What? When did that happen? What were the circumstances?

Astrobel, we've both confirmed it. They aren't rumour.

http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/vi...er=asc&start=0

Empire? About a year ago by the side exit. Not sure if it's still a problem.

hopefully cash games at the fox will pick up now they've finally sorted a 24hr licence. fingers crossed on a regular 2/5 or higher game that runs that close to soho. one time

1. Spending some of the BBJ (that just cash game players have contributed towards) on unrelated promotions for MTT players sounds bad. That's not good.

2. The odd mugging is going to happen come what may - not a reason to totally avoid The Empire.

3. Judging from the customers they get at The Fox I imagine that getting a £2/£5 going there would be nigh on impossible (unless they get some high-rolling cash game players in after the next PKR Live or something).

You are most likely right but i'm hoping the demographic will shift somewhat. No cash games are going to prosper in an environment where play is being stopped every night and having to be rebooted with new players everyday. Its too disjointed and kills the prospect of games being reinforced by the grinders still wearily posting their blinds @ 9am.
This coupled with the proximity of the competition and you have to wonder why anyone would bother walking up to the fox and possibly finding no action when a game is 100% always running @ empire. One reason now though could be if a bigger game was running. Empire always seemed to shy away from running bigger games in the past, (i assume it's still the same forest of 1/2 now, i stopped going 6 months ago) and it wasn't from lack demand as the interest lists did grow @ 2/5, but there seemed v. little effort to actually attempt to run it.

It would take a bit of promotion and a couple of regs to build the game around to get something going. Wether the demand for higher games is still there now i don't know. I know i'd be there though.

Either that or a mixed game/DC or something. They've got to try and find an angle, things are only going to get tighter when the new hippodrome casino arrives.

Is the 1/1 game at the fox pretty nitty? I haven't checked it out on the assumption that a stones throw away at the empire, the impulsive gambler lurks- where as those going to fox may consider themselves to be a more serious breed of player.

SpeedLimter,
You are right about The Empire practically having a monopoly on the small cash games in the west end area. I've often wandered over to The Fox to slow down from the mad £1/£2 games at The Empire but always meet with a serious lack of cash game tables or dead serious players playing with their small stacks of about 30 or 40 odd quid. As for £2/£5, well personally I'm not quite ready to play at that level just yet.

Capital Christ,
I think you are right about the types of player at the different venues. The Fox is exclusively poker and even though they offer lower stakes games and the standard of play at their MTTs can still be suspect, your average customer at The Fox has probably read up a little bit on strategy. At The Empire, as well as the odd shark, you get allsorts of players from the drunks to the absolute clueless; especially on Friday and Saturday noght.

This, even though the Empire has had loads of traffic they never really tried to spread other games. The odd PLO is as much as you get and even that is rarely spread.

Is it not standard in many Vegas poker rooms to use the jackpot drop for several promotions as they see fit?

My understanding is that the jackpot drop is there to increase traffic and it's obviously better for the poker room to diversify the use of the liquidity they hold by awarding high hand bonuses, free-rolls or whatever as opposed to just having the BBJ growing faster.
What bothers me the most is the "admin fee" they get from every £ they collect from the jackpot drop, that's a huge money grab which obv. leaches the local poker room economy.

I don't mind MUCH if they use the fund for other promos, but they have to tell you that. They also have to have non-BBJ tables in that case.

As for standard of players from one room to another, it's really hard to tell as you need to be a regular at all three places. Is anyone? I find all of the games really soft and it feels like splitting hairs to say which is softer.

good players itt

There is a good swedish school in Barnes which I maybe will place my son in, what do you guys think about Barnes area to live in?

Also, about how long time does it take to get to Vics Casino from Barnes?

Thanks!

Barnes is a nice, solidly middle class area.

Barnes is an extremely nice area.

It's a few miles drive (probably about 7) to the Vic and not ridiculous traffic (for London!, it will still be busy), the route would skirt proper central London. On public transport it's a bit of a route, you'd have to get a bus to Hammersmith (unless you're in Castlenau, you can just walk over the bridge to Hammersmith), then a tube to Earls court, then another tube to Edgeware Road, were it's a five minute walk to the Vic. I don't think the buses are that frequent from Barnes, so that would be the weak link, once you get to Hammersmith, the tube part is only about 20 minutes (I've done it, I work in Hammersmith)

Thanks for the info.

I dont normally call anyone out, but the conduct of one of the players at the Empire last nite was a total disgrace and in all my time I have never seen anything quite like it. I make no apologies for posting this and told the players in question that I would be posting about the evenings event.

The players in Question were

1. Vietnam Quar who is one of the games regular grinders, for those that dont know of Quar, he is the master of spin ups but will on at least 2 of his weekly sessions have to borrow money to get himself home or back into the game. Recently Quar spun up around £50k and started playing the £5/£10 at the Vic, only to go busto in less than a month, hence now back playing the £1/£2 at the Empire on borrowed monies.

2. A Random Russian who soul read Quar when he tried to play a paired board and busted him.

3. Jewish Gareth, An very arrogant ex-barrister who now owns a chain of pawn shops and drives the most disgusting yellow bently ever to come out of the factory. He is an average player, who went busto last year and used to be considered value, IMHO he is now a break even player. He likes to brag abit about his omaha skills but I only saw him play greek Andy once and he appeared to have put Andy on tilt by snapping of Andys bluff with bottom pair and stacked him, a bit on the gobby side with little substance, but a good guy to play with as he can go on massive monkey tilt.

4. Chinese Helen, the mother of Value, although not in the hand she plays her part.


The problems started when the Random russian called Quars all in river shove on a double paired board with Jack High, the pot had around £90 prior to the shove and Quar shoved for £600 and lost. He then called the Russian an idiot and all hell broke out.

Gareth then told Quar that he is out of line, classless and showed little respect and Quar then said to Gareth, "at least i did not go into hiding for a £50 bet", at this point Gareth said to Quar, "I took a break from my game as I was losing to much money and the debt was paid" and then proceeded to call quar out by saying "if I owed money I would not be sat down at a poker table, so why are you and then told Quar that he should pay back the £1000 that he begged from Helen and has owed her for nearly a year", Helen then confirmed that the money was owed and had not in effect been paid back despite asking him on several occasions.

The Russian then told Quar to take it outside and then Gareth said I am up for that, but then Quar called the floor and was then moved to another table. 30 minutes later Quar then came back to the table and told Gareth that he will play him HU4ROLLS and started to mock Gareths stutter, Gareth then told quar that he would be willing to flip him for rolls as he thought that Quar had a bigger edge and then Quar just lost the plot, went back to the table he was moved to and went busto in the next 30 mins for 2k, Gareth then gave Quar a rub down and told him that he was not only the biggest asian fish that he has seen but also the worst player and that he should stick to bingo, the Russian then put in his two pence worth and starting to give Quar a proper rubdown.

What really took the piss about this is that all the players were out of line and the Floor just took Quars side, which given that the dealer also called out quar for starting and imflamming the situation was a total disgrace.

I have now called a few agencies about a flat in London and it does not seem that difficult to sign a contract without having a job on paper as I and many others thought.

This days because some of them just ask for 6 weeks of deposit plus offcourse one month in advance and the agency fee.

Perfect!

try spareroom.com

Anyone got a good tip how to open a bankaccount in London as a EU citizen who is just arriving?

I need a proof of an adress to sign a bank account but I also need a bank account to sign a contract for a flat.

What is the best approach and what bank is the least problematic one to deal with?

Thanks!

I guess I could just write a contract for a flat myselfe and give to the bank? I cant imagine they do a big investigation to check its authenticity.

Re: Conduct at The Empire on Weds night.

Although there is a lot of macho bull**** that comes from certain players at the tables and the trash talk and banter is usually harmless fun, there does seem to be quite a lot of personal stuff in there that sounds a bit nasty.

Quar calling the Russian guy an "idiot" could be seen as out of line but an insult like that is up to the person it's aimed at to respond how he wishes. Gareth shouldn't have got involved and it just seems like an obvious wind-up. Quar's come-back, at Gareth, about going "into hiding for a £50 bet" is harmless banter. Gareth then took it to another level by bringing in Quar's £1K debt with Helen. That sounds well out of order to me and is none of his business - spouting out that sort of thing at the table is just dodgy.

The stuff about bingo and playing HU4ROLLS is the sort of banter that you hear all the time but then Quar was wrong to take the micky out of Gareth's stutter. That's personal and not nice. But Quar losing £2K in 30mins at £1/£2 sounds suspect; this just wouldn't happen to a decent player right?

So my tuppence worth is that both Quar and Gareth were out of line for bringing personal matters into it. Maybe the management could have taken both players to one side and talked it through and smoothed it over in the office or something?

P.S. You do get the odd argument atThe Empire a LOT more than any other place but this is what I like about it; crazier players = more character and fun.

Pretty sure your bank or your letting agent will be more useful for answering this than we will. They probably get it all the time.

It does make it sound like a more interesting place, I was reading it thinking I'd have liked to be there. That kind of trash talk just reeks of insecurity to me though, it's hard to imagine any of them are comfortable in that game.

Agree re: £2k - I once lost 6 buyins in 10 hands online though & played fine so I guess it's technically possible.

Does Gareth wear a yamaka and have a posh accent?