I agree with everything you say fazzers. We've probably played together a bit somewhere, I've played a bunch of £1/£2 NL at the Empire in the last couple of months, but only sporadically at the Vic.

Minor Update So, I was out in the West End last night with some friends (wasn't drinking though) so afterwards I dropped by the Empire to see what was what. No £2/£5 was going but I hopped in a £1/£2 for a few hours. Immediately had KK<AK aipf but I was able to book an OK win vs my largely loose-passive table. Made some good thin value bets and overall played well.

Thoughts on the Empire £2-£5 NL hasn't been on for at least a week at the Empire which is a big shame. If they had a regular £2-£5 NL or any PLO it'd be a great game. I'm always on the list when I'm there but the floor staff often don't seem to want to risk breaking a £1-£2 NL for something bigger, which doesn't make a great deal of sense to me.

PLO I don't think I'm a great PLO player by any measure, my game is much less balanced than my default NL game, but most £1-£2 to £2-£5 games I've seen or played in has had players making huge fundamental errors routinely. I might talk to the floor staff at the Empire and try to get something going. There's no way in hell a PLO game there could be anything but a money printing machine. Any interested Londoners reading this?

I went and saw Batman last night at the BFI IMAX. It was pretty epic on the big screen.
Either way though it was a very entertaining watch.

Afterwards I crossed the river and had a look at the games at the Empire. For the first time in a while £2-£5 was running, and two well known fish were sitting deep. Wonderful! However, I was about tenth on the list, so I played some £1-£2, where I immediately got stuck £200 AK<AA, but ground it out and booked a small win.


Here's a hand:

Young Euro guy wearing a suit who has been fairly tight but very aggressive makes it 12 in MP. I flat K7ss on the BTN. I really can't remember why I did this, I think it's bad. But, whatever. BB, a young flashy guy who hates folding, calls.

Flop Kh 5s 8h. Checked to me. I bet 30, BB quickly crs to 85. MP folds, I call.

Turn 3h. He checks. I have 90 behind and shove.

Thoughts?


At around 5am I got in the £2-£5. One fish had left and the other racked up and left with his £5k stack before I could play a hand. Tilt! But, the game was still worth playing in and I again managed a small win without too much drama.

I'll be back at it again tonight most likely, wherever Twitter tells me the games are

Have you heard anything about the £25,000 free tournament for the 45 players who visit the most during september?

Just noticed this thread, makes a nice change around here! The only cash game I ever played was one brief visit to the Mint in Southend and indeed play there was hilarious. One thing you haven't talked about, I don't think, is rake. Everywhere I've looked up seems to have horribly high rake so are you sure you can beat it well enough? I guess 2-5 it's more likely but 1-3 is probably a right stinger?

Anyway, mate, boost that motivation up. Use Phil Ivey as an inspiration, 17hrs is nothing, he use to regularly do 48hrs to grind his way up to millionaire status and you can probably bet players are worse in London than they ever were in Vegas (at a guess).

Be cool if you can get a few pics in.

btw regarding food, are you allowed to eat your own stuff in the casinos?

Hope it's all going well man, just a couple questions before what I assume/hope will be a big grind this weekend.

What's your roll atm, and how deep do you sit? Maximum for both, or 100BBs?

Yep. I even made it last month. You have to play A LOT though, maybe five days a week with a focus on weekdays (you get more points), so I'm not sure if I'll make it again. I like poker for the freedom it gives me, and I like to play a range of games, so being forced to play 95% £1/£2 at the Empire isn't ideal for me. It is a good value tournament though, obviously. Last month the prizepool was ~£30k. Most regs at the Empire are also pretty terrible, so there's dead freeroll money in there!

As a side note I hope they scrap it in the long run. It's attracted a bunch of short-stacking degen reg nits from places like the Vic who constantly whine, stall (because they hate having to pay £3 per orbit), play for half an hour, give no action, and pay no rake. A bunch of much more 'deserving' regs who buy in full and give action miss out because of these guys who are basically angle shooters who make the game they play in way worse. /rant

The rake varies a bit from place to place, someone made a list in the London thread in Regional Communities in B&M which is handy. It is certainly beatable because people play so badly. I've never played it, but the rake at the Fox's £1-£1 is really horrible iirc.

Regarding hours, I really think that 5-9 hour sessions, depending on the games, are best for me. Beyond that my play suffers. Worse than that, it also makes me feel more burnt out making it hard to play well next time.

Regarding food, I'm just gonna try and make sure I eat good healthy meals before I play. Most food I pick up while out tends to be pretty junky, which I don't even enjoy that much. The food in casinos tends to be bad anyway.

The roll is >£10k. I'm not sure exactly how large it is because I haven't checked my bank balance in a while (life leak?). Life roll is bigger, but not by a whole lot.

I've given a lot of thought to how deep to sit. Nowadays I tend to buy in cold (when I don't know any/many players) for 100bb at £1-£2, and 80bb at £2-£5. I see lots of the 'baller' characters around casinos buy in cold for the max every time, and I think it's a leak. They get themselves in horrible situations readless and make bad plays because of it. It's hard to make a big mistake with 80bb in a £2-£5 game. I don't mind not looking baller all the time . Obv I am always happy to pull up more money in good spots though.

Yesterday I rolled up at the Empire to find yesterdays £2-£5 NL still going strong! A couple of the same players were still in the game too. One guy had been playing for >50 hours. I quickly got a seat and bought in for 100bb. I got some good hands and found some good spots, played pretty aggro and booked a big win . The game got pretty deep, with a good mix of play styles, though there were very few outright donators.

Hand:

I have 4c4h on the BTN. two limps, I make it 30, everyone folds except the last limper, who calls. He calls VERY wide pre, and is very tricky post-flop. I've been kinda running over the table and am viewed as aggressive.

Flop 3-5-Jr. He checks I bet 40 he calls.

Turn Qc bringing club draw. Check check.

River 6c. He bets 75, I raise to 225, he says 'how can you get lucky every time?' and ships, I fold. He shows 3d.

Wow I got owned. His calling range on the flop is pretty wide, even on such a dry board. He's seen me check back turns where I've hit backdoor draws before so I can have a flush too. I raised the river with my straight blockers. Still don't know if I like my river play. It was a fun hand though, even though he zinged me. Seeing the 3 makes me wish I just hero called!!!!! Anyone find a good reason to call aside from seeing the 3? I can't


Unfortunately I won't be able to play until Tuesday now. But, the good thing is I'll be having tonnes of fun getting drunk in London for the next two days then going with my gf to a folk festival where my dad is playing. Pretty baller stuff I think you'll agree.

Is that you in profile pic?

I jest i jest....

gl sir

TY Doc. GL to you and Leeds

Interesting point you make as I always have this discussion with my friend re: how deep to sit. I might try your approach for a few sessions see how it goes, might even hop in a £2/5 myself if the opportunity arises but I fancy a big weekend session at the Empire playing £1/£2 next weekend.

GL op lotta love for the live grinders although hands/hour is so tilting

GL! There may even be some £2/£5 at the Empire if you're lucky.

TY

In my current hungover state I'm trying to work out which live tournaments to play next month when it all kicks off. I won a seat in the £50k guarantee at the Empire a while back. I might also play the £220 HU NL Unibet side event. Other than that I can't decide. There's a few PLO side events too. I could play something bigger and sell a little action but I don't know if I want to yet. The cash games should be good so I might stick with them.

GUKPT Leg 10? at the Vic

1k main and loads of sides

I could probably sell a lot of action for the main, but I dunno if I will. Maybe I'll play some sats or something.

I'm kind of excited to play some tournaments at the moment because of all the action, but I'm expecting that this enthusiasm will die when I remember what a thankless grind live donkaments can be. I really wanna bink one though

Preach, I'm only excited for them because I hope the fish will end up on the cash tables

I'm a donk at heart

Nice thread, subscribed. GL etc!

TY sir

So, having spent my bank holiday weekend away from poker entirely (it largely consisted of partying in London and drinking strong cider at a folk festival), I returned to the grind last night. For the first time that I've ever seen there were two deep £2/£5 tables at the Empire, which is good news for London poker imo. I arrived late and played some £1/£2 first, where I soon got stacked/nitrolled QQ<KK aipf and otherwise played generally passive mediocre poker . Luckily I soon got a seat on a £2/£5, where I immediately ran good. It's nice when a c/r with a rivered overfull gets paid off. In general I had to play pretty tight as I had a bona fida maniac on my left. I ended up a small chunk for a decent night's work.

I think at the end of every month I will give a full update where I assess my progress, with a fuller picture of my hours, results, and the like.

So... today I lost a bunch, running into the top of everyone's range at £1/£2 NL then losing a 200bb flip at £2/£5 (QQ<AK). I played fine, and I'm not tilted by any of it, it was pretty much all standard stuff. I prob won't play tomorrow which leads me to...

End of the Month

I record all my results by hand (I dunno why, I have Excel, I just like it). As a weird pseudo therapeutic exorcise-tonight's-run-bad activity I made a graph for the month:



Note: I don't think I'm cool for doing this. I have way too much free time.

As you can see, despite tonight, overall I've run pretty good . But I haven't played tonnes of hours either. I won about £1k in donkaments on the side, so add about 10 hrs for that.

Of those hours ~45% is £2/£5 NL, ~15% is PLO and the rest is £1/£2 NL. I guess that shows steady progress towards the 'make £2/£5 NL my main game' goal. I've made a point of sitting in £2/£5 games that I wasn't 100% sure were were good and finding out for myself rather than just having a glance over from a smaller game. Often when the game gets good all the seats are gone.

As far as the 'see plenty of my friends/gf' goal, I've also succeeded. Although I'm not the baller type, having plenty of this sort of stuff occurring is all good imo:



Note: this is my housemate, not me. And the tux was totally unnecessary.

Regarding my other goals:

I did very little poker studying. I guess because I'm upswinging. I still want to join a training site but haven't. I should do all the free trials and see what I like I suppose. I will in September!

I didn't play any big field liveaments. But I will correct that this month, with the tourney circus coming to town. Time to bink something or go busto trying.

I haven't done any volunteering, and I've only done a little research. Again, probably because my hourly was high and I was excited to play poker. I'm sure when I have a losing week or two I'll find more time for this.

Regarding tilt, I've been good, but its easy when you're running good...

And finally I haven't been invited to or started a home game, but f me this one is hard. Good players want the fish to themselves. Any ideas on how to achieve this one???

So, to sum up, I'm happy with my pokering but I should play more, and I've for sure neglected some important things. I have succeeded in having fun though, which is very important imo.

Next month:

I might struggle to get in the cash game hours as all the tourneys roll into town. I can see myself skipping lots to feast on the cash game offerings though . Also I'm at Bestival so that writes off a good five day chunk of the month. I hope I keep running good!

Today's play was curtailed by losing a few buy ins playing short handed PLO with a super fish... ah well, you can't win 'em all, I'll get it next time, etc etc. So make the dip at the end of the graph 50% longer. Still, all in all a very good month!

Nice work, sir. Accurate graph is accurate etc, LOL!