Austin, TX Area Poker

The Lodge is getting a redesign. They have changed out the carpet and painted the walls. Looks like they are going to change the layout for the poker floor. I also noticed they installed a bunch of new LED lighting.

Yes, for years they had a monopoly and didn't really put money into the place except for the livestream room.

But with TCH finally giving them actual competition they've replaced their old chairs for much more comfortable ones, finally got rid of the terrible brown walls and made the place look respectable and I was told they'll be getting a facelift on the table felts as well.

It's a step in the right direction, but they've got a lot of work ahead if they want to regain their top dog status in the Austin market.

Wait, are they not the top dog in Austin anymore??

TCH has the vast majority of PLO games and usually most nights has total tables equal to or greater than The Lodge.

At 9:50pm on Thursday night:

LODGE:

(7) 1/2 NLH
(1) 1/3 NLH

TCH

(8) 1/2 NLH
(1) 2/5 NLH
(3) 1/2/5 PLO
(1) 5/5/10 PLO
(1) $5 BOMB POTS
(1) DONO'S PRIVATE GAME
(1) DEIGO'S BIG O 1/2/5

The Lodge is about to have the WPT event coming up soon, plus a meetup game, so will likely see a boost in traffic from people traveling into Texas. But overall from a daily perspective they are no longer top dog.

So I got excited the other day, I thought maybe The Lodge had finally gotten it. Usually there's a 1/2/5 PLO with unlimited straddles from UTG to the button and then match the stack.

I saw Friday night they had two 2/2 PLO games running with buyins of 100-500. Finally a game where newcomers can play and not have to deal with the 5/10/25 players jacking the game up to play like a shallow-stacked 40/80 game.

Well, that wasn't the case. They still allow multiple straddles, so regularly there were 10 and sometimes 20 straddles.

So you go and sit in a 2/2 game with 500, and think you have 250bb. But with the 20 straddle on, you have 25bb.

It does nothing to differentiate the game from the 1/2/5 by allowing this, and doesn't provide a good entry point for new players to learn PLO without getting destroyed too quickly.

Legit casino poker rooms understand the need to have entry-level games that don't play too big, they are the lifeblood of the rooms revenue AND a path for players to move up to medium and higher stakes as they progress.

But if you just constantly force people to play huge, you scare off the fun, losing recs (the lifeblood of any poker room) and stunt the growth. It hurts the rooms profits in the long-term and the grinders as well.

It's absolutely mind-boggling how few texas card rooms grasp this.

For awhile now The Lodge has been empty of PLO games, with the vast majority of action being at TCH.

Yesterday Doug Polk announced he's going to be playing today from 1-6pm and straddling at every opportunity and will only play with 3 cards while everyone else gets 4

In addition The Lodge created a PLO group on Telegram to keep players apprised of daily promos they'll be doing as they attempt to win back the PLO action in Austin

Will be interesting to see how this impacts poker in Austin, as TCH has regularly been not only getting 90% or more of the PLO action in the city, but also 2x as many tables overall running.

PLO has always been a high variance game most people that play low stakes and are new are shot taking anyways. If you can't destroy a game where people are straddling to $20 pre and you don't have to do the same - than I don't know what to tell you. Just wait for good hands and print.

I've had wild swings at 1/2/5 card - many 10-15k downswings. Not allowing straddles won't change the game, the players will just blind raise.

Even with the massive downswings - the game is my biggest win-rate when I do decide to play it. Your edge should be gigantic given your description.

I was on the third table started which was after 1pm but they still honored the $500 flip which was cool

Most 9987 combos are a fold pre flop unless you are double suited. Also depends how deep you are, but you got your money in 3 ways with over 50% equity in hand 1 - that's printing.

Hand 2 looks like a print as well. You just don't like the result. Same thing happens in hold'em where you shove all in with aces pre flop and lose.

From the looks of it, you are in a gold mine game.

Here in Austin and just helped get 2 known cheats banned that I helped get banned in Tampa FL about 5 years ago. They've been caught all over the country marking cards and they typically focus on PLO games to my understanding.

In this video I break down the history I'm aware of, provide receipts so it's not just me making up some allegations, provide the photos I have of them (one is good, one is not) and detail exactly how they're marking cards so room operators can be on the lookout and players can protect themselves.

They've been getting away with this for at least 6 years in different venues, and I'd like to make it as difficult as possible for them to find new honey holes to take advantage of.

So if you're able to help my video with engagement (likes/comments) or sharing it, it would help immensely in getting this spread far and wide to keep these scumbags off the felt.

nobody cares about this crybaby stories.
Learn how to lose and don't be entitled. Never forget even if you're 90 percent to win if you scoop the entire pot you ran above ev.

nice tampa, i'm always shocked whenever i point out that a card is marked and request a replacement and people (dealer included) get upset with me for "slowing down the game for stuff that doesn't matter"

I'm amazed at how many dealers don't keep the deck level, how so many get mad when you tell them to, and how I've seen almost nobody else say anything about this to them ever.

Unfortunately the way these scumbags mark the cards often goes unnoticed for quite awhile, which is why I'm trying to get the word spread far and wide so more operators know what to be looking for, and players will know these jagoffs as soon as they see them and can alert the floors to what they're up to.

It would be helpful if you could come up with better pics. How are there not pictures if these guys have been booted from so many places?

I think the pic of the guy in seat 6 is pretty good, obviously the guy in seat 1 you can only get his clothing style and not his face.

But those aren't pics I took, they were sent to me by someone else 5 years ago when I originally encountered them. The poker rooms aren't going to give me anything, they typically will want to just ban them and move on and not have it become a front-and-center thing.

And when I was playing in Austin and encountered them again, I was on the other side of the room and noticed them. I wasn't going to get close because they'd recognize me from Tampa, and I really don't want to get stabbed by a bunch of cokeheads for doing the right thing and outing them.

Plus, their M.O. is insanely specific, two Cubans, always sit seats 1 and 6 and have the long fingernail to snort coke. If you see them, call ICE!

There is this tweet which includes a video from a number of years ago, this is the Seat 6 player, but he no longer has a beard

https://x.com/RobBrownPro/status/1471183...

edit: it appears he's sitting in seat 1, but this is definitely the guy I'm used to seeing in Seat 6. The seat 1 guy has a more pronounced schnozz

Word is spreading fast, these guys tried to sneak into Houston but word is out

I noticed TCH just increased the fee on morning hours from free to 50% off ..
wonder if we will see more increases now that theres really no compeition

Or maybe this is legal thing where they think it wouldnt meet the legal definition of a private club if the hours are free

They went from free valet to $10 fee valet recently as well.