryptic about the structure of your game? I was actually interested after seeing you post about it on Facebook, but I don't want to drive out to learn there's a surprise rule that you can only cash out in CliveBux or something. Some transparency would be nice.

I hardly am being cryptic - we have added the $20 door PAYMENT and the hourly PAYMENT as an incentive to the players - our max is the same that almost every game uses in houston - 10 max - actually we did have cLIVEDOLLARS as a rakeback to the players by putting the first dollar of rake back into the pot but have substituted this new feature since last month.

I only run on friday and use a reservation system at www.reservemypokerseat.com

If we don't have at least 7 confirmed reservations by 730pm on the day of the game - no game

Lets move back to the discussion started - membership clubs

There are some key dates / events coming up and am interested in what their impact will be - some of them are

Card Player tournament at post oak
WPT event at freerolls
Steel House's 500k guarantee tournament
The week / month AFTER the WSOP
The end of summer and kids go back to school - this is traditionally is followed by an increase in retail players coming out to play
The "opinion" to be released by Abbott

The "race for dominance between the three major clubs - Prime / Lions Club and Prime.

Your comments would be appreciated and hope to have a discussion on these topics and their effects. Any I miss - please add

To me - I'm a pure capitalist - the market will determine the success of this "experiment"

In all likelyhood the next key event will be around Thanksgiving when the market generally goes into a lull again. I think all the clubs will grow and find their bases but in time the expenses and return on investment will be the final decision maker.

Michael Eakman appreciates your stance on no personal attacks

The only date that matters right now is July 25th--the date by which the Texas Attorney General is supposed to deliver his opinion on these clubs...though this opinion could come at any time.

If, as widely expected, the opinion is negative, then the next date that matters is when law enforcement is going to act against these clubs.

POPC might just get in their CardPlayer tourney before that happens given it's scheduled for early August, but the WPT series at Freerolls is in real trouble given the timeline.

Curiosity question

There is now a push for larger and larger prize pools as clubs compete for the tournament crowd - of course this means deeper stacks - bigger buy-ins - etc

Lets say we have 250 (this is the most tables any club has) poker players who represent the entire poker playing public
if you were to create a "perfect model" for capturing the most $$$$s for a tournament - what would you make the buy in - rebuys - add-ons - time limits and starting stacks.

Last stipulation - you can not have multiple starting days - This will most likely be a 2 day tournament on Sat and Sunday or a Sat/next Saturday - Sunday / Next Sunday tourney

HUGE fan of one entry. Period. You can late-reg, but you are only entering ONCE.

Was NOT a fan of the Marathon allowing entries two levels in on Day 2. Granted, it was still only the end of Level 8, but if you cannot be bothered to reg SOMEWHERE on Day 1, then you weren't really looking to play. And I say this as someone who was busted by a person there from the beginning, not a Day 2 Late Reg PushMonkey, lest someone believe I busted at the hands of a walk-up.

Anything less than 20K starting stack generally does not get my attention, even in Vegas. There are some that I will consider that begin with less, but usually either a mixed game or a Seniors event (the conversation that occurs actually makes up for SOME of the smaller starting stack).

Entry fee is driven by expected turnout. For example, on this next trip to Vegas (I go back Friday AM despite just having gotten back to IAH this morning), I am sort of considering one of the Senior High Rollers but only if it looks like it will be more than 100 entries. It is not worth playing an event if you are not going to have enough runners to pay the entire Final Table.

Locally, I don't know that I would be willing to pay more than $1K at some of these places...the shenanigans are too much to place trust in. In a regulated industry, that would be a small buy-in though.

POPC posted new membership tiers, mostly irrelevant stuff, but the highest tier can play at $13/hr with a $5 daily membership.

Went by POPC on tuesday was decent but only 4 tables they were saying all the action at Prime now. no one would rally talk or say why.

Lets face it - I have talked to a ton of people and this membership model is starting to hit home as far as what the real costs are

I am not saying they are unfair - but lets face it - 80% of us lose at poker - now it is becoming more apparent. Before we felt like we were losing to the other player - Now we are not only losing to the other player but PAYING FOR THE PRIVILEGE.

I saw this over 3 years ago when I opened up my club - we tried the following.
Membership fee $33 (it was called club 333) and people did not want to pay that much to play all night so we went to $25 entry which also included a 3 course meal.

Within weeks we were very successful but after a couple of months the players thinned out - why - because though we had more winners - about 30-40% won money - the 60=70% that did not win - did not return.

As time went by - the same thing happened to the 40% winners - leaving us about 20% winners and this pattern kept repeating.

Now with the constant reminder of every hour paying - the losses are shown to you every hour you are asked to pay more ...while you are losing.

I can not imagine a better way of telling poker players that this is unprofitable to them.

The recreational player plays about 2-3x / month and plays about 6 hrs per session
so 12-18 hrs is going to cost them - $12/hr or $144-216/month.

As a grinder - i strive to play 4 hrs / day and 5 days per week - so thats $1039.20 (4.33 weeks / month).

it is not the fault of the clubs - it is just economics. The club needs to pay bills - they have employees and expenses. This fall we will probably see a slow down - three clubs with 5 tables / day = 150 players - lets say there is a 3x turn over..is 450 players / day ...out of a population of 2.6 million people in houston...just shows how few poker players are that dedicated to play in today's economy.

btw these numbers dont include tips / membership fees nor daily fees or meals and drinks

shocker (not) on several levels

Also curious as to why this happened. I guess the venue at Prime is really nice, but I noticed the floorman (JJ) from POPC was now working at Prime. Something else happened.

Right off the bat it was a battle of the 3 and I will put the strength of each and what I have heard - btw I have played at 2 but seen all 3 - I would say that I personally know or have hired 30%+ of all the dealers in each of them.

Post Oak - The first kid on the block of these - the most well connected with the poker playing public due to their casino events - years in the business - politically connected

Prime - coming from Vegas - thought to be previously connected with one of the biggest clubs in houston during the boom years - very well laid out in open areas

Lion's Club - probably the most well funded with massive money backing - membership with the highest level players in the Houston area - should the owner decide to get out of the business has spent his money wisely in buying the surrounding properties.

The other day I asked a player why they played at "X" location and he said - I go where the money is - I think we will see a lot of this - poker players by and large are not as loyal as they were years ago - They will follow the crowds and find the places easiest to make money.

As a place becomes HOT - the sharks will come in - swoop up all they can and move to other places.

I think a key in this switch in customers is due quite a bit to tournaments

First off post oak caters more to cash play - many players with deep pockets and more fish than the others - level of experience lower than the other two.

The other clubs have been offering massive guaranteed tournaments and even though there have been some overlays - they keep offering them even though there is an operating loss - more of a long term view.

Also the other two are more spacious and have more room for players - tournaments players will go where they are more comfortable and post oak just does not have the space for the large turnouts.

In addition prime has captured the afternoon crowd with 3-6 tables every day on their tournaments with good prize pools and larger turnouts. You can easily see this from poker atlas (which lion has decided not to use).

All of the clubs have minimized their social media advertising from what it was 6 months ago.

BUT

Tournaments will only last so long - they eventually become the same thing over and over and should a player play on an average of 6 tournaments and not even get close to the money - this will eventually reach a point where many drop out.

With the ongoing WSOP events - this could be a temporary lull and I have no idea of knowing what percentage of their player bases are not currently in town. In fact it is so unknown that I made three different predictions and deleted all of them because there were arguments on every side of the coin.

As I said - this is a seasonal business - it is also a niche market now. Players are not coming out in droves to play ANYWHERE - at the end of the WSOP we will see if there is an up tic in number of players or will it resume its slide downward. Its is certainly not in the main stream media - no mention of the event in any financial channel or news.

Dont see the slowdown your talking about Clivesstraddle cause i went to play Lions tournament last night had 4 tables then went to prime after and there were 11 cash tables going after midnight with people waiting players left Post to come there and they said only a few tables with not much action at Post. i stayed till 5 am and there were still 5 tables going.

used to be post oak and lions was filled almost every day and night

prime started very slowly and seemed to be only for tournaments in its first few weeks
went there last week and could not even get a parking space - this needs to be solved before the neighborhood complains but I hear that there are plans to increase

a vast different than now

i can only see what is tracked - and lion's im not able to track

like i said - this could be due to WSOP

prime parking situation has already been fixed.