Quote: PokerGrinderDoc this thread has infinite time allowed for editing posts. Also dwc if you’d like you can post your chip of the days and I’ll wait until you’re finished. No problem for me.
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My apologies for posting out of order. Please continue with your posting.
City: Delta, British Columbia
Casino: Cascades
Today’s chip of the day is from Cascades Casino in Delta, British Columbia. Cascades Delta opened up as the newest casino in Gateway’s family on September 29, 2022 with 500 slot machines and 18 table games. I was in Vancouver for about two weeks. I made a visit to this casino most days, very nice casino, good slot offerings, and while I didn’t try any food there the buffet smelled great every day. I played baccarat to collect my chip and broke even which I tend to do a lot seeing as it’s hard to win or lose too much when you don’t play a lot of hands.
The chip is an off white RHC with two green edge inlays. The centre inlay is gold around black. The Cascades logo which I can best describe as a colourful tornado is on the left side. The casino name, location and the denom are all white. The denom is printed and in the normal number form.
City: Chilliwack, British Columbia
Casino: Elements
Today’s chip of the day is from Elements Casino in Chilliwack, British Columbia. This casino was originally Chances Casino before being rebranded Elements Casino November 1, 2019. I’m not sure but I assume this is when they added table games to the property. The casino is quite small with only 300 slot machines and 6 table games. I played bj to collect my chip and player my standard couple hands when I’m collecting. I’ve been here about 10 times as they offer a good array of slots but one downside is that Chilliwack is made up of a lot of farm land so the parking lot tends to smell like manure. The smell is worse some days, not sure if it’s a wind thing or something to do with the actual farming.
The chip is white with 3 blue edge inserts. Under each edge insert is a larger blue rectangle and the denom is listed 3 times around the outside of the chip. The centre inlay is white with the casino name, location and chip denom all black. The logo is 8 red dots in the shape of an “E” for Elements.
City: Kelowna, British Columbia
Casino: Chances
Today’s chip of the day is from Chances Casino in Kelowna, British Columbia. This casino originally opened in 2002 as Kelowna Bingo and only offered Bingo. In 2006 they added slot machines, I wasn’t able to find a date for when they added table games. The casino has almost 400 slot machines and 6 table games. There is not a ton going on in this casino and it’s not a property that I would rush back to. I played $25 double deck as the other bj table was full. I won $100 before continuing on to the casino down the street.
The chip is white with 3 blue edge inserts each having a larger blue rectangle under it. The denom is listed 3 times around the edge of the chip. The centre inlay is white, there is a black block that has the casino location inside of it. Casino name is black over top of the logo with the denom in black at the bottom of the inlay. The logo consists of a 3 large rectangles in red, blue and yellow.
City: Fort McMurray, Alberta
Casino: Rivers
Today’s chip of the day is from Rivers Casino in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Rivers was rebranded on March 8, 2022 from the former Boomtown Casino which I posted my chip from on November 4, 2017. Boomtown was around in one capacity or another for 44 years, first starting as a roaming charity casino before finding a permanent home in 1990 and ten years later moving to its current location. Rivers Casino is not associated with the Rivers Casino brand in the states. The casino has 450 slot machines and 14 table games and poker tables. I drove up to Fort Mac from Edmonton solely to grab a new chip. It’s about 9 hours round trip. I won about $40 on some slots before winning $120 playing the $10 bj table.
The chip is blue with 4 Red/White/Red/White/Red edge inserts. The centre inlay is white with a red border. The casino name is blue (I’m about 80% sure of that lol) while “entertainment centre” and the denom are black. The logo is a flowing river light blue on dark blue.
City: Dallas
Casino: Shuffle 214
Today’s chip of the day is from Shuffle 214 in Dallas, Texas. On March 27, 2022 I posted my chip from the sister property Shuffle 512 in Austin. I mentioned that they had just opened a new club in Dallas but no games were running when I stopped in. This time I was more lucky in that they had two games running but unlucky in that I got two outed for $1000 and lost another big pot as well. The first game was slow and boring so I got a move to the table where the action was, problem was I just kept losing but that’s poker sometimes. The hostess/cashier lady suggested a Mexican restaurant nearby for me to try for dinner. I had the queso and chips both made in house and both great. I also had the burrito which was very solid too.
The chip is textured and white with 4 dark grey/light grey/dark grey edge inserts. The centre inlay is a light grey with the club logo, two “F’s” one backward in the middle of the chip. The denom is listed under the logo but surprisingly they don’t list the club name or location on the chip.
City: Aledo
Casino: Fort
Today’s chip of the day is from the Fort Card Room in Aledo, Texas. Aledo, Texas is about a 50 minute drive from Dallas. The Fort Card Room opened up in May, 2022 and I think it’s one of the top 5 rooms I’ve played in while in Texas. The club is huge with 20+ tables, the chairs were very comfy and the tables are high quality. The staff that I dealt with from the host, security, floor person, waitress and multiple dealers were all very good at their jobs and enjoyable to be around as well. This might not seem like the most important thing but a great staff makes an average room great. Now to the action, wow! They were running a deep stack 1/3 NL game where the whole table was straddling and the average stack was $1500+. I’ve played a lot of big poker games and this “small” 1/3 game was bigger than most of them. I’d say this game was bigger than most 5/10 games running in Vegas. People were there to gamble and reload just as fast as they lost their money. I was told this is the standard for the 1/3 game at Fort and the players who don’t like the action stay at the 1/2 game where the buy ins are capped at $300. The reason that the 1/3 plays so big is that the max buy in is $1000 or 75% of the biggest stack so as soon as I sat down I was able to buy in for $3k as the largest stack was $4k, this makes for a very deep game. I played for a few hours until the whales started calling it a night. I made a bunch in the game but I can’t remember how much, less than $1k more than $500 is the best my memory will do for me. On my way out I stopped at the “hot dog” cart outside. This was far from a hot dog cart though as he was cooking breakfast, hot dogs, sausages, hamburgers and the menu wasn’t done there. I went simple with a sausage with chili and he doused it in chili. There was so much chili that I sat in my car and struggled to eat it without making too much of a mess, I failed. It was good though and I’d happily eat at this man’s “hot dog” cart again.
The chip is white with two light blue edge inserts. There are 8 imprints of what looks like two playing cards around the edge of the chip. The centre inlay is white with a grey border. The card room name is black, the denom is blue and the logo of a cannon with a spade on its wheel is also black.
City: Joshua
Casino: 5220 Social
Today’s chip of the day is from 5220 Social in Joshua, Texas. 5220 Social opened on May 20, 2022 with 4 poker tables. The club is located south of Fort Worth about a hour from Dallas. One weird thing that I just found out while researching the club online is that they are open 6 days a week but closed in Saturdays… odd day to close, maybe they are Jewish? 😂 I stopped in around 7 pm to play and but they had a tournament running so no cash game had started yet. I drove a few minutes away and had dinner while watching the Celtics playoff game. I came back around 9 and played 1/3 for a hour making some gas money. The chairs were horribly uncomfortable and the game was very mediocre which is why I didn’t buy more time when my initial hour was up. An interesting note, I found out where the name of the club came from. Originally the club was in another location and the address was 5220 (don’t remember the street name) and then when they moved they kept the name because it would have cost a lot of money to rename it and buy all new stuff.
The chip is white with 4 blue/yellow edge inserts. The centre inlay is white with a grey star covering the majority of the inlay. The club name and the chip denom are both black.
Quote: PokerGrinder... Originally the club was in another location and the address was 5220 (don’t remember the street name) and then when they moved they kept the name because it would have cost a lot of money to rename it and buy all new stuff.
I think that the chip you posted from the 52 Social ♣️ illustrates an even more clever naming scheme.
As for the naming approach for today's chip, i.e., saving money by not changing the name, I am reminded of the line from the 1996 movie "Fargo", in which Officer Marge Gunderson quips, "Say, Lou, didya hear the one about the guy who couldn't afford personalized plates, so he went and changed his name to J3L2404?"
Quote: DocQuote: PokerGrinder... Originally the club was in another location and the address was 5220 (don’t remember the street name) and then when they moved they kept the name because it would have cost a lot of money to rename it and buy all new stuff.
I think that the chip you posted from the 52 Social ♣️ illustrates an even more clever naming scheme.
As for the naming approach for today's chip, i.e., saving money by not changing the name, I am reminded of the line from the 1996 movie "Fargo", in which Officer Marge Gunderson quips, "Say, Lou, didya hear the one about the guy who couldn't afford personalized plates, so he went and changed his name to J3L2404?"
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Perhaps they're planning to add 16 more tables "soon", so the name makes sense again?
City: Dallas
Casino: Peaks
Today’s chip of the day is from Peaks Poker room in Dallas, Texas. Peaks is a non profit poker room in Dallas that donates every penny of income to charities including children’s hospitals, family services and food banks among others. One small problem for the club is that at the time of my visit they weren’t making any profit. The owner who is quite well off from his previous career still donates generously to these causes out of his own pocket but hopes one day the club will be profitable. The club is gorgeous, no expenses saved. Top of the line tables, chairs, drink/food tables and about 40 tvs. Snacks and pop/water are provided at no cost to the player and dinner was order for the players as well. I played for a few hours before the game started to die around 9 pm on a weekend which doesn’t bode well for the club. The owner and off duty dealers helped to fill the one table in this club with about 20 tables available in it. Sadly this will probably go down as another failed club that can’t compete with the big boys. The owner of the club suggested a place to me called Velvet Taco which does their own weird take on tacos. I went 4 times over the two weeks I was travelling around Texas. I enjoyed all the different tacos I tried but I have a warning for you that these aren’t Mexican tacos by any means so don’t go expecting anything resembling Mexican food.
This is an interesting chip. The second I saw them I recognized them as I have an identical one in my collection, can you figure out where you’ve seen this chip before? The chip is blue with 3 edge inserts, one yellow, one grey and one green. The centre inlay is black with the peaks logo of two mountain peaks with the denom over top of it. The denom, poker room name and location are all white.
Quote: PokerGrinder...This is an interesting chip. The second I saw them I recognized them as I have an identical one in my collection, can you figure out where you’ve seen this chip before?
Perhaps you will consider it as taking unfair advantage, but as I read and respond to your posts, I am sitting at my computer workstation right next to my office desk, which is where my entire collection is on display under glass. Anyway, your CCotD looks a lot like this one that I have. (Used the hidden link so as not to spoil the question too quickly for others.)
Edit: In that post in the hidden link, one of the chip features I commented that I liked was that the casino name was molded into the chip. I notice now that your Peaks chip does not have that feature.
Quote: PokerGrinderI’m not sure if casinos have state restrictions on chips at all but if they do that would make sense since their is no gambling commission in Texas so they do as they please with their chips.
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It's been a while since going knee-deep into chip laws, but...
Some states require them to be sourced from approved vendors and manufacrurers.
I seem to recall something about minimum lettering size for required information.
I might have seen a guideline that larger physical size tokens/chips/plaques/jetons be generally higher denomination. (Unlikely to find a 60mm $1, for example.)
I think the rules about tokens may be more strict.
Other jurisdictions surely have different requirements.
Quote: smoothgrhI was going to ask if I'm allowed to post a chip that the Mrs. collected for me — she's in Nice, France right now — but I see that PG likely already posted it!!! Why'd you have to be so good?!
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Good or insane? I was in Nice back in 2017 my first time in Europe.
City: San Marcos
Casino: On the River
Today’s chip of the day is from On the River Poker Club in San Marco, Texas. San Marcos is a city of almost 70,000 roughly halfway between Austin and San Antonio. The club is a small poker room in a strip mall type of building with 4 tables. I drove a roundabout route to this club as I picked up my friend just south of Austin to go to a Spurs game and then drove him home only to then turn around and head back south to the poker club. When I walked in on a Saturday night they had one game going with 6 players. The game was fine, I played for a hour and lost $1500 playing some pretty bad poker. I got bad beat for my first $500, bluffed off my second $500 in a spot that I later decided was very punty and lost my last buy in of $500 in a flip but I don’t think I had enough fold equity to be shoving pre flop given that the guy called $500 with 44’s pre. Board ran out that his 44’s were good and I called it a night. Club is basic, nothing special.
The chip is white with 12 blue edge inserts and a blue line between each set of 3 inserts. The centre inlay is white and grey and shiny/holographic. The club name is grey, the denom is white and there is a river through the middle of the chip. The chip looks much better in person than it does on camera due to the shiny aspect of the chip.
City: Houston
Casino: Infinity
Today’s chip of the day is from Infinity Poker Club in Houston, Texas. This club opened up on January 12, 2023 after the owners bought the previous club that was located here. When I walked into the club they had about 25 tables and only one running. I immediately got a seat but 3 of the players were owners or dealers of the club so it was your standard inability to get enough players that sinks most of these rooms. Interestingly enough one of the players was the Korean old man in the wheelchair (he was less of a dick this time) who was previously one of the owners of 52 social and 52 social south in Houston who I met last year when he tried to open 52 ♣️ in Austin which has since failed and been sold last December. When I asked about the ownership of the club they didn’t mention him but I doubt it’s a coincidence that he was there. They don’t charge time here but rather take an illegal $10 max rake. I don’t personally care as I wanted to collect a chip but this not a club I’d visit if I lived locally. The game was 1/3 plo and had a decent amount of action. I won $600 or so in my hour and a half on the felt before moving on to my hotel. With a hour of play they comp you $25 of food from the Asian restaurant next door. The dealer and a player said the sushi was amazing so I ordered that. What came was quite possibly the worst sushi that I’ve ever eaten. I’ve never had gas station sushi but I would try it before every eating this sushi again.
The chip is actually the same model as yesterday’s which I didn’t realize until just now. The chip is white with 12 blue edge inserts and a blue line between each set of 3 inserts. The centre inlay is white with a purple infinity symbol with two black poker chips with a club in one and a spade in the other. The Diamond and heart are above and below the logo. The denom is black on both sides of the logo, the club name is black on the top with “poker club” in purple at the bottom and the location is black as well. I really like this chip, it has a nice clean logo and design.
City: Houston
Casino: Offsuit
Today’s chip of the day is from Offsuit Poker Lounge in Houston, Texas. Offsuit Poker Lounge opened up sometime between my visit to Houston in April, 2022 and this year in February when I visited this poker club. I wasn’t able to find an exact date. The club is quite small with 5 tables and actually quite hard to find. Google maps kept taking me to a parking lot of a bar but it wasn’t there. After driving around for 10 minutes I called the poker room and he directed me to the end of the street past the place maps took me and the poker club is attached to a restaurant/bar but the entrance is behind it so it’s near impossible to find if you don’t know it’s there. I parked and went in but no game was running. They said they open at 6 but a game doesn’t usually run until 8 or 9. I figured I’d stick around since I didn’t want to miss the game and because I was there before 7 I get $50 if I play a hour but if I left and came back I wouldn’t get the bonus. I sat around and shot the shit with the workers until we started shorthanded around 830. The game filled up fast with an interesting group of characters. Eventually a second game opened. The crowd started to thin out and the remaining group was starting to get quite drunk. Drunk splashy poker players are great unless you can’t make a hand and then you just lose consistently which is what I did. I wasn’t down a ton by the end of the night but I think I was down $500+. Overall a nice club, slightly tougher looking crowd but harmless I would say. This was more like a home game than a club as everyone knew each other.
The chip is white with 8 edge inserts, 4 green triangles and 4 thin red lines. The centre inlay is silver with a very decorative grey/black “O” overtop of a red and gold “S”. “OS” stands for Offsuit. The denom is black on top of the logo.
I apologize for the terrible photo, I realized I took the picture upside down and since I don’t have access to the chip right now I used edit to rotate the image but now it looks funny.
I also will have two chips I might get in London before a cruise to Norway. Sadly Norway doesn’t have casinos. One is a guarantee and the other while it’s a private club I think I can get a week pass at the door.
I’m headed back to London for a cruise to Iceland later this summer as well. (The reason for the 3 cruises is that I had a free offer that had to be booked by a certain date and these were 3 cruises that seemed fun) Now Iceland doesn’t have casinos and obviously there will be nothing new in London to collect as I will have just been there but I will be flying to Poland after the cruise is over to spend two weeks there. I haven’t put together a new list yet, but I still have one from last year when I didn’t end up in Poland cause I got Covid in Estonia. From that list I should be able to add a few new chips to the collection. My last stop of the trip is Berlin to fly home. I’ll be in Berlin for 4 days and my friend who lives there says there are 4 casinos but it’s possible they all use the same chips. So I will get at least one chip from Berlin but I’m crossing my fingers for 4 new chips.
Tldr I should have 35+ new chips to post this fall.
What ships are these?
City: Webster
Casino: Capri
Today’s chip of the day is from Capri Poker Room in Webster, Texas. Capri Poker Room is about a 30 minute drive from the centre of Houston. Capri opened on September 16, 2022 with between 20-30 tables. It’s a big room but I can’t find how many tables they have online and there are no pictures on google of the layout of the poker room. I played for two hours in a soft but short stacked game. If the game was deeper it would have been a gold mine with how bad these players were. In a double board plo bomb pot I got all in 3 ways on the turn with top boat on one board and both of them had trips on the other board. The pot was about $1500 and I joked that I had one out on the board I didn’t have the best hand on. If the last ace came on the bottom board I would win both boards and scoop the whole pot. Sadly the last ace came on the top board giving me quads which didn’t change anything. We all had a good laugh about it. The room was nice and seemed to be one of the few that could compete with the two biggest rooms in Houston.
The chip is white with 4 grey edge inserts which each have a larger grey rectangle under them. The denom is listed 4 times around the chip in grey. The centre inlay is black with a grey border and a yellow/orange design. The denom and the poker room name are a yellow/orange blend. Overall a very nice chip.
City: Houston
Casino: River Room
Today’s chip of the day is from River Room Poker Club in Houston, Texas. River Room opened on December 10, 2022 with 60 tables. The poker room is huge and beautiful with millions (I don’t remember how many they said) spent for top of the line everything. The first night I went there on Saturday around 7 pm and they didn’t have a game going so I came back the day after and they didn’t get a game running until about noon. They offer free time until 2pm (trying to get players in) but the game was so mediocre that when 2 pm came I told them I would stay until my cirque show later that day but I wasn’t willing to pay time. As the game was shorthanded already they agreed to not collect any time (which is their rake). The game was so small and slow that it wasn’t worth paying any time and I would have just gone down the street to the main 2 clubs in the city where I guarantee I’d find a better game. I’ve been meaning to check poker atlas since then to see how many tables they are getting but I assume it hasn’t been good because they are just down the street from the 2 busiest clubs like I mentioned. I assume the club will go out of business within a year or so unless they enjoy losing money. I won a few bucks and had a decent burger from their kitchen. The players playing were fun but like I said the game had very little action.
The chip is blue with 10 yellow edge inserts. The centre inlay is black with the club name in yellow and the denom in red. The logo is a spade with the state of Texas inside of it.
Quote: PokerGrinder...The chip is blue with 8 yellow edge inserts.
Do you count cards better than you count edge inserts?
City: San Antonio
Casino: HC Card House
Today’s chip of the day is from HC Card House in San Antonio, Texas. This card house is located inside of Hung Cuong Restaurant and Bakery which is what HC stands for in the name. The club is nice with 5 or 6 tables I can’t remember. This was the day after I broke my foot in Houston so I wasn’t moving around very well. The owner accommodated me and helped me with my crutches when I needed them leaned against the wall after sitting down and then he got them for me again when the table broke. I had some mixed fried rice which was ok but quite salty, wouldn’t suggest it. The game they were playing 6 handed when I got there was 5/10 hi/lo Omaha. I don’t play a lot of Omaha and I play even less hi/lo but as with most Texas games the players are bad so I’m better than them even at games I don’t play much. I played for about 90 minutes until the game broke as people started to head home for dinner and whatnot. I was up about $50 but more importantly it was a fun group of guys. The owner was about 40 and the other five guys averaged around 70 so they were amused that I wanted to play with them.
The chip is white with the name of the card club around the edge twice in black. The centre inlay is a mustard brown with a large eagle that looks like it’s about to grab its prey. “H” and “C” are on either sides of the eagle’s talons. The denom is listed above the eagle in black and underneath the eagle is a royal flush in spades.
City: San Antonio
Casino: Office
Today’s chip of the day is from The Office Card House in San Antonio, Texas. Back in April of last year I posted my chip from Abby J Card House which is still one of my favourite chips in my collection. After playing there I had no idea how they stay open since they barely got one table per day. My friend who had been there the year before and I had two theories, first it was a front for laundering money or two the owner was just willing to lose money month after month to have his own “play area”. The second one seems more likely and I guess he got sick of footing the bill because he sold the club about a year ago to a 40 year old family man who then changed the club name to The Office. When I stopped in (hobbled in on my crutches) the game hadn’t started yet so I sat down and played some new poker variant with the dealer, owner and one player. The game was weird and I lost about $4 trying to figure it out. We started the 2/5 game shorthanded but it filled up pretty quick. I heard some stories from the new owner about the old owner including how much of an ass he was and how when he sold the club he pocketed a $100,000 (don’t quote me on that but I believe that was the number) bad beat jackpot instead of giving it out to players as intended. I guess he figured it was a rebate on the costs over the years. Now I was wondering how much of the bad stories were true until two players showed up and one confirmed all the stories, she was the previous owner’s daughter and the mom of Abby J who the club had been named after. I’m amazed how few nice things she had to say about her dad. The game was great and we played until there were only 3 of us left. I cashed out up $800 and called it a night.
The chip while not as nice as the previous one from Abby J is still very well done. Overall an extremely nicely designed chip. The $25 chips were mint coloured rather than the more common darker green. The owner said the sample came the wrong colour but he liked it so he kept it that way for the set he ordered. The chip is white with what looks like grey ink spills all over the chip including the inlay. All writing is black with the denom around the edge of the chip, the club name in the inlay in a rectangle and under that is the location and year the club opened.
("Lots of little bumpies"?)
City: El Paso
Casino: Flaming Aces
Today’s chip of the day is from Flaming Aces in El Paso, Texas. I tried to go to Jack of Hearts when I got to El Paso and the guy said the game would start later. The club was huge with about 20 tables so I figured it would have action. I took a nap and headed back to find the door locked and nobody was on the poker list on PokerAtlas. I then went to Flaming Aces where I was told by a few players that they never get games going over there. Flaming Aces is a smaller club with 4 tables on one half of the club and slot machines on desktop computers taking up the other half. A few years ago the slot machines were explained to me that they play for credits not cash so it’s not illegal but then the credits are turned into cash so it’s the same thing as far as I can see. I’ve seen the slot machine desktops in multiple Texas cities so they must get away with it. There was one table running with a fun group of guys. There was a lot of table talk with people razzing each other and I joined right in. The locals loved that the new guy was busting balls without a worry. The owner’s wife made some amazing tacos on soft corn tortillas. The chicken was amazing and the hot salsa was amazing too, I had seconds on the tacos. These are definitely not tacos you get in the northern USA or Canada. I played for 3 hours until it got late and I figured I should get some sleep before driving to Vegas. On my way back to my hotel I saw what looked like a poker room that I had never heard of before… to be continued tomorrow.
The chip is white with 4 blue/yellow edge inserts. There are 8 engravings of playing cards around the edge of the chip. The centre inlay black with dark yellowish writing. The logo is a spade on fire, there is a club and heart on either side of the logo and a diamond and spade inside of the logo. The club name is listed below the logo with denom in white at the bottom of the inlay.
City: El Paso
Casino: High Society
Today’s chip of the day is from High Society Poker Club in El Paso, Texas. As I mentioned yesterday I was headed back to my hotel when I saw what looked like a poker room sign so I stopped to check it out. I walked in and there was a full table which ended up being a tourny and then a dealer, a girl and what turned out to be an off duty dealer at another table. I asked if they were going to play and they said maybe if the tourny players bust and join. I sat down and chatted until they decided we could play 3 handed which was fine with me since I just wanted a chip. We played for about 30 minutes with the other players full on soft playing each other cause they were friends which is very wrong normally but again I didn’t care as I just wanted to play for my chip. The girl busted her $80 and then the owner’s dad sat with us. The 3 of us played 3 handed for a while and they were your standard bad players. I won $120 over the short period before we called it a night which doesn’t seem like much but 3 handed in an over raked game that is pretty huge. After we finished, the tourny players and the 3 of us played 6-7 hands of 5 card Omaha flips where we all put $20 in and the dealer deals 5 cards. It’s silly straight gambling but since we open one card at a time it gets loud and fun. I ended up losing $20 during the flips and called it a night. Fun group and I would happily play at this club again minus the large illegal rake.
The chip is grey with 12 black edge inserts and 6 white horizontal diamonds between the edge inserts. The centre inlay is blue with the logo in the middle. The logo is a black spade with a crown on it, the denom is in the middle of the spade in blue. The club name is black above and below the logo, with “society” having a $ instead of the S. I’m not sure if this is what they were going for but a “stack of high society” in chips is a 20 stack of $500 chips or $10k.
City: Houston
Casino: Lucky Aces
Today’s chip of the day is from Lucky Aces Social Club in Houston, Texas. I saved this one for the end of my Texas chips because it’s a weird one. I found this club on google maps and went to check it out. It’s on the second level of a strip mall looking place. I went in and asked about poker and two Asian woman in broken English told me there is no poker running. I asked a few questions trying to gauge if they ever have games and I could maybe get a chip later. Eventually a lady who spoke more English came out and talked to me. She said they almost never get poker games going but they have bj and baccarat, confused I confirmed live tables not electronic which she confirmed. I said ok, how does it work? She explained I needed a membership and to buy credits. 1 credit = $0.10 and it costs 13 credits to play one hand of bj and I think 16 for baccarat. Before I could figure out the cheapest way to collect a chip at this very illegal club she says I will waive your membership fee and give you 1000 credits if you want to come try it out and play. I said sure, gave them some info and went in. Inside looked like a normal casino with one guy playing $500 a hand on baccarat and some dealers being taught at another table. I sat down at the bj table, she pulled the cards from the shuffler and I cut them. She started dealing and on the 2nd or 3rd hand a bullseye card comes out and I stop cause I have no idea what’s happening. They then explained that this is Texas Bullseye not blackjack. They take the 16 ten value cards out of the deck and insert 13 of these Bullseye cards worth 10. So basically if you’re counting, the 6 deck shoe starts at a -18 lol. I didn’t stick around long as the game sucked but also I didn’t want to be there when the club inevitably got raided. Very odd place to find in Texas.
The chip is white with 6 light blue edge inserts. The centre inlay is black with a blue border and the club name and denom written twice each around the inlay. The logo is hard to decipher, there is a better picture of it on chipguide. It looks like two men in cowboy hats, each has a stick, one with a club on it and a one with a 4 leaf clover. The club and 4 leaf clover appear again at the corners of the blue mound in the inlay. The club name and denom both appear in white.
:-)
City: Kalispell
Casino: Fatt Boys
Today’s chip of the day is from Fatt Boys Bar and Grille in Kalispell, Montana. I made a quick stopover in Kalispell for two days and hit up the 2 poker clubs in the city that are both run by Montana Poker Room. On Monday they ran 5/10 limit O8 which I played for about 2.5 hours. The game was brutal since it was small, limit and a split pot game, all annoying things. I stayed as long as I did for two reasons, one the table talk was good, it was a bunch of old dudes razzing each other which is fun and also I had nothing else to do since I was in the middle of nowhere. I ended up losing $300 in the game, I couldn’t make a hand to save my life and I got quartered with the nut low 5 times. That means I had the best possible low hand and the other player had the same low and a better high hand than me. They get the half of the pot for the high hand and then we split the half that goes to the low. Quartering shouldn’t happen as much as it did, at least not to the same player (me) over and over lol. I lost my buy in and left with one measly chip for my collection.
The chip is a white, lower quality hot stamp with 4 blue edge inserts. Each insert has A, K, Q or J on it. Between each insert is a card engraved on the chip with either an A or K of spades on it. The centre inlay is white with a blue and white checkered outline. There is a gold “GP” hot stamp in the middle of the inlay. None of the chips had the denom on them. I was told a story of where these chips come from but I’m skeptical of the accuracy. GP stands for Glacier Poker which apparently was a poker room in Whitefish, Montana about 20 years ago. The reason I doubt that this story is true is how all the hot stamps look almost new which definitely would be unlikely after 20 years and being passed around to multiple clubs. The more likely option I think is these are the original chips from Glacier Peaks Casino 2 hours away. I posted my chip from there over 5 years ago so it’s possible these were their original chips before they got nicer ones. I guess we will never know!