Nope. Plano, McKinney and Dallas “legal” rooms closed. Underground or Winstar and Choctaw your choices.

Going to try to get by there soon and check it outl

A bit of minor gossip and a question.

Minor Gossip: Heard from a dealer that PostOak's lease runs out at the end of the year, and they will be moving (new construction going into that space). (Perhaps means they signed a 2 year lease originally, further confirmation that at least their confidence was high they would stay open.)

Question: Do people believe the player pool is getting weaker? A month ago, it felt like almost everyone there was part of the underground scene, game runners and the like. Soft, but not soft-with-regular-Joe's-soft. It feels like that might be changing for the better, but I don't have enough hours to really have meaningful insight.

Re: the gossip: - Their original lease was through May 2018. The landlord extended it through December (primarily due to the construction and he couldn't get anything from the property during that time). I've heard two "rumors" re: what they will do next. One said they already have a spot picked out in the same area and they will build out and have a seamless transition (open at current location one day and the new location will open the very next day so there won't be any days lost). 2nd rumor seems far fetched since they have a great base of players in their current location but it said they were going to open in a new location that was a bit farther away on outskirts of Houston due to lower rent. All gossip at this point but #1 came from a dealer who said Bill H. called a meeting and told them that. #2 came from a player who said he had a good source.

Re: the games - they are incredible. I think through advertising and word of mouth more players are coming into the games that are recreational and don't have much cash game experience. Yesterday a player told me in the 1/3 holdem game he was playing in players were calling huge preflop raises with 83/94 suited etc. (and hitting LOL). One Asian gentleman who I had never seen was in $7K at that table. This is in a 1/3 NL game

It's the golden time in Htown for players right now. Any decent player should be playing as much as possible. When I miss a day I feel like I just left 4 figures on the ground. PLO games are off the chains with people calling several thousand dollar pots with small flushes and bottom 2 pair. Have seen a lot of people in those games I've never seen before and numerous people losing and winning five figures at Post Oak in the 5/5 PLO. Every day I see myself or hear from other players stories of people losing large stacks with horribad calls where they are drawing dead which is hard to do in Omaha.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh

How have the games at Lions been? I've been trying to play more small stakes PLO and the 5/5 game runs a bit too big for my tastes

KHOU did a story on Houston poker clubs today: http://www.khou.com/article/news/loc.../285-526408156

See you can make a useful contribution to this thread! I like how they posted your Stop Gambling quote in the article as well.

Lol all my contributions are awesome. Not my quote, btw.

Prime social has been having some good tournaments but they're still struggling to keep the cash games going.

Things could heat up quite a bit between now and September...interesting announcement from World Poker Tour Deep Stacks today about a Houston event.

Link?

September 21-25 at Freerolls (formerly VIP). There is still a lot of time for things to change, or close. Good size room so it makes sense. I think this is a big deal.
Crossing fingers
The announcement is on WPT site, no schedule yet.

Post Oak is touting they are the first room to be licensed by the City of Houston. Emailed a copy of the letter out yesterday and posted to Their fb page -
https://www.facebook.com/postoakpokerclub/?fref=ts

I got it through KevMath's twitter feed but it was originally on the WPT twitter feed.

https://www.worldpokertour.com/news/...ds-schedule-2/

VIP/Freerolls seems an odd choice, but may be just due to physical space/layout, I guess?

I wonder what would happen if someone tried to cheat in the WPT event. What could honestly be done in that situation? People cheat in Magic the Gathering tournaments all the time and I fail to see the distinction if the event is run in a state that has no gambling statutes.

This is certainly an ongoing concern at Post Oak as well. There is, afaict, no authority to which a player could appeal about a particularly egregious decision.

That license is very misleading. It has nothing to do with poker and has no legal validity when it comes to gambling laws in Texas. This is exactly what I was told by the City of Houston office that issued it.

I would just hope that getting that license does not mean they want to bring in those crappy eight-liners. Even when someone takes the time to license a room they are in, they draw unwanted attention from BOTH sides of the law.

The hog/pig cliche may be in play here. The games at PO are incredible, but it's not like they are doing a lot to build brand loyalty. Certainly, the constant dingclangbeep of a row of machines would be a turnoff to some.

They have added a link on their website www.freerollspokerclub.com pertaining to their open communication with HPD Vice so it will be interesting to see what happens from here.

Lions posted their EXACT same license that they received in OCTOBER. And as stated on the license it DOES NOT specify anything about "private membership" or "poker" club. It plainly says "miscellaneous" license. Yes, it's the same thing 8 liner rooms get. So basically, Post Oak is NOT the ONLY or FIRST to get that license. In REALITY, there have been HUNDREDS of places that have gotten that license BEFORE them lol.

Interesting. This is good news for players, just from the perspective of some market pressure to reduce costs, experiment with other models, etc.

Hope their Galleria location is not just fiction ...

What will be interesting about the WPT is we know they are not going to do that stop for free..there is gonna be some sort of charge to cover expenses - how they will work that out will be a key litmus test