Hello all,

I'm a 20-something poker player living in London, UK who plays recreationally. I've been on a massive heater the past 1-2 months, so what better time to make a PGC?

I've played live poker on and off for around 2 years, with a bit of NL25 zoom here and there on train journeys/home but my bread and butter is live cash games.

The following are my short-mid term goals in poker and in life:

Move up to £2/£5 and beyond Beyond some recent shots, I still tend to stick with £1/£2 and £1/£2 deep-stack unless the game is particularly good.

Reduce volume Yes, actually reduce my volume. Currently I play almost every day, which can't be good for my health long-term coupled with a full-time analytical job.

Continue to develop exploitative adjustments Over the past month or so I've felt like I've become an infinitely better live poker player. I'd like to continue experimenting with lines that maximise value versus London fish, through paying more attention to hands I'm not involved with and experimentation with zoom games.

Reduce volume Yes, actually reduce my volume. Currently I play almost every day, which can't be good for my health long-term coupled with a full-time analytical job.

Continue making friends/be more selective I've made a boatload of great friends through live poker, who're not only pro players but super interesting/fun people to boot.

And some pat on the back stuff to boot....

Developed excellent understanding of poker theory I've worked my absolute arse off on my game over the years, from exploitative stuff like the Ed Miller books to the more theory orietnated stuff like Janda which have elevated my games in ways I'd never have thought possible. I really feel that my understanding of poker theory is first-class relative to my stakes, and want it to keep going from strength to strength

Running Good. Yep.

I'll try to update this thread fairly regularly, as I think it could be great motivation! Anyone who plays london cash games I'm particularly interested to hear from, the london thread gets a bit dead from time to time and I'm curious to match faces!

(Also I've basically completely copied Make Them Dig's intoductory post, so sorry!

Played a pretty nice albeit card-dead session today on some better-than-average-for-a-Wednesday £1/£2 games. Some interesting hands...

Poker Stars, £1/£2 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 9 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #37290973

Effective Stack £500

MP opens with a very wide range, CO is a recreational player but not an idiot.

Preflop: Hero is BTN with AQ
3 folds, MP raises to £13, HJ calls, CO calls, Hero raises to £40, SB folds, BB folds, MP calls, HJ calls, CO calls.

Flop: (£163) Q 8 2 (4 players)
MP checks, HJ checks, CO checks, Hero bets £90, MP folds, HJ folds, CO calls.

Turn: (£340) 8 (2 players)
CO checks, hero?
Poker Stars, £1/£2 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 9 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #37290973

What casino's do you tend to go to when playing in London.

Good to see you're playing some zoom and thinking about ways to exploit London fish the most. Paying attention to what happens outside of hands is important too but you don't want to waste too much mental energy if you plan to play a long session.

In regards to the hand you posted I'm not a live player (yet) but I'll try and do my best.

Pre sizing is okay I guess, do you really wanna see AQo 4 ways in position though. I don't think by making it 40 after MP opens to 13 and seeing two calls to your left you're seeing many folds in a london game (you're the reg though, maybe I'm wrong).

Yeah flop sizing seems good. CO who you say is a rec but not an idiot calls. He likely has some heart combos, stuff like 9Thh, the fact that the 8h came on the flop takes a way of few of his combos imo. Then he can have the usual QJ QK QT kinda stuff. The guy can have some 8x combos too, A8 and the other suit connector 8s.

I think on turn a bet is likely good, he's going to hopefully continue with his Qx and heart draws. Maybe pick a smaller sizing if he calls and jam most brick rivers. Think we fold if he raises, too often an eight.

What we can also do is just check back the turn and try and bluff catch and let him bet off with a lot of worse hands then you however we give his hearts a free card and we don't rep many flush draws when we check turn in this spot so us having the blocker wouldn't give us a lot if the heart got there on river.

I think the best line would be betting around half pot on the turn, if he jams again comes down to the villain, you know him better than me.

If he flats jam on bricks and let him sigh call off with worse queens and if it comes a heart and he doesn't lead part of me doesn't hate checking back. Don't know how often the rec is just going to jam his flushes on river when he gets there in london.

Pretty interesting spot, betting turn and reacting on river accordingly.

Thanks Labax,

I play the Vic, Hippo and Empire in roughly equal amounts.

I agree, pre I think I could have gone a pinch bigger like £40. I dont really want to blow everyone off though with 3x + 1 for each cold caller, remember it is £1/£2 and he raised to £13 in a non-straddled pot haha.

Yes, in retrospect I really like either checking back the turn or betting smaller because even though OTT theres like 1psb left as I look super strong here. Theres £350 or so left so its a huge shove even though the pot is extremely bloated.

I think if you look at it from his perspective, the guy still wants to keep playing for a while and I want to bet small enough such that he's still got a little bit left to play with without reloading if he doesn't want to go home. Through a lot of experience in these games I've found the bet check bet line to be very profitable with top pair type hands even though its an inherently bad/ugly line against good players in many spots.

Playing again tonight, I've a ton of hands I want to write down for you guys. ITT I'm going to focus on hands revolving around extracting maximum value from recreational players, and really being critical of my own play and bet sizing as I've been a bit sloppy recently. Gl at the tables!

Yeah I can see why the checking back line works super well vs the recs.

Thoughts about aspers?

And yeah best of luck, I'll keep my eyes peeled and wait for you to post some hands.

I paid my first visit to Aspers today actually! My friend was playing the donkament, but I elected to play cash instead.

I sat in what was initially a promising game, until it degenerated into a particularly aggressive reggy £1/£2. Unfortunately as soon as the 6-card PLO open all the value insta-transferred . Did my plumz, but managed to grind some of it back in LSQ later this evening.

I certainly don't hate Aspers as vehemently as some people I know, but I probably won't be a regular there anytime soon.

Hand 1

Against a very good reg who was defending and opening extremely wide. The plan was to represent a backdoor flush draw if it comes on the river, and I thought he was so polarised here that my hand is essentially the same as AQ without the blocker effects. I think it was a bit on the spewier side especially as I block a lot of his straight draws.

7-handed £1/£2 with £5 UTG Straddle. £400 effective.

I open HJ to £15 with A T , UTG calls.

Flop J 6 7: Pot £33 check, check.

Flop J 6 7: Q Pot £33 check, I bet 20, he check-raises to 65, I flat.

River J 6 7 Q 3 check, check he mucks.

Hand 2

Against a known bum-hunter (this isn't necessarily a criticism/slander, as game selection is a huge part of live poker).

7-handed £1/£2, £400 effective.

HJ opens to £10, I flat CO with K T , BTN flats.

Flop A J 4 Pot £33, CO bets £20, I flat, BTN folds.

Turn A J 4 3 Pot £73, CO bets £40, I flat.

River A J 7 3 2 Pot £153, CO checks, I bet £110, he folds.

Also, does any recommendations for hand conversion software on desktop?

I just lost a big post I was about to make here, which is massively tilting .

Got a ton of volume in this weekend which was really nice. Also decided to go on a nice stoney-walk on Friday pre-LSQ to celebrate the bank holiday weekend. London really is a beautiful city, and would encourage everyone to explore it every now and again. Also I'm not really a photographer as you can see from these pics...




Some park or something



Buckingham palace woop de doop



Legit island in London, pretty sweet


Basically tl;dr not the greatest weekend. I played 3 hours of solid poker on Friday, and proceeded to get massively drunk in Lola's before donking off all my profit as a shortstack with one of my favorite fun-players. #notgood.





This was compounded by doing £600 in a bad albeit challenging £1/£2 at Aspers with some very good regs (especially for live poker). This was somewhat mitigated by grinding it back in a very mediocre £1/£2 in LSQ. In general however, I feel like I've been playing on the sloppier side. #Backtobasics.

I'm about to head in for some bank-holdiday action, but played a bit of zoom this morning at higher stakes than I usually play to force myself to address said sloppiness and review some recent hands. I thought it'd be a good chance to review and add to my goals:

Move up to £2/£5 and beyond There hasn't been a great deal of decent higher stakes action about, so N/A

Reduce volume After thinking about this I plan to forgo Tue/Wed evenings, provided that I will get into the hippo cash race easily enough which is obviously +EV.

Continue to develop exploitative adjustments Some general thoughts/musings:

1. Experiment with check-raising the river in limped multi-way family pots with air, on runouts where people are frequently capped at top pair/second pair. I find these are rarely paid off (needs to work <50% of the time), and even if it fails its a great oppportunity to show down a cheap bluff for advertising purposes.
2. Stop overbetting in GOAT spots OTT with value hands against weak players.
3. Continue to force myself to think about villain's range in turn and river spots. This will help me extract the most value rather than seize up in bloated pots when I have the goods

Continue making friends/be more selective Decided to get rid of this one, as its not really a goal as such.

Improve my writing skills Having re-read what I've put above, I'm not very happy with the quality of these blog posts. I plan on reading the more successful ones to help produce more interesting content.

Gl at the tables!!

Bit of chip porn...(I'm a crushing bore who prefers pinks). The buy-ins vary, and are definitely not all for £400 (!) or from just this week/month

Some funny hand Live Poker hands for those who want a little taste of what its like in a good game. W/r/t the second one I think it was actually really close, but with live poker spazz factor I think I have to sigh-call.

Hand 1

Eff. Stack £450 or so I guess

slightly crazy SB opens to £10, I call T9.
Flop 987 Pot £20, V bets £15, I call.
Turn 5 Pot £50, V bets £35, I call.
River J Pot £120. V jams £380. I tank call, he shows a Jack and mucks.

Hand 2

Eff. Stack £400 or so I guess

3 limpers, crazy guy makes it £12, I call 44, BB calls, 1 limper calls.

Flop K74 Pot £60 xx, crazy guy bets £75, I flat, BB makes it £225 AI, crazy guy flats, I jam £350 total, crazy guy calls.

BB shows KJo and crazy guy shows AK weeeeeeeee

Hand 3

An example of how you can get fat value in live games. Nit opens HJ to £8 (WHY do people open this small in a good game I'll never know), aggro whale lady calls, I call BTN ATdiamond:

Flop T72 Pot £27 Nit bets £20, lady calls, I call.
Turn 3 Pot £87 xx, I bet £55, fold, lady calls.
River 8 Pot £190. I bet £110, lady calls and I'm good.

Subbed. GLGL chip porn from the Hippo always gets me pumped. Going to be heading up to play at the Hippo/Empire for a few days in the next week or so see you on the tables!

Acidhausss, what casino has the lowest rake from the rooms you play in? Best for food? The most number of games running at 1/2?

Random question, is it acceptable in London casinos to use iPad/phone at the table an play online whilst your not involved in hands? I've always found live poker to be insanely boring unless the stakes are somewhat bigger than I should be playing. My local room (40mins from London) had wifi but it never used to work properly in the area where cash games ran

Cheers Ruffy! Yeah let us know via PM and well work something out!

Partywme,

1. For £1/£2 its consistent among the main rooms. Note that £1/3 has a better rake structure, and £1/1 IMO is not worth it.
2. Not sure, Emps prob
3. Really varies again, Vic biggest cardroom but sometimes hippo has 18 tables
4. Yes, some people are on the phones all the time and yea agree on how tedious it can be for aure haha. Sometimes I play zoom or talk on whatsapp or listen to whatever story a rec wants to tell me


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Best of luck!

Edit: I hope you don't mean the 44 on k74 is close...

Subbed!! Good luck on the grind buddy (though looks like you don't need it )

Subbed, gl

Thanks guys!

I put in two evening sessions in LSQ on Monday and Tuesday. As a general comment, the games have generally been rather poor.

I've felt a bit burned out recently, so taking into account the above I'm going to take a break until next Tuesday. Going on a nice canal trip with the folks over the holiday which should hopefully take my mind off the ol' livepokerz for a bit.

Cash wise I've ironed out about £150 over last two days but its neither here nor there really, as I don't think I've made any huge blunders (maybe second one OTT which I should raise all day really).

Hand 1

Against asian player who had just lost a big pot all in OTF on flushing board (KK > whatever he had on AhJh5s XX). Until very recently I've thought him as an OMC type, but has shown down a fair few spewy bluffs. Basically when he snap checks the turn I thought he never has a queen, so paid the man his money. I think I could have actually snuck in a small bet OTT too for value as players love to protect with 7x, 88 and the like but its not a huge mistake really.

£1/£2. SB opens £10, I flat KJ

Flop Pot £10 QJ7, SB bets £12 I call.
Turn Pot £34 Q xx.
River Pot £34 7 SB bets £40, I call. He shows A2

Hand 2

Felt a bit lost in this hand tbh. I bet relatively small despite my lack of blockers to strong hands OTF as I just think nobody has very much, but in chatting with a friend nobody's ever folding Pair+OESD so I should just go bigger. To be fair it was a straddled pot and the table as a whole was quite shallow.

£1/£2 with £5 straddle. 3 Limper, I call BTN AJ, BB completes, Straddler checks.

Flop KQT Pot £25 checks to me, I bet £15, CO calls.
Turn K Pot £55 CO donks £45, I call.
River Q Pot £145 xx, CO shows down ATo and I'm good.

Hand 3

I'll admit this was a bit on the thin side . Decided to finish my orbit and leave after said hand. (I literally HATE missing value)

Nit opens BTN to £7, V in Hand 1 calls, I call.
Flop Pot £21 838 checks around
Turn Pot £21 3 xxx
River Pot £21 Q SB bets £10, I raise to £25, SB calls and shows a 3 wp

Gl at the tables

Against my better judgement, went in to play today. Another mostly card dead session punctuated by a few interesting hands.

£2/£5 £750 Effective

Nit opens UTG £15, Good Reg calls, table spot calls, I 3! AKo to £70, I fold, Reg and spot call

Flop 588r Pot £230

Checks to me, I bet £95, Good Reg calls, spot folds

Turn 8o Pot £430, Good Reg checks I jam £600.

Good reg open folds 55, I show the bluff




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Obviously subbing! glglglgl

#blessed

Headed "oop Norf" later than planned, so put in some nice volume before getting the train. Time for more eye candy I think.



Also known as a LSQ "packet" or "bag" if you're not familiar with live poker in London. The yellow ones are £2.5k and are an absolute peach to hold. I usually call it a night if I lose £1k unless the games particularly good. This really doesnt happen that often though as I think the games are so predicatable, or I am running/playing particularly poorly.

[http://i.imgur.com/c2pTbuy.jpg[/img]

The amazing smoking terrace in the Hippodrome (Entrance to poker room just on right out of shot). From 10pm-4pm the Hippodrome tends to have more of a nightclub feel, and this area is usually crammed with many rich young people/people of leisure/interesting people. Sometimes if you don't feel like it, its nice to be able to just pack in your session and get on the mohitos (not too often though!) Also note the blackjack table on the left, which is £25 a point. You frequently see people play with massive stacks of pinks and blacks.



Picture of said poker door (The Hippodrome poker section is full of pokerstars stuff).



Decent morning session at the Hippo. Most of it gifted in two hands (hit a set on Q9x in a 3bet/squeezed pot, and vs some donk check-raising me OTF, turn check check, and raising my river bet all in on AA2r 6T with complete air. Against these type of guys you just have to sigh and click call knowing they're going to have absolute air/some zero equity bluff.



My light needle against my friend who paid off £15 on AAJJT into a £120 pot against a massive nit.

Some general thoughts on the various casinos I play at. I haven't been to Palm Beach yet as I'm not a baller

Hippo

+Uses by far the best chips and felt.
+A non-******ed deposit system.
+Most Professionally ran card-room. Does not have problems with favoritism (I'm not making any accusations here but I think it exists in some card-rooms).
+No player-funded cashrace or bad beat jackpot bs.
+Has the best/quickest dealers.
+Best waiters/waitresses (I'm looking at your empire. It is not uncommon for one particular person to offer you sugar for your latte, when you've just shoved all-in into a £250
+Proximity to Hippo/Emps

-Terrible side-room for extra tables, which has zero atmosphere.
-The tables furthest from the balcony can get very hot.
-Can't leave money on deposit at the actual poker room (apparently this will be fixed soon).
-Doesn't allow the double straddle on regular games.
-Button prop is banned, a favorite of londons high-stakes degenerates.

Empire

+Best/funniest/pleasantist atmosphere.
+Floor are a good laugh
+Allow all kinds of degeneratism like button props and the like
+Know how to run good games.
+Currently best place for mid-high stakes action at particular times.
+Food.
+Proximity to Hippo/Emps.
+Automatic card-shufflers

-Dreadful waitress/waitresses.
-30% of the dealers are absolutely awful.
-Despite the decent revamp, I can't get over the general dungeon feel.
-Stupid bag policy.
-Occasionally requiring me to bring in ID, even though I'm a member and look easily 21....


Vic

+Hottest floor staff/masseuses
+Sometimes its really cool to rail the big games.
+Automated table system is actually pretty good even though I hated it at first.
+Least amount of aggressive table-transfers.
+Regularly offers £1/£3. The average open is about £10-£12 which makes it play a bit more like a standard 100BB deep online game (although of course you can buy in for more if you like).

-Food is excellent, but extremely expensive. Got a caesar salad for £14 the other day. Decent salad though
-In general find dealers on the slower side.
-Weird small cards
-Bar staff v v slow.
-No free drinks
-Stupid bag policy.
-Slowest dealers IMO.
-Weird felt.

Its not in my interest to offer a strategy guide to any new live £1/£2 regs. That being said I thought I'd compile a list of leaks I consistently see among live regs.

1. Not opening up their range enough vs a spot.
2. Isolating too wide (people don't like to fold).
3. Opening < £10 in a good game.
4. Opening OTB to £7 with an effective stack of 500BB. (I wouldn't fold 72o to this sizing so deep).
5. Not truly understanding how important position is in deep-stacked games. I will often call with hands as wide as J9o, Q9o, suited kings and other hands OTB or C/O vs an EP raiser and a cold-caller.
6. Triple barrelling fish on boards wheres theres a flush door and a high card OTF.
7. Not limping enough in LP with hands that are not really strong enough to raise, nor weak to fold. Hands like QTo, A9o and similar are reasonable hands to see a flop with if you are decent post-flop and can bet-fold. Hands like T9o can make straights (see below).
8. Not 3-betting big enough in deep-stacked games.
9. Atroscious flop c-betting strategies.
10. Trying to get 3 streets of value, when
11. Betting TPWK OTF against other reasonable players.
12. Not squeezing enough with value-hands as wide as KQo when a spot is the PFR, and all the reg cold-callers have extremely capped ranges.
13. Not truly understanding the massive implied odds of turning or rivering a straight.
14. Not check-raising flops aggressively enough with hands like gutshots that can turn the nuts.
15. Folding hands like QJo and ATo in the CO/BTN when a reg has opened and there are fish in the blinds.
16. Not paying attention to all the table intangibles.
17. Adjusting their range appropriate to the table average stack and tightness.
18. Missing thin value, or not betting big enough when your range is extremely polarized.
19. Cbetting 100% (except for high pp's or weak Ax) on dry Axx or Kxx flops. This is not really a leak right now, but is going to ruin you if you ever want to play against better players/move up.
20. Not calling enough in the BB when you are getting such good odds, especially deepstacked.
21. ...and not just folding marginal hands enough in the BB, despite the good oods you had preflop.
22. Not overbetting in apprpriate situations.
23. 3! AK and QQ in every positon.
24. Not flatting with premium hands when big fish are behind you (this does not apply when said fish will cold-call 3bets).

Just realised I hit 24, if I keep going I think I'll be giving a bit too much away!

And my pet peeves...

1. Refusal to put the straddle on once/twice in a good game. I think the straddle is a hot point of contention, so I think I'll make a post about it at some point. (to be continued...straddle nits you have been warned).
2. Making very aggressive seat changes versus a spot (these people aren't stupid).
3. Not smiling and saying "nice hand" if you lose a hand against a spot.
4. Not making conversation at the table. At the very least you can be pleasant.
5. Asking someone if they want change for their pinks as soon as you stack them.

Hey man, great to see you with a thread! Hopefully see you at the tables soon

Parsons! Good to hear from you, think its about time I checked your PGC.

FWIW who I saw on the £1/£3 I completely forgot your name from last time, but I think its high time we had a london £1/£2 get together. Whats your name on here? Unlucky on not getting the lot from s6, you made a great bet-fold earlier too I believe just one of those days isnt it. :/ Heard this absolute gem from a loose passive player in the same game (not sure if you heard it)

(In Indian accent) "All of you professionals at the table, that guy over there in the red hoodie has been paying every hand. I don't understand why you havnt been re-raising and testing him. This should be your bread and butter" well said sir

Some hand...

Hand 1

Extremely annoying river spot. Unfortunately against this type of reg its never a bluff, and no-ones trying to get you off a straight.

I think check-raising turn here is better as MP can have all overpairs and flush draws, also my line looks quite bluffy i.e. I think his TCB is high enough for me to favour checking over donking out).

9-Handed £1/£2 Eff. Stack £500 or so I guess

I limp UTG 44, MP spot raises £7, nitty reg calls SB, I call.

Flop 236 Pot £22, check check MP bets £10, SB calls, I call.

Turn 5 Pot £52 check, check, spot bets £20, SB calls, I raise to £80, MP folds, SB tank calls.

River 3 Pot £230 SB thinks for a while and donks £200, I fold.

Hand 2

Immediately following the above hand. I can't really remember what his hand was, or whether he had a straight on the flop or turn. I think my mistake preflop was not 3betting big enough (my hand is face-up and need to charge him for his NFD's). Flatting is also option, but I had no information on this type of player.

9-Handed £1/£2 Eff. Stack £400

I raise MP with 33 to £10, HJ calls, BB calls.

Flop 732 I bet £20, HJ raises to £60, BB folds, I raise to £125, HJ calls.

Turn 7 Pot £280, I jam for about £150, BB calls and wins.

Hand 3

Versus an absolute rock (a nitty nit). This is an example of a great bet size (albeit tiny pot) that I would not have cottoned onto before reading Janda and Ed Miller's 1%.

9-Handed £1/£2 Eff. Stack £400

HJ Fish limps, BTN raises to £10, I flat BB with JT, HJ folds.

Flop AK4 Pot £24, I check, BTN bets £12, I call.
Turn 2 Pot £48 I check, BTN checks.
River 7 Pot £48 I bet £12, BTN folds.

7 Pot £280, I jam for about £150, BB calls and wins.