button in SafariPoker Director's Visions for Unique Dallas Poker Room, Champions Social Club
A legal battle win for the Dallas poker community happened last year, paving way for Champions Social Club to begin preparations to open.
The social club, which boasts one of the most unique card rooms in the state, spent months preparing the venue to transform from what was once an iconic Texas steakhouse into a spot that hosts some of the juiciest poker games in the Lone Star State.
The club still has that upscale steakhouse vibe — Champions was previously the legendary III Forks restaurant. And that's precisely what makes this place such a unique spot to play poker.
John Hardin, the club's poker director, has extensive experience running poker games, not just in Texas. He's been in this industry since the 2000s playing poker, dealing at Bellagio in Las Vegas, and running private games in Atlantia.
He even managed the iconic Bobby's Room at Bellagio where some of the top high-stakes cash game players compete. But he couldn't pass up the opportunity to run a new room in Dallas, a city with a booming poker industry despite some zoning issues and some politicians in Texas continually fighting to have these social clubs shut down.
Why This Poker Club Can Thrive
Hardin isn't from Dallas, but he's building relationships with players in the area since he took on the job six months ago.
"I know some of the local characters just from my time in Bobby's Room, and forgive me if I don't name drop, but there's some prominent poker players that come from this area that that I've had some interactions with. So just from dealing with them, I have a little bit of insight, and then just different members of poker staffs in different places I've worked," Hardin said.
Hardin referred to poker in Texas as a "storied game in the area." He understands that certain poker players in Texas have strong demands for their poker room of choice, and that's what Champions Social Club is bringing to the community.
"We're not looking to capture 100% of the market share here," Hardin explained. "We're looking to kind of curate an elevated experience, and not necessarily just in terms of size of the games that we run, but just, if you run a nicer place and you create some kind of arbitrary barriers to entry, you end up as a feature of that elevating your clientele a little bit. And I think that's really the under spoken goal of this place, is just we want to be the nicest place to go play, and if that doesn't appeal to you, that's ok because you're probably not our target demographic anyway."
The poker room manager is taking a realistic approach to his club, and his mindset isn't to take over the Dallas poker industry overnight. Instead, he explained, his staff is prioritizing getting one game of the ground and building from there. The room has already hosted some big private games, some Pot-Limit Omaha cash games, and plenty of No-Limit Hold'em.
"And then the other end of the spectrum is the guys that see this as a nice place and see it as the nicest place that they can host their private or semi-private game, and so they choose to come here. And then just kind of building that in from these outside edges to having a more comprehensive set of offerings, but still within the constraints of, you know, we've only got as many tables as we do."
Champions is far more than just a poker room. The club offers gourmet food for lunch and dinner.
"The standard menus that you can get here is much more elevated than I've ever seen in another poker environment and it stands on its own," Hardin said.
Executive Chef Connie Trujillo worked for the original steakhouse until it closed in 2020. She's back in the same building under different management and a different menu, and she brought her experience and talents to a poker club that offers full-scale food and wine menus.
Convincing local players to leave their regular games at major rooms such as Texas Card House isn't an easy task. But Hardin is playing the long game and has a vision for making Champions Social Club a leading destination for poker and dining.
I was talking to some guys and they were saying, oh, you really need to get the membership model figured out before we can do something and my response to them was, I'm not looking to get married. I just want you guys to come in and try the poker room here and come and visit, have a drink at the bar, check the games out, play or don't, but just see the space. It's quite nice and I feel very similar in this place as I did walking into the poker room at the
Wynn the first time.
Hardin wants Champions Social Club to be the "nicest place to play poker" in town and a "pleasant environmnt." So far, that mindset is working out for the new Dallas poker club.
Champions also runs an established poker room in Houston, which features an attached hotel, a rarity in the Texas poker industry. The room is co-owned by Poker Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth, who makes a few trips out to Texas each year to play on the livestream.
