The Texas Card House is a chain of poker room/social clubs in the great state of Texas. The one located in Spring is an excellent place for a friendly little game of cards.
As with all legal Texas card rooms, the house takes no rake off the table. Instead they charge a daily fee to enter and a charge for time spent on the table. Both are reasonable and in line with going rates in the area. You must register as a member and show your ID when you do. They give you a club member card, which they use to register you for tournaments or wait list you for cash games.
Amenities
Many poker houses in the Houston area offer free soft drinks and snacks, and allow BYOB of alcohol. Texas Card House has its own small bar with bottle and draft beer and cocktails. I’m not much of a bar drinker, but the prices I heard talked about seemed reasonable.
There are a very limited amount of snacks, and a coffee maker with coffee supplied. They allow you to bring food in or have it delivered. On two of the three days that I visited, they brought in free pizza for the players.
There are two small tables for sitting with your drinks and/or food. There is a pool table, one arcade type video game and some cornhole boards. The men’s room is very clean.
I’m sure that the women’s restroom is equally clean and maintained. Like most Texas card rooms, there is a lot of demographic diversity among the players except for the severe under-representation of females.
Security
No firearms are allowed at TCH, Spring. But there is armed security on duty and they will usually watch a player walk to their vehicle. That will be a comfort if I ever walk out of there with any cash on me. That hasn’t been an issue so far for me.
The Staff
The dealers and the cashier are very professional and competent. They are also very friendly and have good senses of humor. The floor person kept everything running very well.
COVID Supplement
As of the end of March, 2021, the state of texas has lifted state mask and capacity mandates. Texas Card house in spring is voluntarily requiring all players and staff to wear masks. They are also checking temperatures of all players as they walk into the club. There is plenty of hand sanitizer and the pizza mentioned above was kept behind the bar and given out by a staff member. Maximum per table is eight, but no plexi.
Tournaments
The Texas Card House offers cash games and tournaments. Typically, they offer low stakes tournaments, including “freerolls” in which you pay the daily fee plus some sort of additional bonus for extra chips – total thirty dollars.
They have recently been named a World Poker Tour venue, which they are very proud of. Currently, their tournaments are higher buy-in satellites in which the winner gets part of the cash pool and a ticket to the next higher level.
For example, this past Saturday, I paid $130 to play in a Step 1 tournament in which the first and second place winners get a ticket to a step 2 tournament worth $350 and the rest of the cash pool is split according the the number of tables seated. That night only eighteen players played, so the top two winners split the remaining cash pool. That tournament had a $2,000 guarantee, so the house ended up kicking in $380.
The lower budget tournaments are unlimited re-buy tournaments, with lots of chances to chip up for additional cash that goes into the prize pool. At first break, you can pay $40 to top off with basically a double stack. Beginning live tournament players, especially if they are used to online tournaments, are often frustrated with re-buy tournaments. I talk about why that is and how to over-come that in this article on tournaments for cash players.
The WPT Steps tournaments are limited re-entry rather than unlimited re-buy. This means that if a player busts out before the first break, they have until the end of the first break to pay all the fees (except the daily fee, I assume), that they paid to enter the tournament the first time. It is limited to one re-entry per player.
Cash Games
Texas Card House lists a variety of cash games on their website, including 1/2, with buy-ins from $60 to $200, 1/3 with buy-ins $100 to $500, ROE, PLO and 5/5. However, don’t expect all these games to be running all the time. Their website shows exactly which games are running, how many tables and how many on the waiting list.
The first day I was there, there were two cash games going early in the evening on a Tuesday. The games were 1/2 and 1/3. I always play a tournament the first time I visit a new room so I can get the feel of it. I wish I had broken that policy, because the next two times I was there, there was not so much cash action.
The second day was a Thursday and they were promoting a 1/2 game with one orbit of NLHE and one of PLO. I was very interested in playing that game for reasons I talk about below. I waited until early evening to go and there was no table running and no one on the wait list. That is a good game to offer, so knock on TCH. No one was interested in low-stakes cash that day. Maybe when COVID is finally done with, those games will be popular again.
When I played the Step 1 tourney, there was a 1/3 cash game going that I considered joining after I busted out. I decided not to after observing the players.
The Players
First of all, I have to say: friendliest bunch of poker players I ever sat with. That was all three nights. Very outgoing, very talkative and no one getting mad about anything all three nights. They recognized newcomers and welcomed them and most of the players seemed to be regulars who know each other.
They talked about things poker players often do, sports, other clubs they play in, other forms of gambling. But mainly, they talked about poker. They love the game and they know the game.
They often showed their cards after a hand, especially if they got a fold they would show that it wasn’t a bluff. Or show one card as if to say, “I had the jack, you guess the kicker.” They analyze hands that they just played, asking what ifs of each other. It was like watching hand history reviews, not a week later on Youtube, but real-time as the next hand is being dealt.
I’m don’t usually do a lot of that. In fact, I almost never show my cards or talk about a hand. But, I got caught up in it and started doing the same. In Volume II, I will talk about how table talk is the most reliable source of information on opponents.
Even without the talk, it was clear from watching them play that their average skill level was higher than other card houses I have played in. At each table I’ve sat at there was at least one good LAG player who played a lot of hands and grew his stack.
While playing the tournament, I took notice of the players in the 1/3 game I was considering joining. Those players reminded me of the old saying:
Never eat at a place called ‘Mom’s’ or play poker with a man called ‘Pops.’
It looked like a table full of seasoned players with lots of greens stacked up. I decided to wait for a game where I wouldn’t know I was the sucker the minute I sat down. I’ll try again when they have a capped 1/2 game with a full table.
All types and ages of players were there, except of course not many women. Women are certainly welcome, so if you are a woman who likes poker and likes to be around outgoing and competent Texas men, this club’s for you. If you are a beginner or advanced beginner, this is a friendly place to learn and the lessons will be cheaper once WPT time passes and they start the freerolls again or when more players take an interest in the low-stakes games.
Two thumbs up, five stars, or whatever other accolade you like, Texas Card House is a high quality, low-cost poker experience.
For Readers of Keep Calm and Re-buy
Those of you who have read my book, Keep Calm and Re-Buy, Volume I, available on Amazon or here at a sharp discount, know that The Plan is all about short-stack grinding online at stakes from 10NL to 100NL. So, why would you be interested in a live card room with lots of tournaments?
Good question.
Volume II will be an introduction to live cash play. You do not have to make the leap to playing live poker. You can certainly grind out a part-time income short-stacking online at 100NL. If you want to earn a little more money and you think you would enjoy live play more, Volume II is for you. Coming soon to Amazon and this website.
I recommend that you wait until that book comes out before you play live cash games. You need to learn to play full-stacked in order to successfully transition to live cash games. Volume II will take you to half stack, two-thirds stack, full stack and deep-stacked play. Deep stacked is especially important for playing live in Texas because Texas cash players love to get deep and play 1/3 like 2/5 and 2/5 like 5/10.
But playing in live tournaments is – at worst – cheap poker entertainment. At best, it can help you prepare for live cash games by practicing chip handling and live table etiquette.
Can you go into the Texas Card House or any similar card room and buy-in for 30BB? Sure. In this one you can buy-in for $50, which is 25BB. I’ve said many times that back when the online minimum buy-ins were 20BB, short-stacking must have been a license to print money.
But that kind of short stacking is much less effective in Texas card rooms because of the “time rake.”
In Texas, poker rooms are not allowed to rake out of the pot. So they charge for time, typically five or six dollars for for a half hour. That kind of rake is very favorable to a good loose aggressive full-stacked player who bluffs opponents out of small pots until they get tired of it and then gets them all in when he has the best hand. They like the fact that they rake does not come out of their stack since they bigger the stack, the more they make when they stack someone.
That’s the player you want to be, but Volume I will not make you that player. Playing $60 at a time while paying $10 per hour (about thirty to forty hands) will likely make you a losing player even if you play the default short-stack strategy and adjust very well. If you do that, you will get stacks in about once or twice an hour and you will win more often than you lose. That is enough to give you a good winrate when the rake is five percent of the pots you win – like on Bovada. It is not enough to keep up with ten dollars per hour in the long run.
To make money in live low-stakes cash games, it is imperative that you learn to play full and deep stacked. Volume II will teach you to that and more.
Keep Calm and Re-Buy!
Frank