Neeme, Owen and Polk buy stakes in "The Lodge" poker room, Austin TX (Lodge containment thread)

Im a business owner and Im confident you'll figure it out. At the end of the day were more or less winging it, maybe you made some -ev decisions, maybe not. Im sure you'll find a way to get a solid system going where players are able to play stakes they're comfortable with and want to be playing.

Suggestion: Try out a live rathole table. Theyre the most popular games for US players imo in the US on acr and global, and the format seems primed for Texas donks. Ship and run it. Just make the time limit per day or something that a player has to return with the same size stack. Or allow for 1 reset or something. 10bb. Try it out at 5/10 $100stacks as ppl will unload clips at that amount. Or 10/20 $200.

Sounds like thats what they're doing....

I agree, the games at Lodge SA are actually better if we don't consider game size as part of the metric of what makes a game good. There are more rec players and less pros. A pro would beat those games for a very high number of bb. But it would be a smaller dollar win rate because the blind is smaller, there is a lack of straddling, and the games are capped. Which, I get it, your biggest concern isn't whether games are good for pros, and you have legitimate reasons for wanting to make the games more fun for recreational players.

It is great that the volume at Lodge SA is bigger than pre acquisition. I think it is great that you have tapped into a player pool that really wants to play 1/3 300 cap. You grew the overall market some by offering this. Also, the market is always going to have some organic growth. A quick Google search says the population in San Antonio increased 22,000 last year. Some of them are going to play poker, right? Another awesome thing is that you got 1/2/5 PLO going daily, which is something that never lasted long in the past.

Speaking specifically about NLH cash games: you have to pick and choose the things to prioritize. Maybe there isn't a perfect way where you can satisfy both the players that want to play bigger and the players who want to play capped games. I hope there is a decent compromise though. Right now I think there are a good 1-2 tables of NLH cash at SA Cardhouse daily that have moved over from Rounders and it includes both recreational players and regs that want to play bigger. I think that is 10-20% of the NLH volume at SA Cardhouse. People that used to prefer Rounders. On top of that there is the existing market of players that wants to play bigger, but had always preferred SA Cardhouse, but would be consider playing more at Lodge if it offered games they liked. That is another 10-20% of the volume that plays at SA Cardhouse which might play at Lodge SA but probably won't under current conditions. Lodge SA is growing, but there is more potential.

One thing I also want to talk about is the feeling left out as a winning reg. Let me preface this by saying that I am a professional poker player. At times I feel like I am painted as the enemy of recreational poker players. But there is a two way street between the solid winning regs and the recreational players who want to play bigger. Regs play because of the recreational players. But regs are also partly the market makers in poker.

Sometimes without the regs, there aren't enough players to ensure that the recs that want to play certain stakes or at deeper tables have tables to play at that don't break or go short handed. That's partly why home games and private games in cardrooms exist. If a recreational player wants to play 10/25 for example, they are going to have a hard time finding it in San Antonio without a relationship either a reg running or in the game. And if it isn't the reg bringing them into the game, there are likely regs that are integral to making sure the game starts early and lasts late.

Winning regs are a decent chunk of the market of cardroom members who play tons of hours. A lot of them are fun guys who are friendly with a lot of the recreational players. Take a guy like Chaz who is now a partner at Lodge SA. People go to the Cardhouse to play with him because he is fun to play and super nice. Despite that he is a really good winning poker player. Regs like that are influential on the poker community. Players gravitate towards them.

I am not trying to argue that being a winning poker player is a noble profession because it's not. We're symbiotes to the poker community just like cardhouses are. The best of us try not to be parasites. I get it, recreational players always come first. That said, when a cardhouse strives to meet the needs of both recreational players and regs, the poker community flourishes. All parties benefit. A strategy that works to meet the needs of both recs and regs can lead to better selection of different games and different stakes without having to go to home games or private games. That would bring more players to the cardhouse more often. Everyone wins from that. I don't know the exact strategy to accomplish this, my hope whatever strategy you take, it doesn't have to be an us vs them scenario.

Regs will always adapt to a structure that benefits fish because there is no reg without fish. Pokerstars is an example of trying to cater to regs and losing the fish. GG is an example of a structure where regs have adapted and fish still play

Twisting yourself up to paint extraction as a benefit is definitely sophistry. You are just taking money out of the card rooms pocket

One pillar of the community reg doesn't make up for hundreds of misregs

Idk, I need a few more '........'s to know for sure.

This is definitely a big issue I've noticed in the market. Oftentimes the majority of "feedback" the room operators receive is coming from the vocal minority of misregs who have a vested interest in having cash games and tournaments structured in a way that benefits their pockets. It doesn't benefit your overall poker economy, and it doesn't benefit your rooms business model. The silent majority of recreationals don't speak up for themselves and don't really have anyone advocating for them.

Many of the "professionals" have lost sight of the fact that their job at the tables is to be an entertainer. I want you having a grand ol' time while you lose money to me, so I can feed my cats. I was at one of the local Austin rooms a few weeks ago, it was just a 1/2 game. It was all misregs except for this one sweet recreational lady. She was stuck, she finally wins a big pot to climb out of the hole, she's not even up, just back to even. She's happy, social, conversing.

Well, the misregs could not STAND to see her happy. Every opportunity they had to call any rules infraction on her, they were taking it. I'm sitting there thinking "what the **** is wrong with you? This is the one person you WANT at your table, and you're making her experience miserable and trying to run her off"

A lot of the grinders are short-sighted, they're trying to gobble up as much of the fishes money as quickly as possible. They don't think long-term about sustainably farming the player pool. So you wind up having your fish chewed up and spat out, and then too many sharks at the table due to overfishing.

It creates games that are overly serious, not fun or social. These turn off recreationals. So you may have ten 1/2 games going, but good luck finding any that are actually worth playing in.

The reason we don't get the 2/5, etc. limits running is because the misregs want to be able to make the smaller games play larger, put the recreationals out of their comfort zones and just run them over.

Too many of the rooms focus their marketing efforts on catering to the grinders. And while I agree you need the grinders to start games, keep them running, etc. You need fun, recreational players even more, but so few rooms are bothering to market to them.

I think protecting your lower level, entry-stakes games is paramount. Newcomers need games they can learn in, without them being completely wrecked and turned off from coming back. The grinders are going to win in the long run anyway, they don't need unlimited restraddles, match the stack, etc. to tip it even further in their favor.

The same goes for unlimited rebuys for 4 hours, multi-day, multi-flight, multi-bag, top-heavy payout tournaments. All of these things are just additional edges to the better players, making it that much harder for the recreational players to have any shot.

Shear the sheep, don't slaughter them. They need to win sometimes too, so they continue playing bad and you can pay your mortgage because of it!

If you're structuring your cash games and tournaments in a way that funnels the majority of the money into the pockets of the pro's, guess what? That money is leaving your poker economy. They're using it for life expenses and large purchases.

Instead, ensure it's spread out a little flatter and more evenly. Now the recreationals have a few dollars in their pockets, it's more likely to recirculate in your poker economy and keep it chugging along.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

Agree with this, but undercover boss is for CEOs who want more attention on themselves and pretend they are great by spending 20k on a few random employees.

Isn't this what Owen and Neeme are for?

Isn't this the exact same set up in this situation lol?

This is spot on. I've never played in Texas but so many regs/pros are just entitled and toxic. They do nothing to cultivate a fun environment to play in. They think their job is to play better than bad players and that's it.

That's just batting practice. If you can't play better than people just playing for fun who like to gamble and see a ton of flops then you really suck at poker. They're all take a no give. If you want give up some short term ev for the good of the game then at best you are a complete clown who doesn't remotely understand what your job actually is.

Rooms that let mis regs dictate policy just create a race to the bottom. What matters is what the bad players want not the good players.

Also lol@ the poster complaining about 11 dollar an hour time charge. You'd have to be such a filthy nit for that not to be a good deal.

Truth. I play what can be considered high stakes at most rooms, and regs still get excited by the jackpot. Raking me an extra dollar a pot for something I’m unlikely to ever win still puts money in my pocket every day.

Having a BBJP where you have to flop it is insane even in a PLO game. I've played poker every day for 40 years and never seen two people flop a BBJP in Omaha.

A lot of folks play holdem for 40 yrs and never see a BBJP.

the house funded it. that's the only insane thing about it.

Well I mean they did flop it

Doug and Brad hosted a meetup game recently and I managed to vlog it, playing in the PLO streets with Doug