Going to spend a week in El Paso in January and wondered about the lay of the land. I see three poker rooms in the city, can anyone give some info on the scene?

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I played at House of Kings. A good little well run venue with normal Texas rates I believe 12/hr. 1/2nl was running every night, and a 5/5 NL or 5/5 PLO game seemed regular too.

We called the other places and they were dead the nights we passed through.

HoK is the best venue of the three and as of last month they were running a special $20 all day rate since another room opened up down the road. pretty great deal.

I'm here! My brother in law wanted to play so we're looking at this tournament tomorrow at House of Kings. May play cash while there or hit another room some other evening.

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are they still doing the play all day for 20 promo? will be out there not long after you

My brother in law is not a regular player but wanted to play so I thought a low-buy-in tournament would be a fun way for him to play without putting a ton of money at risk.

We got there around 5:20 for the 6 PM tournament and it was only then I found out that the tourney, billed as Wacky Wednesday, was indeed wacky: Every blind level they changed the game - it went from NLHE, to Crazy Pineapple, to PLO.

This was unexpected! Although I have played some PLO in my time I have never played Crazy Pineapple or any Pineapple variant! I had to look up how to play and I didn't want to tell my brother-in-law that I never played it before myself even though of course he never played it (or PLO) either! Glad it was a cheap tourney!

The room was kind of what I expected for a strip mall poker room and frankly the dealers were at least as good as the dealers at casinos I played in across the country including Atlantic City, Philly, Foxwoods, Commerce in LA, a couple rooms in Vegas, and rooms in Detroit and Ohio.

We paid $25 which got us into the room --- $10 was the room admission fee (I got a card and everything), and there was a $5 dealer add-on which netted me $4k more chips on top of my $5k stack. As expected you could rebuy if you got below $5k in chips (you could choose $10, $20, or $25 and you got $5k, $10k, and $13k chips). After the first break you could do an add-on for the same amounts but twice as many chips ($10k, $30k, and $26k).

My BIL busted out soon after the first break. He did at least one rebuy but I didn't ask for specifics. He turned down my offer to pay for his add-on. He wound up getting a ride back from his wife and leaving me his car to get home.

I don't know that a tournament is typical of the crazed no limit cash games that Texas allegedly has (and I cannot compare to more populous Texas cities, the ones I always see online). The gameplay was pretty typical of low-buy-in tournaments I have played everywhere else: Lots of limping, lots of strange raise- and bet-sizing. Lots of passive play, believe it or not.

I never really got any massive hands during hold em. I was able to win some big all-in pots playing Crazy Pineapple, oddly enough. One was when IO was in the Big Blind with a terrible Q62 rainbow, saw a Q63 rainbow flop, and managed to get it all in against someone who kept AQ (I obviously kept Q6) and it held up.

I won another all-in later on when I limped on the button with KT7 all clubs and saw a T77 flop and proceeded to get it in against A7 and it held. The passive play really helped me win pots when I was not getting good hands to play. I folded a lot!

Everyone was actually quite nice. I made a female dealer laugh when I dragged a pot with A2 on a A-high paired board that nobody ever bet and I said "I thought I had kicker problems - like your Cowboys the other day." That was some seriously low-hanging fruit so I almost thought she was trying to make me feel good.

I enjoyed that they gave out free beer. I made sure I tipped the nice lady who brought me cups of the stuff. It wasn't some craft beer or anything but I play in enough rooms where you have to pay for alcohol that it was nice to get it for free.

When I got short I started pushing the NLHE hands that made sense and I was able to push every single one through, which was nice. None of them were garbage hands but pushing a suited Ace and running into a big Ace is not a shocking way to end a tournament and none of them were monsters where I preferred a double up. It helped that a lot of people were limp-folding with stack sizes that really needed to get it all in or fold.

I also lost a big pot when I was in the SB with AK4, with the AQ of Clubs. After a total limpfest I shoved about 25 BB thinking I had decent fold equity. I did though the cutoff called it off with less than I had. He kept pocket 8s after the ten-high board and I kept AK and I didn't improve, taking a big hit but I was always able to stick around with at least 10 BBs or so.

I won a big all-in playing PLO when I shoved over a raiser with AAQx, one suit, and it held over JJxx.

I lost a smaller all-in when my KKxx, one suit, lost to JJxx, one suit, when the other player turned a flush.

When we finally got down to six players, someone suggested an ICM chop. I was fine with it. I only did my original buy-in and the $25 add-on and I turned that into 3rd place in chips for about $210. The short stack demanded everyone give him $3 each because he had multiple bullets and we were all fine with it. Although the dealers got a nice chunk from the prize pool, I tossed them an extra $20 and the cashier got a buck when I turned smaller bills into hundreds.

They took a picture of all the winners (save for one camera-shy player) - it may show up on their social media which is pretty cool.

I may try and jump to another room to play some cash while I am here. I will choose a different room if I do, not because I had a bad time here, but just for the experience of a different room. Overall I had a nice time. Everyone was pretty friendly. The only real difference from other places I played was the proliferation of Spanish at the table. This wasn't a surprise given where El Paso is on the map, but it was still different to sit down and not understand much of the table talk.

Sorry I missed you! But since I didn't play cash I do not know.