Another trip report:

This time decided to hit up the Hippodrome, which was offering £1/2, £2/5 NLHE and £1/2/5 PLO six-max. Signed up for the £1/2 and £2/5, and ended up seated at the £2/5 after about 15 minutes wait.

This was a thursday night from 7:00 to 10:30pm. Rake was 5% capped at £10, which is super-reasonable, IMO. We never got worse than 7-handed.

You'll still find some players who make exploitable mistakes, (for all I know, I'm one of them!) but the £2/5 players seemed to know exactly what they were doing. A few got my jokes about "triple range merge" being a viable poker strategy. Friendly table. They are absolutely at *least* level 2 thinkers, bet-size appropriately, all in all a tougher crowd than the Vic £1/3, but that's true anytime you move up stakes.

The game *is* beatable, but I didn't beat it. Lost £150 in the first hand; Pot was raised to £15 pre-flop, I'm in position, opponent C-bets 47J flop, continues on 47J5 turn, and I raise £150 (eff. stack £500). Opponent put me (correctly) on pocket 6s and went all-in, I can't call it. Only mistake he made in that hand was *telling* me I had pocket sixes, so I know that this guy can *play* (I mean, obviously, given my line, pocket 6s were the only hand that made sense, but you have to *think* about it.)

Doubled up with pre-flop all-in QQ vs. JJ (jacks made a set, but I had a diamond and there were four on the board, giving me a flush) to get back to £600

Then... It's rare these days that I get my money in bad, but it happens, and yesterday I made a stinker of a semi-bluff, getting 20% equity, wiping out my first buy-in. 8h7h vs. AhKh on a 5hTh5c flop. Because the pot was over £1000 we agreed to run it twice and the casino was amenable. Missed both times. Que Sera.

Nothing really to report after that except that I re-bought for £500 and over the next two-hours ran that back up so that I cashed out with £960... so a net -£40 for the night. 3.5 Rontgen, Not great, not terrible.

* No calling stations, tough players. One player was folding too often and I could not only exploit him but *see* him being exploited by other players.

* Very friendly banter! Many of the players did know each other, but they were happy to engage in small-talk.

So, that's my little report.
London

Great report mate...much appreciated

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The sort of table I would run a mile from. I'd leave after 10 minutes at most.

Meh, I don't know. It was absolutely tougher than the 1/3 at the Vic.

My strategy is basically to show up with £1000, and just sign up for 1/2(or 1/3) and 2/5 and just go to whatever has an opening first these days. I wonder what would have happened at 1/2 at the Hippodrome.

Honestly, though, I think the toughness was more due to the stakes than the venue. By the time you hit 2/5 you get fewer players who don't have an idea of what they're doing - it's just the plain fact that it's not the smallest game.

I don't know. I'm absolutely going again, so I'll keep you updated.

I've not played in London for years (I'm from there but have lived in the States for more than a decade now), but id does sound in general like cash games are tougher there for whatever reason.

$1-2/3 universally appalling At any $2-5 table here half the table will suck and its rare that more than 3-4 will even be proper thinking players...

Even at $5-10 the few occasions I've played there are usually 2+ absolute spots.

Sounds like even at lowest stakes in London there are a number of tougher players at any table.

added downside: the rake tends to be quite a lot more in London too!

Not really sure anyone is beating these games, but I certainly wouldn't be going back to ones that I'd highlighted as being particularly strong.

Starting to get into the Fri-Sun grind again. The hotels near Leicester Square are getting a bit more expensive though, and busier too. Anyone know any cheap hotels nearby, perhaps somewhere on the Piccadilly line?

Wonder why the games appear to be tougher in the UK even at the lowest stakes. Less of a "casino" culture where random people decide to play poker?

Dunno

Z Hotel Soho (about 5 Minutes walk from The Hippo) usually has rooms going for £100-150 per night, perhaps lower depending on when you book. It's literally a bed, shower and toilet in a shoe box, but the rooms are good quality.

games right now are much softer and there is a huge selection of games at the 3 main central London casinos every day and night of the week. if you follow their twitter pages and see the updates its actually crazy right now, Hippodrome is regularly hitting 17 tables full on Friday and Saturday, and even on random weekdays getting 10+ games by 6pm which is amazing for table selection and finding a good game

Big shout out to the GUKPT at the Vic, just hit £1,000,000+ prizepool in the grand final £1800+200, biggest GUKPT event of any kind and still climbing with day 1 late reg and day 2 direct buy ins!!!

£250k+ for first! What a crazy 2.5 weeks of poker its been in London!

Just a quick update: went back to play 1/2 at the hippodrome. Soft table, about 1/2 the players there had a major exploitable flaw. Tripled up after 4 hours.

Congrats on the bink but it just sounds like a brag-post if you don't mention what the "exploitable flaw" was.

Sorry. I meant to say that about half of the players on the table had *some* flaw that I could exploit.

For one, it was bet sizing, for another it was playing too many cards preflop and playing them too aggressively (won a medium-ish pot with a correct hero call with K-high), another player was drunk, and another gave off so many tells I almost wanted to give the money back.

Went again on Sunday - same deal, only THIS time, there was a player there that outplayed me and got me to put my money in VERY bad. I made a very costly error that ended up working in my favor when I binked a 4-outer (No one's fault but my own - I spewed in that hand.). Guy was gracious though and I imagine he has about the same level of skill & experience as I did.

Sure, personally, I'm only able to play casually or recreationally these days and I know I make stupid errors at the table but everytime I do go back for a sesh at The Empire or The Hippo I'm always reassured and given an inner boost in confidence by the leaks I see made by players. Of course, the 3-outers come against you and crap decisions are made now and again but it's those bad plays I see - everytime - that make me come back for more.

I thought that, with the internet and training sites readily available, most players would wise-up and the games would get too tough - and although this IS evident to a certain degree, there are far too many players out there who are either just in it for the fun or who just haven't studied the game in any reasonable depth that still make live poker (how shall I say?)... such an interesting night out.

Sorry I can't check this out personally, but has anyone played at the poker room at St. Giles? Probably best sticking to the Hippodrome, but thing is - it's less than a block away from my workplace.

Has not been a poker room there for years (if ever) as far as I know. The Empire and Hippo are definitely all you need anyway.

There has been a mention of a new Hard Rock Casino in London, they acquired the Ritz gaming licence and have plans and work going ahead on a new casino somewhere in the West End with talk of them having a huge poker room. If anyone sees anything worthwhile please add it in here

Thanks

Any idea when they are going to open?

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no, hence me asking

I had to sign some paperwork about transferring my data/membership over to them but that was a while ago now. Can't imagine the last 12 months have spurred on their progress.

There's a private game in Harrow - raked (to pay pro dealers/snacks/whatever) but it's pretty reasonable, and plays 1/1 cash and something like 50GBP tournaments. I'm not going to post the place publically but the group is "Lemons & Sevens" poker and the best way to meet up with their organizers to get invited to their private game is to play in their public (unraked) pub game which is a 25 GBP tournament in the Harrow area followed by a 25p/25p cash game.

Here's the meetup page for the pub poker game: https://www.meetup.com/Lemons-Sevens...ents/282702556

Went and played a little live poker at the West End on Friday and Sunday evening (after a bit of a break) and, hardly surprising, it was very quiet. The Empire only had about 4 or 5 tables going on the Friday which was the quitest I've ever seen it on that day while The Hippo was much the same. About half the players were masked-up despite it being a rule so not entirely safe I have to say. Standard of poker was about 5 out of ten overall with plenty of weak/soft spots to be found. A nice, pleasant time was had overall.

Yeah, I was fine playing at the Hippodrome in the Delta days when I was fully vaxxed and boosted, but in Omicron town, it feels like we're gambling with more than just chips.

I may actually have to ask the Hippodrome to mail me a check for the money that I have still there on my membership card.

Are you guys for real? Omicron is a frigging cold. The show is over, time to get back to the old normal and stop watching MSM and their endless fearmongering.
Fwiw I had it 2 weeks ago as an unvaccinated guy in his 40's - 12 hours in bed with high fever + 24 hours of sofa/Netflix/youtube. That was all. Everyone I talk to with Omicron have mild symptoms, just as the South African doctors who first treated patients down there said.