Join a Poker Club!
There are a number of options to play poker. There are online poker sites: fun at any time day or night with no dress code and no leaving the house. There are live casinos with poker rooms: fun with live people, again at any time, but you got to drive there and can’t play in your underwear. There are backroom bar poker games: fun with drunks and sometimes very lucrative, but you got to deal with drunks with little or no security. There are home games: fun with friends (depending on the friends you might be able to play in your underwear) but usually not very rewarding stakes.
As stated they are all “fun” but how can playing poker not be fun. Well, except when you are losing. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. There is one option not on the list. If you are lucky you can join a Poker club which combines all of these things.
I played in a poker club of my friend, visiting as an out of town guest, and I immediately wished I had the same thing locally. The poker club had the best of all poker options in one place. Like a casino they offered security, in fact, the club was probably more secure. It put a premium on protecting players money and players. The poker club made its money from monthly dues and didn’t rake the pots. The owners only played in tournaments, never cash games, and insisted that on the tables they played on, the players deal the hands. They didn’t want even the suspicion of their dealers shooting them better cards.
They had security cameras outside and inside the venue. The tapes were housed in room that could only be open with a key that was never on the premises. Would be thieves looking to cover their tracks would never be able to access the room, at least not before the cops arrived. The club took steps to make sure they were a legal business in the area, so had an alarm wired like a bank directly to the police.
Thieves would be foolish to rob it anyway, as the poker club, scanned checks or credit cards from the players and never had much cash on the premises. The only money thieves could steal was from the players themselves. The fact that one or two of the owners were always there with a shot-gun and an armed off-duty cop worked the door made it even less attractive to rob.
The poker club had a big enough customer base that there was almost always a game. They did have a dress code, so players looking for options to play in their underwear or in the nude, would have to stick to playing online. Actually, the club went a step further then just offering live play. They had a bank of computers that players could play poker on while waiting for a game. So, in the club you could play online poker too. Some players mostly play the computers.
They also allowed players to bring their own alcohol. They put it in a refrigerator and gave the players a ticket like a coat check. Wait-staff would bring the drinks to the players. Course once your beer ran out you couldn’t buy any more. They also had a limit on the number of drinks a player could “deposit” before a session. After I think 6 or 8 hours of play they were allowed to restock. So like a bar, you did have drunks you could exploit.
The club was also very responsible about calling cabs for their players when they had drank too much, so it was safe from a number of perspectives. Also, they were willing to spread and deal home games on a table as long as they were given notice and all the players were members of the club. Considering the pool tables, dart boards, shuffleboards, big screen TVs, couches, and video games you really couldn’t ask for a better poker club.
I can also recommend to play and practice your skills at a safe and high traffic poker site such as: https://www.bwin.com/texas-holdem-poker. See you there!