Poker in Texas

What’s Up with Poker in Texas Anyway?

Heather Leave a comment

While live poker is now legal across much of the country, the status of poker in Texas is still fuzzy. It appears to lie in a nebulous grey area, much like online poker prior to Black Friday all those years ago. Last week when we published an article on the five best places to live if you love poker, several people reached out to advocate for poker in Texas. The strong response made us re-think our previous avoidance of the Lone Star state, and to investigate the situation.

Is There Legal Poker in Texas?

According to the Texas State Law Library “Because Texas laws on gambling are complex, determining whether or not a particular poker game is being conducted legally can prove challenging.” Additionally, statutes vary across Texas from county to county. Over the past several years, a number of poker clubs which charge membership and a “seat rental fee” rather than taking a rake have arisen across the state. They exploit a legal loophole around the definition of profiting from gambling. While there have been some high profile cases in which rooms have been shut down, these poker rooms have largely been allowed to operate without interference.

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Best Places to Live if You Love Poker: South Florida

The Five Best Places to Live if You Love Poker

Heather Leave a comment

It has been a rough few months for those of us who love to play live poker. While we are employing every strategy we can think of to hold off poker withdrawal, we thought it was time to show a little gratitude for the fact that we happen to reside in one of the five best places to live if you love poker.

The United States has so many great poker rooms that picking the best places to live and play may seem daunting. However, we found it fairly easy to identify five spots where there are both multiple strong poker rooms and a decent quality of life. Note that in the current conditions, many of the poker rooms we mention are not currently open. Our ratings assume that eventually the world will return to normal. Below we share the best places to live if you love poker and our reasons for each nomination.

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Designing the Perfect Poker Room

Paul Leave a comment

What would the perfect poker room look like? From all the rooms you’ve attended what features and services would create the ideal playing experience? Sure, these days you may just be looking for a room that’s open. But let’s look ahead (and back) to simpler times when all of our favorite poker rooms are open and safe an ready for action. Here are the features that make up our perfect poker room.

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The Business Side of Poker: Poker Resources

Heather Leave a comment

Not too many players talk about it, but there is a business side of poker. The poker world is not just about calculating odds, bluffing, and reading your opponents. If you are going to be serious about poker, even as a recreational player, you’ll eventually need to address the personal economics of the game. Whether you are a home game player, a poker enthusiast, or a pro, poker is all about money. And where there’s money, there’s a business side.

The Business Side of Poker: Tracking and Bookkeeping

The most important thing that poker players need to do is track their poker bankroll. Whether you use an app such as Poker Income Tracker, create a spreadsheet, or write down wins and losses in a notebook, you will want to track the money that flows out of your bank account and into your poker game.

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Tampa Bay Vacation: Riverwalk

Our Tampa Bay Vacation

Paul Leave a comment

In 2018, Heather and I visited Atlantic Beach (Jacksonville area) and Northeast Florida. We gave it a resounding, and slightly unexpected, big thumbs up. In 2019, we took a highly anticipated extended vacation to South Florida. We came away mildly disappointed with Miami and the Keys. The only logical next step was to see what the other poker rich section of Florida – Tampa – had to offer. So in the last week of February, we combined a work and fun (and poker!) excursion to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area for a Tampa Bay vacation. While there were things we really liked and others, not so much, most of all we are glad we didn’t decide to vacation in March this year.

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