Good for the short term or long term?
While its true most people have little interest in getting better im sure overall having a more knowledgeable player base might be worse for the games.

See Run it Once for details.

There is a reason a lot of rooms cap buy-in , mainly because the rec players go bust more often. Again, if a room is thinking long term they need a mix of games that hopefully keep the rec players in the games longer (so everyone can pay more rake! Tip more ect ect)

What 5/5 game are you referring to? Does the Lodge run both 2/5 and 5/5 and what is the difference generally?

My first thought as well.


Also there's a not insignificant number of players that are intimidated by and don't want to play at tables where people can buy in super deep and cause the games to play much bigger than is normal. That being said, it looks like the lodge also runs a 1/2 which should be a good alternative.

They'll definitely need a name change/alteration if they come to Dallas.

Just a gimmick idea that I hadn't thought too deeply about. Most players are not interested in studying so I don't think it will affect the quality of the games all that much. TBH I miss my 50% discount Upswing membership from black Friday 2 years back and would not mind getting that renewed.


Austin 1/3 or 2/5 plays more like a 5/T or T/20 in Vegas. Most players buy in for 1-2k. Not uncommon to have several 5k stacks in the early evening after the game's been running for 5+ hours. Most players are properly rolled for that game. Practically speaking the 1/3 capped game never runs at the lodge. But it's still listed on poker atlas and it's personally been a source of much confusion for me when there are multiple 1/3 games with different rules in the same room.

A total tangent, but it's about protecting recs, so I thought to mention it: Months ago Lodge instituted a ban on double board PLO bomb pots at 1/3 for this exact reason. That's the only difference between the 2/5 match and 1/3 match games: 2/5 match allows double board PLO bomb, 1/3 only allows double board NLH bomb. The games are indistinguishable otherwise (players open to $20 in both games). This serves to protect the players -- some dude loses his entire 5k stack on a double board PLO bomb pot cause he doesn't entirely grasp the strategy or hits that sick PLO variance, and he leaves the room for the day -- that's a loss for the room and for the players. That said, 2/5 hardly ever runs, so double board PLO bomb pots are effectively illegal at Lodge mid and low stakes. Some clientele complain, and this has been a driver behind why some play at TCH -- TCH allows double board PLO bomb pots even in their 1/2 game. Which is sick. The players love them, even when it causes them to go bust. One previous room had instituted a max 1k wager per player on double board PLO bomb pots to put a stop-limit on losses -- that is an interesting idea that the Lodge might consider.

By 5/5 I just mean the room's uncapped game. Buy-ins are typically in the 2k+ range AND uncapped with a larger min-buy limit (it used to be $500 min back in the day, but that may have changed). So quite a bit bigger than the 1/3 or 2/5 where you will often see 1-2k stacks mixed with shorter stacks and bigger stacks. There's a more limited player base for the uncapped 5/5 or 5/T games. Over 2 years ago the 5/5 ran exclusively and regularly at TCH, but players had a falling out with management, which resulted in a more fractured player base. Now it runs occasionally at Palms Social or the Lodge. The Lodge 5/5 may have turned into a 5/T -- also, not sure about that.

Doug, will you rename the room to Doug Polk's Polker Lounge?

Or at the very least, Vanessa's Hangout?

The big game is 5/5? LOL Doug Polk is going to grind small stakes 2 times a week.

lolz. 15 slansky humor bucks for you

Is it purely coincidental that the owners decided to sell a large portion of this business at the same time that 52 Social moved into this market, having just opened a room less than a mile away? Technically, 52 Social's grand opening is this Saturday.

I would expect that Polk & his crew will be able to do big things on the weekends and for special events. However, I wonder how well this room will do day-in and day-out. There appear to be a lot of poker rooms in Austin, and this room is located in the suburbs, so it's not centrally located and a lot of Austinites will have much closer options. Plus, the Lodge will literally have to fight 52 Social just to capture the Northern Austin/Round Rock market.

One of the things I look at when I have ever invested in a business is, what is the barrier of entry?

In this case , what is to stop anyone setting up multiple poker rooms in your area?

Even having a competitive advantage of having well known poker players may not be enough to dilute the market to the point
its hard to make any serious money.

But to be fair to Doug and the other investors its clear they have a long term goal much bigger than this one poker room.

If they could build a reputation and a brand, they could take that franchise to other jurisdictions where the barrier of entry may be much greater.

On the upside, it seems like the owners have come to the conclusion that they already have saturated what they could do to make the business grow. On the downside, they know that legally, they have a business that is on major shaky ground legally - meaning that they know that could get shut down overnight.

Time to partially get out and cash in some.

If Doug and Co already have a long term multi location goal in mind - with geographic diversification as part of the way to control the legal downside of getting closed - then they may be making the right play.

There's no way that just limiting themselves to this one location can justify the risk, even if the competitive advantage of having the Neeme Owen platform is counted.

I'm curious what Doug has to say about the multi location strategy. A good model might be the Dottie's model here in Nevada. Dottie's has tons of locations (twice the size of a typical 7 11) where they have video poker and other slot machines.

I don't know how difficult or easy to create small 10 table poker rooms throughout Texas that can leverage the Lodge/Owen/Neeme brand.

Its also possible that casinos in other jurisdictions (think outside of Texas or even the US ) may want to partner and franchise the brand in return of getting the publicity rub and the knowledge on setting up a profitable poker room. In the future you could even do poker cruises or poker vacations backed by that brand. There are tons of different directions you could go in.
Some jurisdictions have very poorly run rooms where a new company coming in could easily take over the area.

They could probably do a poker themed hotel.

they cant.

A question for those in the know...

When it comes to the decision to shutdown a poker room in Texas for legal reasons, what relative roles do the state government, county government, and city government have?

What I'm getting at is that if the power to shutdown mainly lies at the city level then it would make sense for a poker room operator to diversify a multi location cardroom in different cities within Texas. If the county has most of the shutdown power, then it would be good geographic diversification for a multi location operator to operate locations in different counties.

Of course, if the shutdown decisions are primarily made at the state level then geographic diversification for the purposes of controlling shutdown risk would be futile.

So which level of the Texas government has the shutdown control and if all three levels have shutdown say, what is the distribution of power between the three percentagewise.

In terms of exercising the power to shut a club down, I'd say most of the power is at the county level and then the city level. However, as long as the law is not clearly defined there is also going to be risk on the state level (plus there is risk that the law can be changed).

Of course, there are a lot of other risks in this business too. As mentioned before ITT, the barriers to entry are very low. Anecdotally from what I can tell, not many clubs in the state appear to be doing all that great. Even with the most successful clubs there is questionable longevity (ie haven't seen much sustained success over a decent amount time).

That's not even mentioning the fact that there is a club that just opened within a mile of the Lodge.

Once the Owen Neeme followers have been roped into the Lodge, a loyalty program might be the key to keeping them in. I don't know how the heck that would work, but they need one just like airlines have frequent flyer miles, Vegas casinos have club cards, and Amazon has Prime. Create barriers to switching. somehow. Maybe, Upswing privileges combined with a point system whatever.

With regards to which level of the Texas government has shutdown power. If the power lies at county and city, then it is imperative that Doug and Co. start opening other locations in other counties and cities, even if only 10 out of say 50 tables are initially opened at a small loss. Just for beachhead purposes.

I hate to use the word but "floating" cardrooms just like "floating" crap games during the Damon Runyon days.

Different locations are going to have a different level of risk. For instance, in Dallas there is a high level of risk at the city level. In Collin County there is a high level of risk at the county level. The Lodge is located in the city of Round Rock in Williamson County. I don't know what the risk levels are there but it wouldn't surprise me if the risk is very low.

maybe they are on to something. Costco makes 75% of their profit from membership fees.

They need some $1.50 hot dogs to draw the people in and get them excited. Not like the WSOP.

Another interesting aspect to this is that cardrooms in Austin don't sell alcohol, it's strictly BYOB. But I don't know if this is has been a risk mitigation path that existing clubs have taken or if it's possible. I would be interested to know much added revenue that would add to the bottom line if there are any informed posters here that might be able to shed light.

This the same Bart that was on Dougs pod a few months ago trying to get Europeans banned from Texas card houses? Wonder if Doug will listen to your input on this lol

Authentic Texas BBQ is something they should seriously consider bringing into the club. And more rake as dnegs long ago promoted.

They should implement a 30% vpip minimum requirement for anyone who is from Europe. Particularly Germany and limit to 1 per table.

not worth the regulatory risk, even having an open bar with a tip bucket seems suspect legally…

As to Dream Crushers point about competition there are network effects at play, so the more players who think there is game liquidity at their stake level will go to the lodge because they know they can get into a game easily…this is the influencers main benefit in making the lodge the destination for low to mid stakes…high stakes is always going to be fickle based on where the whales/ regs want to play. Defending their market share would be my goal for the next year if I was themÂ…I would try to Amazon it and keep membership costs low and bet that the ownership group has bigger pockets/ marketing chops than the competition, at least for the first year or so, when the other clubs are broke, then raise rates back up…

Would be interesting to hear the strategic reasons why Doug wanted to buy…as the saying goes people sell for lots of reasons they only buy for one…