Howdy from the Poker Desert

[Michael]

Howdy! I am yet another poster named Michael or Mike or Mikhail or Miguel or what seems to be a very common name around these parts. I come from the Great Poker Desert of Texas where one small island of actual legal poker exists, on the border with our south neighbors in Eagle Pass, but otherwise of course Texas is a scourge of random oases of home games and “grey” poker rooms that circumvent the states anti-profit-from-gambling statutes in various ways or simply fly under the radar. My usual game is in one of these ‘grey’ cardrooms where a 1-2-5 PLO/PLO8 (one round of each) is offered. I prefer fixed limit mixed game with the mix usually including stud variants, draw games, and flop games of both low ball, hi-only and hi-lo split pot games. I play PLO because the game I really want is not offered (or offered too high). I play no limit hold ’em as an emergency measure only.

I have traveled to Los Angeles and Las Vegas to play poker this year so far. I have found the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles to have a pretty good mixed game at 12-24. The Commerce runs the nosebleed mixed game, but I don’t have enough dough for that one. The WSOP pulls in a great slate of mixed games. I had a great time with good results at the 9-18 mix at the Wynn, the 20-40 mix at the WSOP cash games and the 40-80 mix at Bellagio during this last trip. Kudos to Bellagio who also had a 80-160 & a 200-400 mixed game (too big for me, but super great to see).

I’m an ‘amateur’ or ‘serious hobbyist’ or ‘other-than-pro’ poker player. I have two other full time jobs – one working for the man and the other working for myself. Plus wife & four children and an owned business means I am permanently in this class and will remain in the Great Poker Desert of Texas. I’m older than most of you here, but hey I come in younger than Phil Laak. I do try to make it to Las Vegas at least one week during the series each year (targeting peak mixed game time around the 8-game or dealer’s choice tournaments which drive the cash games) and occasional other trips here and there as I can.

I got started about 14 years ago forming my own poker group and playing a dealer’s choice style game in which about half the games called were PLO or NLO8 with some NLH and stud thrown in and every once in a while a draw game. Unfortunately when I moved from El Paso, to San Antonio, the rest of the group did not move with me, so I have had to switch to more visiting remote poker heavy cities to search out these games.

Obviously, I follow Brad’s vlog which is how I found this site. 🙂

So – Howdy – its been fun getting to know y’all. Cya around the forums!

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