Hey was wondering if anyone's played at Gala in Bristol. Heard they have some cash tables running, just curious if anyone from 2+2's been, interested in going up one weekend (I live in Devon) and playing 1-2+ really.

Do they usually get running once players bust out of the donkaments?

Hi walshp1,

Because there's a Saturday afternoon tournament, if you're going up for the evening, there'll be a NL50 table going from relatively early. Other tables get going, as you say, as people bust from the tournament. Or were you thinking of coming up midweek?

They also have tables for NL100 and NL200/PLO200 round of each which sometimes don't run because of lack of interest.

The tables have a max bi of 200bb, I think the rake is 10% capped at 10bb. No flop, no rake.

Dealers are competent and room is generally well run. Any time I've needed to call the floor, they've always made the right decision.

They used to only have a single table of 50NL (£100 max bi), but last time I was in there were 3 of them going and they couldn't fill the higher bi games. If you can get into the NL200/PLO200 game, the action is reputed to be pretty good, but I haven't played it yet.

There are a few decent regs, but enough tournie bust outs to keep the games interesting.

Many thanks for the reply! Mainly interested in weekend games, wasn't really looking to play in the 50NL but it may be good to get my live confidence up.

Would be looking to play in the NL200 game, will have to try gala one weekend soon.

NL200 does not run very often, from what I have experienced there.

Main games are 0.25/0.50 Holdem, 0.25/0.50 PLO/Holdem, 0.50/1 Holdem and 0.50/1 PLO/Holdem.

Games are soft and players (especially at 50NL) tend sit deeper than your average casino reg. Rake is horrendous, but this is Gala, the biggest UK Casino chain, so you may know that by now. Still beatable though, would recommend it on that alone.

What I wouldn't recommend though (despite BokBokBok's comment) is the dealers and cardroom staff. Very rude, not very knowledgeable about the game, and just slow in general. Look out especially for one Russian dealer with a name similar to 'Arthritis' - he is the worst of the lot.

Best night to go down, in my opinion, is Thursday. They have a triple chance tournament going on and it always gets 60+ runners (last week 100+).

Guess must have been lucky with my tables :O but I guess in hindsight, comparing them to the speed of the dealers at places like Dusk Till Dawn, they are a little lacking.

I have seen certain dealers give preferential treatment to regs when they call a seat free even though I've been sat watching the game waiting for a seat with my name on the list.

And I did have to deal the whole table every hand in a tournament, no passing the deck with the button, gave me a serious disadvantage, but I presume standard. At least I got a drink to the value of the £3 for my evening of work ¬_¬

Tournaments at this casino are great value and worth coming down for. They regularly get around 100 runners even for entries as low and £30 which can mean £8-900 for 1st place. I also think they're soft as ****.

Cash games is completely different. Painfully slow and just because its 25-50p means it doesn't play like your regular cash table. Mostly consists of a multi-way limped pot reaching £3. it's just best to go with the flop and limp your 50p and try flop a monster. Play for a laugh here but don't expect to be making any decent money.

Trip report: Casino was terrible, reminded me of a bowling centre more than a casino. 25p/50p cash table was as awful as expected, put bluntly it's a perfect game if you've played about 15 hands in your life and are content with making £3.65 an hour after the hideous 10% rake.

To the positives, Bristol people are nicer than expected though.

Never thought of it like that before, but you are so right!

Two tables of £50NL (10% capped at £6) and one table of £100PLHE/PLO were running on Saturday.

The regs need to stop posturing at showdown. They all know each other, and whilst I understand having some theatrics is good to keep the casual player excited, the EV lost from playing less hands is surely enough reason not to do it.

How to handle this? Surely it's in the interest of the card room to play more hands? Talk to card room manager? Take regs to one side and explain it to them? Just put up with it as a facet of live poker?

Pretty sure 200NL/PLO ROE never runs, regs tend to prefer to play 200NL PLO and that only runs on certain days although don't know which.

Nothing you can do about the regs IMO, they play there tons and aren't going to change. Most are good fun though and interesting to chat to which makes up a little bit for them all being slow but not at all for the ridiculous rake - last year it was something like 5% capped at £4 (I think...) and then over last summer they upped it to the current rate pretty much destroying the 50NL tables

If you do play cash on a Friday/Saturday, especially 50NL, the casino tends to fill up with people from the Harborside on nights on who are splashing money, plenty have never played before. Try and make sure you get a seat on the table with open seats, which is normally the one in the card room - it's less obvious and not as close to the roulette but they'll get redirected into the card room anyway because the waiting list is normally there. When it quietens down a bit move onto the card room table because people will sit down with £20 for a gamble when they want a break from roulette/blackjack if there are free seats.

Most of the dealers are an OK standard but not amazing, few are a bit dodgy but standard generally is OK

As for tournies, Friday night is a £30+3 F/O which generally gets 100+ runners and £1k up top. Structure is OK, average tends to stay above 10bb at all points and think it finishes about 2am. Most regs like dealing so they can get onto the cash tables/get home so don't be too afraid to offer - I've got even chops 5 way as SS with like 3bbs before Monday is my personal favourite tournament if you just want to play for fun, £20+5+2 bounty which doesn't get many runners (30-50) so the structure is OK and it's normally good fun

A note: the bigger tournaments are self dealt despite the 50% rake

On the last Sunday on every month there's also a £100+10 deepstack, not played it before but all the regs play it along with a bunch of casual players. No idea how many runners.

There are also splash pots every couple of hours on the cash tables (every 2-3hours I think) where they chuck in like £10-£15 of fortune chips which can be spent on food or games.

I went up there last friday, sat at the 1-1 table (sat with 120 about standard for the table) and found the standard of play horrific and some real ATMs at the table, didn't really notice the rake as I didn't play very many pots, but between the four of us that went up we notched up £1,250 in profit. Venue was OK, I normally play live at a G Casino which is finished better. The sunday before we went up they had a 2 day £150 buyin that got 7.6k up top so the tourneys always seem to get a decent amount of runners, the friday tournament had over 60 runners and was a £30 freezeout with I think 30min levels.

The £150 buyin was a special OWP event. There's probably about 2 a year there. However, there is a monthly £100 buyin, not sure of runners.

Current schedule is here:
http://cachewww.galacasino.com/docum...hedule2012.pdf

(linked from http://www.galacasino.com/casino-fin...ol-harbourside for when that schedule is outdated).

Urgh, went down last night. Cash game regs still whiny bitches, after tourists had gone I tried to explain why they shouldn't treat the fish like they do. You can imagine how it went down.

sucks they got rid of the monday £30 bounty but it never got many runners, was always pretty fun tho and quite friendly. how does the triple chance work? never played it

Max 2 rebuys that can be taken as addons if unused.

10000x this. Think he's Polish though, long hair, always a sly grin on his face. My friend and I went down, he got into a big pot AIPF with QQ vs AK, asked to run it twice, and the dealer refused, saying it was against Gala policy, despite both of them agreeing to it and the fact that my friend was an ex-croupier working for Gala Cardiff and Les Croupiers?... After winning the pot, he abruptly left, asked to speak to the cardroom manager, and the dealer basically lied, saying he was the cardroom manager, preventing us making a complaint and saving his own skin.

Maybe the problem here isn't with the dealers, but the people trying to slow the game up by running it twice? I support the dealer with his decision here, man up and take the variance :P

Seriously though, I'm not too well experienced with other casino's so can't compare.

Most of the dealers do have a dry sense of humour and are open for a joke, you just need to take the right tact. I'd be pretty miserable dealing the regs in there and to new faces who try to argue the toss with me, it's a lot easier for them just to say "policy".

You guys are live poker players, you should be in your element finding the right tact with people to make them loosen up. Same applies to dealers as it does to players. It's part of your job to make the table a friendly environment, dealer miserable? Make him happy.

The actual card room manager can be quite helpful.

Worth noting now btw that signing in for cash games is done by swiping your membership card just inside the card room.

Wasn't because we lost the hand, we won it.

What I didn't like was the dealer flat out lying to us, that's just unprofessional.

May not be Gala policy, but could be policy local to Gala Bristol?

Congrats on winning the flip btw, good job.

More love from the regs on Saturday night. None of them recognise me from my quarterly visits, so I'm likely some random from the pit. Yet they won't engage me in fun conversation, even to the point of accusing me of being either drunk or being a card shark that moves around random casinos acting up to put people on tilt.

When will they learn to treat new players well? Have fun passing your money around each other whilst the house takes the 10% rake guys!

Mate. I've known you a few years now and even I wouldn't talk to you.



:butthurt

Moving to Bristol soon, not sold by this Casino from comments.

Please tell me the poker scene has burst to life in the last month

Mate. I cannot lie to you.



I literally invested in a car to go play in Cardiff, Birmingham etc... :/

Not really sure why you'd do this with so many fishies in the Gala.

because its a soul destroying place

This. As a recreational player it was quite depressing the way the staff have no respect for the players or even the game that actually gives them a job to come to. In fact it was making me ill to the point where I now only go roughly 2/3 times a year. I used to play live nearly every day by the way...