good review and good suggestions

Any idea how many clubs in HOU/AUS/SAT?

One source tells me by his count, 17/5/7 but that may be a little low. Maybe a club directory would be useful because you can't find these places (I haven't checked recently, maybe a couple are right now) on Bravo.

try poker atlas app

for the most part houston has had approx 18 clubs disappear....
at this point about 5 are very active - about 4 have 1/2 tables daily

San Antonio has way more than 7 poker clubs - it's more like 15. Most struggle to get more than 1 or 2 tables though. Rounders and Alamo battle for 2nd most cash games and SA Card House has the most (including some veryyyy juicy Congress games).

Texas poker players have been treated much like a child that wanted to eat ice cream every meal of the day

We have fought and fought to make poker legal in the state and for the last year we have been given all the ice cream we wanted.

Now (this is even more pronounced in Houston) - we have tournaments every single day - last night a club that had planned for months a $200 tourney with $100 bounties had 30 players show up - the total take for the house was $50 per century plus $10 door so $1800. This is in a city with nearly 3 million people.

Room after room opens up but if you look at the total number of tables running any single night over a period of months - we are seeing an every increasing decline in the total number of people playing.

This is because the individual rooms are just sucking more and more money out of the community. This will continue until there are not enough players to go around and the rooms will start to fail being unable to make a profit. Once that happens there will be another cliff in which there will be one or two major contenders left and then the "grand experiment" will come to its eventual conclusion.

We saw this same thing happen with bar poker - bit by bit people will find another venue or passion to occupy their time and spend their money on. Frankly it might be sports betting - it might be Virtual Reality games for that is the next untapped audience of younger players. As the player base grows older - they grow a tad wiser (or broke).

So enjoy that 1000th plate of ice cream - what...you want more vegetables?
(smiles).

I've highlighted a couple of things that quantify why your post is dumb. With 3 million people there are plenty of people to go around and keep these places open. There aren't less people playing, there are more than ever in Houston. Just inside the loop you have Post Oak, Prime and Lions which are all spreading multiple tables each and every day. Among the 3 there are at least 15-20 tables of cash going daily(the majority at Prime).

I will agree the raked games such as your old one have died on the vine as the players have been educated about how much "rake" the house was taking off the table.

I watch day by day and hour by hour and see the total numbers. The status of my game has no relationship to the numbers of people in these games.

Though I have not written down every single number but it does not take long to add up the total number of tables and the general trend. We are now approaching that some of the games have lasted a year - well over 1/2 of the clubs that have opened have closed in less than a year - I still stand by the numbers that the TOTAL NUMBER OF TABLES is steadily decreasing and this is even more evident in tournaments....

Example the tournaments have gotten to $1000 GTD tourney with $100 buy in and over 50% of them are failing to make. These used to be 5k GTD

On the list in houston that have closed or have almost zero activity
Steel House / Poker Royals / One Eyed Jacks and Babaloo (didnt really ever get off the ground and within breaking away from Post oak never got a decent game off.

3 tables running considering the prior strength of 12-16 tables running at post oak.
Lion's Club is very steady and has always had a solid group of their own players that have played together for DECADES.
Prime took almost 90% of Post Oak's business and this happened in less than 48 hrs for talking to inside sources - they were within two weeks of closing a few months ago.

Post Oak will be closing soon - it is moving to the NW and frankly my own opinion is the previous business failed there and even a poker venue was held there for 3 months and it too could not survive. Wish them the best.

I and you - are entitled to opinions but i base my statements with FACTS rather than insulting someone or using the "but what about" arguments - show me how over the last 6 months that the total number of tables has been increasing week by week / month by month etc...

I stand by my predictions and in a couple of years (or less) we will go back to this thread and see who was right.

I ran for over 20 years....and when i started my game it took me over 3 years to get enough players to have regular games - like my stock investing...been at it for 45 yrs so a year of downturn is not gonna affect me but whether my game is going or not..the larger picture is - IS THIS BUSINESS MODEL SUSTAINABLE - Casinos are already proving it is not - closing of poker rooms is at an all time high.

Where is post oak moving to?

7900 North Sam Houston Pkwy W, Houston, TX 77064

Lions, Post Oak, and Prime are not inside the loop. I still think a room could do very well near downtown.

I would certainly view a location like POPC has as being close enough to be in the ITL classification. It is only, what, three blocks outside of the West Loop...

No opinions on Lions or Prime since I have not been to either and have no intentions of going, so I never really paid attention to their address.

Oh yay...more moves to inconvenient locations.

Closer to me...

What has the traffic at Freerolls been like lately? Anyone know?

opens wed - ran satellites at satellite location

latest club to open - that makes about 10 in the last 3 weeks

http://paramountsocial.com/

28 tables...wow

Looks like the new Freerolls wont be open in time for the famous WPT tournament. Looks like they had to move it to the local quinceanera and wedding/reception hall

Wonder how the WPT people feel about that? Doesn't sound like a pristine kickoff for the 1st WPT in Texas. If you plan on playing though the good news is that you can get some good Mexican food next door at El Jarrito

https://www.worldpokertour.com/event...019/#eventTab1

The map shows the location of Freerolls but the down further they list the Tournament Location at Palacio Maria Event Center

As long as they got paid, there website seems to suggest that they won't give a damn...looks like they adopt a hands-off approach to actually RUNNING the events.

wpt already went bankrupt before and i know of at least two people that got burned for sale of chips and tables

in addition if you look closely at the disclosure statement - wpt has the right to terminate / change / modify without explanation the tournament at anytime

this is at a closed down slick willies pool hall - in that shopping mall alone over 20 retail business have shut down due to lack of business - not a good idea

I have no idea if the owner(s) read these forums, but I have talked with one of the owners when I have played there. He was genuinely open to hearing my input on what I liked and disliked. Obviously he's interested in how to make the room better and busier. I was there playing cash last night and he was telling about how they tweaked the structure for their PLO tournament, giving it a deeper starting stack and better add-ons at the break.

Next time you are there, ask to talk to the owner and give them your input. I think you'll find them interested and appreciative.

The construction on 290 has been awful. My parents live an exit down and it’s a maze to get to anything. That area is cleared up now but it might be some more time before people want to even venture there.

FREEROLLS is killing it - Next event a WSOP stop?

Hmm, you mean poker in Houston isn’t dead?

i have been wrong before - ask my 6 ex wives