social credit score where you can mark on the app which players you do and don't want to play with, and have some algorithm occasionally make forced table changes*. let the rocks sit with the other rocks and have amazing fishy 10-20 games going.

*not without precedent, e.g. must-move games, tournaments.

This seems like a flex, the newest mainstream idea to enrich oneself and/or market the VLOG culture. It was Doug’s money most likely and these clubs are probably good for all of the impending 3+ year coronavirus lockdowns and limited prosecutor work.

I mean the clubs are membership based. I don’t really think it’s unreasonable to consider not offering membership to people who are bad for poker ecosystem. ( don’t tip, no action etc.)

Theoretically sure. However, a single degen could be $20k+ in revenue a year. A single euro pro would be worth less since he can only be in the US for a portion of the year but still it would be a substantial amount of revenue the club would be foregoing.

All up to an owner to gauge and evaluate. Looking purely at an individuals potential revenue is shortsighted though. Players have to want to play in a game and dealers have to want to deal/be able to deal that game for it to be successful. If thereÂ’s an issue that is so severe (really donÂ’t know the euros or if theyÂ’re even an issue tbh in this case) that either of those are in jeopardy it will cause long term problems that cause overall less revenue. Don’t know if it’s bad enough that people actively won’t play with them/leave/don’t play as often cause they’re there etc. or that dealers have started quitting tbh.

What was being discussed was the mass banning of euros. This is a lot of players that could constitute a ton of revenue for a club. I doubt many poker room managers would have the foresight to make such a bold move even if a room was hurting because of them.

The euros definitely hurt the games, but at the same time so do players like Bart Hanson so I don't know why we would ban Euros and not ban all the pros that have come from California/Vegas in the past few years (Doug would ban himself?).

Frankly, if a poker room was to ban all the tight pros, all the scumbags that treat others poorly, and all the weird disgusting pedophiles and such there wouldn't even be enough players to run a game.

Really donÂ’t know the situation in Austin but I do know the people who used to play at commerce blamed the euros for the end of 10-20 games and games moving to home games etc so probably where Bart was coming from since he saw it first hand before and probably has a bad memory of it.

There were other issues besides just being tight winning players that caused people not to want to play with them according to the complainers. Commerce also was a shithole so not the only reason/might not have even been a factor.

A well run poker will have a positive relationship with professional players. See my book Cardrooms: Everything Bad and How to Make Them Better as well as my Poker Essays books.

Best wishes,
Mason

I don’t know what happened at Commerce, but super high rakes, which is now the case in many places, can certainly be a contributor to creating home games.

Mason

If the games are good, people are willing to play in dumps if there is no better competition. People played in the figurative and literal dump that was the Taj poker room for years in Atlantic City for years until Borgata opened. IIRC, until the Taj closed people were still playing there.

Except certain home game rakes make casino rakes look like a bargain. Home games also are mainly invitation only, so it is unlikely someone will invite a table full of nits.

I think the way Bart would answer if I remember his reasoning is that some/most of the Euros are not legitimately in the country in the first place. Some get student visas and don't go to a school, for instance. I would agree that this is a non sequitur.

Didn’t someone get stabbed in the poker room and everyone quit playing there. I mean if anything this is an example of a place that wouldn’t get rid of people it should have and something happened with one of them that made everyone not want to play there.

Commerce wouldn’t ban players who literally would get into fights with dealers and ya people still played there but they definitely played less then they would if it was a better environment and slowly eventually just got so fed up they stopped playing there altogether.

I think the two poker players took the fight outside where one of them was stabbed, but I don't think it made everyone quit playing there. Bravo shows 64 tables at Commerce right now, I don't understand the contention that no one plays at Commerce. I played there for a couple of days ten years ago, and I do agree it is a dump.

The comment that I made on Doug’s podcast was directed at club owners floating the idea to require a US driver’s license for membership. It stems from the fact that I think that there is a strong chance that an influx of traveling foreigner players will hurt the bottom line of such a business long term, based on my observation of trends in other areas forcing much of the action to go truly private. The fact of the matter is poker players in rooms with foreign passports are going to be disproportionality professional for profit players, whereas players with US driver's licenses are not. Surely, no one here would disagree that it is the right of a business to do what they want (especially in Texas) in running their establishment?

And assume for a moment that I am correct and foreign players are a detriment to the overall long term goals of a specific room. Should they allow them in anyway because it hurts the “purity of the game”? Thats most of the arguments that I see from the Euro side. It should be purely a business consideration.

The part where many could be dishonest to entry immigration about the primary purpose of their trip to the US (tourism, sham student visas, etc) is most likely not relevant to this discussion.

If "Euro" players bring in so much revenue that their impact is a net positive on the long term bottom line of a club, then it's a no brainer let them in.

A club owner isn't going to be able to tell the difference between California/Vegas pros and recreational players (with a few exceptions). And how would they practically create a policy to enforce that? Whereas the requirement of a US driver's license is entirely non subjective.

Would it be ok to ban professional poker players/poker vloggers that are US based for the same reasons? The casino game I used to play in is now full of pros and unplayable, therefore I don't go to the casino anymore. They are losing the revenue I generated paying time.

They should be able to do whatever they want, it's a private membership club. If they make decisions that you don't agree with take your business elsewhere.

Banning vloggers would be one of the dumbest moves a poker room/club could ever make.

I mean they used to have double that on a weekend but IÂ’m really only referring to the high limit section as thatÂ’s where the euros were and thatÂ’s what IÂ’m familiar with. Used to be 20+ tables pretty full on weekends and always at least a few games. Now I donÂ’t think they ever get a game bigger than 5/10 outside lapc.

BartÂ’s here he can argue his viewpoint.

Mine is different and was based off other reasons for them being bad for the game than them being professionals unless he’s saying that them being winning and transitory (can only come for 3 months of a year on their visas) is bad for the ecosystem. I disagree strongly that people will play as often in environment that is filled with unpleasant people and clubs like these should actively try to weed out bad actors so the majority who arenÂ’t will play more often.

I have been playing live poker for twenty years, poker is full of unpleasant and bad people, regardless of the room. There is no avoiding that (unless you get invited to a nice home game, I suppose). If people act egregiously, then they should get lifetime bans, and they should be enforced.

The casino that I don't go to anymore used to have more high limit games than they do now, we could argue till the cows come home about the reasons, but the casino poker boom has subsided in many places.

When I was in Vegas this year for the WSOP, the cash games were full of Euros. They were no fun to play with, tight/aggressive play, no talking at the tables, they were deadly serious, etc. I agree that amateur players would not want to play with these people on a regular basis. But my point is that I know pros that act the same way, I don't want to play with them for the same reasons.

Yes. I'm aware of this.

But again, if poker rooms had reasonable rake, there would be less home games.

Mason

This isn't true.

Home games are either professional games (huge rake>casino) OR games amongst friends who get together because they enjoy it, not because they are trying to save a few dollars on rake.

I mean they could exist, but I haven't heard of any "rake saver" home games centered reducing reducing the amount of rake paid to play. If there were such games , they sound like the most miserable poker playing experience one could organize.


p.s. fewer

To be honest Bart the way it sounded to any euro player was that you were just another **** reg who was trying to protect his own profits. Its silly to come across like your being the white knight for the casino/cardroom. It sounds like the reason you want the cardroom to think about this ''situation'' is so that your games stay good and the game doesn't go private cause you might not get an invite.

Your comments were obviously to protect your own profits because one of your main arguments was that these ''Euro'' players come over cant speak English at the table and take money from the game. When asked about Asian players you were very quick to keep them in the game when in reality most Europeans speak perfect English whilst most Asians don't the only difference there then is that one continent is seen as good at poker and one is seen as bad and you wanted to keep the bad players in the game. So it wasn't really about table etiquette, it was just about wanting to be sat with more bad players than good.

No you're right lets not worry about the purity of the game, lets also ban US players from coming to Europe for events like the WSOP-E or EPT or any other European poker tour, after all, all the Americans that come over are largely pros who are bad for the game and in a lot of cases i would argue way worse at the tables than a European pro. I think your on to something here, let the Americans ban the Europeans and the Europeans ban the Americans and then there would be more Asians for us all. (I hope you see how ridiculous and borderline xenophobic my comments are because whilst i am just being sarcastic this is exactly how you sounded on the pod)

Im not going to keep on posting about this as i think it was clear for anyone to see your comments were stupid and to protect your own pockets, thats why even the host of the podcast started poking fun at them. Whilst i agree it is up to the owners to decide who they let in the business what you are essentially advocating for is turning these cardrooms into some sort of home game where people who are considered ''good'' or in your words ''Europeans'' arent allowed in and people who are considered bad or in your words Americans or ''Asians'' are allowed in.

Good post

"The confusion comes from our everyday use of the term ‘private club,’" explained ACLU staff attorney Mary Catherine Roper. "Many people understand a ‘private club’ to be one that only members and their guests can use, but the phrase has a much more specific meaning under the civil rights laws." To the ACLU’s knowledge, the Valley Swim Club has not claimed that it is a "private club" allowed to discriminate under the civil rights laws.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, all persons are entitled to "the full and equal enjoyment of … any place of public accommodation ... without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race...." But this requirement of non-discrimination does not apply to "a private club or other establishment not in fact open to the public". The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, which also prohibits discrimination in "public accommodations," has a similar exemption for “accommodations which are in their nature distinctly private”.

Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965, dozens of businesses and facilities – including swimming pools – tried to argue that they were "private clubs" so that they could exclude African Americans. The courts quickly developed a test to distinguish between truly "private" organizations and those that only claimed to be. Very few facilities qualified as truly "private."

In order to be exempt from the civil rights laws, a "private" club must truly reserve its facilities for members, and must have genuinely exclusive membership criteria – a club that will admit anyone who is not African American does not qualify. Courts deciding whether a club is “private” in this sense will consider the history and purpose of the club (including whether it was created to circumvent desegregation), the club advertises for members, it is directly controlled by its members and operated solely for their benefit, and the club is operated for profit.

Source: https://www.aclupa.org/en/press-rele...t-private-club