Short of hopping SWA to Vegas of course.

I've been playing online for about 3 months with some success but little consistency. The times I've played home game tournaments I've busted out early for getting impatient. I think the best place to continue my development learn would be in person. If not, I'd like to try it anyway.

I've looked up Coushatta and Harrah's Lake Charles. Are these Casino's Poker rooms worth the trip, or should I just go all the way to N.O.?

Thoughts?

I've not been to Coushatta but have been to Lake Charles...Isle of Capri is where to play...kind of an old room but plenty of soft $3-6-12 and $5-10 games. Harrahs was dead the last time I went to LC but may have picked up some. Harrahs has a very nice modern clean new pokerroom....their problem...no players...but as I said that may have recently changed. Of course, Harrahs and Isle are just across the river from each other so it takes about 10 minutes to get from one to the other so check 'em both out.
I did find out that you can take a bus from Houston to Isle for $1 round trip if you have an Isle players card...it's Greatland Coach and you can find them on the internet with their schedules.
Good luck!!! Where in Houston do you live?....maybe we can set up a trip together..
Stan
Houston (Jersey Village)

http://www.angelfire.com/oz/houstonpoker/

Isle of Capri is OK. Lot of old players... people w/ money to burn. But last time I went (about Nov. '04) they were taking a 10% rake which is ridiculous. I guess it was b/c it was a Saturday. But jeez, you have to win 11% of the time just to make a 1% profit! And if you sit at the 3-6-12 limit table, I'd bring about 360 dollars (30X Large Bet). Otherwise, if you show up with the minimum $60 like I mistakenly did, you wont have enough to ride the bad streaks! I was out in 1 hour!

Harrahs poker room was much nicer. Not SUPERB, but definitely more high-tech and cleaner. Not as many players, but still plenty of action for ya. Isle probably had about 150-200 players. Harrahs' probably 120. You wont notice the difference once you sit down anyway.

I haven't played for real money here in Houston. I've heard a lot of places have been getting busted for selling alcohol and poker.

Card rooms are turning up all over the place. I am in Dallas and there are 4 card rooms within a 5 mile radius of my house. Do a google search and see what shows up.

There are places to play all over texas and you should not have trouble finding a game in Houston. However, keep in mind a raked game is not legal in texas and a lot of these cardrooms are not doing it for free obvoiusly. The only legal cardroom in texas is Eagle Pass down south by the boarder. It's an indian casino but I hear they just opened up the cardroom. They have a website.

I live in Temple so my options for a legal cardroom are Shreveport, LA or EaglePass. However, like I was saying there are tons of "home" games around.

Here is a place to find these "home" games:

http://www.homepokergames.com/texas.php