Going to be in london for a couple of days next week with alot of time to burn, I have searched the forums and decided that the Vic or Empire will likely be my first stop as I have never played live before and I imagine Casino's are a better place to start rather than dedicated card rooms (likely more newbies / fish and a more relaxed atmosphere).


Now onto my questions:

1) Can I find a FIXED limit holdem game anywhere in london? From the looks of the Vic / Empire websites they only spread NL / PL games. Forum search brought up nothing about LHE except a thread with no replies.

2) Does anybody know if there are any MTTs / SnGs running on tues, weds, or sunday nights? Both websites provide very little (or outdated) info on this.

3) I will have all day/night tues, all day/night weds and sunday night free to play poker, what quality of games can I expect at these times? Will there even be games running?

4) If I happen to run hot and make a fair amount of cash, do I have to walk out the door with it all or are there options such as cashing out via cheque or deposit boxes that I can come back and collect the next day?

5) Any tips regarding table etiquette, common angle-shots to watch out for and bizzare table rules etc for a first timer greatly appreciated.

1) Not as far as I know

2) Not sure about the Vic or the Empire, but there should be small MTTs (like three or four tables max) going on at the Palm Beach. Horrendous structures with very bad value for money though.

3) Yes, there will most likely be games at the Vic every day, from the early afternoon to the early morning. Sunday afternoon and evening should be quite busy. You might have to wait forever for a seat, though. What stakes are you looking for? On average, at any stakes 80% of the field is LOL and 20% is very solid and tricky. Telling who belongs to which group will take you half an orbit.

4) Never enquired about the cheque but at the Vic you can indeed leave your money on deposit and pick it back on any day. If you have USD you can buy them back at the same exchange rate if you do so within a few days.

5) If you can, avoid the self-dealt games. Also, Americans usually get irritated when their cutting the chips past the bet line gets called as a string bet. To avoid contention, either declare your raise clearly or cut the chips before the betting line.

London's one of the greatest cities in the world and it seems strange to be visiting and want to do something (poker) which is handled so much better elsewhere. Why not spend the time in more traditional tourist pursuits?

Keep in mind you don't have to tip like in America. I wouldn't tip at all at the casino and leave very small ones for things such as restaurants and taxi rides.

As far as etiquette, don't come in dressed like a bum and just act friendly. If you have a bad beat against you, just let it go. I got the feeling that the player needling and blow-ups common in America are bad form there (although I personally think they are here also).

1) NO. Forget it.

2) Smaller stuff like £50 freezeouts/ £20 rebuys at the Victoria, bigger stuff at the sportsman/Palm Beach

3) English casinos close at 4am, if you dont want to play in card clubs its game over. I'd consider www.gutshot.com open all night, safe and no problems.

4) Shouldnt be problems getting cheques at casinos, but wouldnt bother. Take the cash.

5) You cant tip in english casinos. Tip at card clubs. you're not going to spot much then. Notes on string should be noted, if you push your whole stack in and start cutting chips off, your whole stack is the bet, regardless of what you want to cut off and pull back.

Great. Exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks for the tip re: string betting too

I'm actually from london but havent lived in the UK for about 8 years

Noted

I thought it was 6am

Any ideas on what time gutshot closes? I cant seem to find details of the card-room on their website. I woud also expect that the games are significantly tougher here?


I am +EV up to atleast 10/20 short-handed LHE online, never really had the roll to play higher. My only experience of NL ring games is about 1k hands of 100NL and 200NL at PKR which was ridiculously soft at the time so I'm not really sure how +/-EV I am. I'll probably set myself a stop-loss of around £300 + MTT entries, although I could dig deeper if I felt that I had a decent edge in any particular game.

Any recomendations of good games for this "roll"? Am I being a bit optimistic here or should £300 be sufficient for a couple of nights at the micro-stakes? I'm not really playing to make money, I'm playing to gain experience.

It seems that Gutshot is an internet poker site from what I'm seeing, which means its open all night. Someone else might be able to shed more light on what the prior poster meant though as I see no mention of a live cardroom on their site.

The Vic is open 'til 6am. The poker room closes at 5am, though.

I was in London a few months ago. A wonderful place IMO. The Empire poker room wasn't open everyday, so you should check 1st. Played 1/3pound at the Vic, very loose game. Good luck.

http://www.gutshot.com/powerhouse/powerhouse-club.php

Its a live club that also has a site.

I play live poker in London like 5 nights a week, so I guess I'm pretty qualified to answer this.
Not a chance.


Tuesday

6.30 - Empire - £20 turbo rebuy + £3 reg. You get 1k chips and I think the blinds start at 25/25 and its 15 minute levels and go to 10 minutes. Its self dealt as well until the final table so you'll get next to no hands in.

8.40 - Palm Beach - £250 FO + £25 reg. I think its 5k starting and 30 min blinds, but I'm not sure.


Wednesday

6.30 - Empire - Same £20 rebuy as Tuesday.

7.30 - Vic - £50 self dealt FO + £6 reg. Dealer dealt final table. Never played this, but I think its something like 2k starting stack and 20 min blinds.

8.00 - Gutshot - £75 dealer dealt FO. From memory its either 3.5k or 4k starting with 20 minute blinds. However, your supposed to be a member although they never check. If you decide to go here you'll need to pay £3 on the door and sign your name on a sheet. If they ask if your a member just say yes and act like you know whats going on. Then walk straight forward to a guy sitting infront of a small table with a tin box of money to register for the tournament.

8.30 - Palm Beach - £100 rebuy dealer dealt + £10 reg. Never played this tournament and don't know too much about it.


Sunday

8.00 - Gutshot - £30 self dealt FO + £3 reg on the way in. 6k starting, 15 minute blinds. FT dealer dealt.

8.15 - Empire - £30 rebuy self dealt + £3 reg. I think its 1.5k stack 20 min blinds. Dealer on the FT.


3) I will have all day/night tues, all day/night weds and sunday night free to play poker, what quality of games can I expect at these times? Will there even be games running?

There are cash games in the Vic from 12 noon I think every day, although I've never been there that early. These are normally the £100 minimum buyin NL game (£1/£3 blinds £100 min, £600 max buyin) and bigger games.

Also theres a £20 FO tournament at the Gutshot every day at 2pm. I think the £1/£1 PL game starts quite early at there. Basically as soon as enough people have busted out the tournament.

If its at a casino you can get them to give you a cheque or put it on their computer system which acts as an electronic deposit box. At the gutshot I've only ever taken cash and I don't know if they'll give you a cheque, but I don't see why they wouldn't.

One chip calls - If you throw in a single chip which is bigger than whatever the action is it will be regarded as a call. Eg. Blinds 50/100, 2 people limp, you throw in a single 500 chip. That is a call unless you state raise before it is in the pot or you announce how much you want to make it.

You have to show both cards to claim the pot at showdown.

Protect your cards, its your responsibility to make sure no one mucks them. I normally have my hand over them, but you can use a chip or anything really.

Also when you look at your cards its easier if you have them with the longer sides facing you and use both hands to look at the bottom right corner. This way its hard for anyone to see your cards and you can easily see the suit.

The Vic cardroom closes at 5am, the casino closes at 6. The Empire closes between 3.30am and 5am depending on what the staff feel like lol.

The gutshot closes at around 8am, dependant on how long the £1/£2 game stays running. The games are a bit tougher but still very beatable.

The smallest live cash games are the £1/£1 self dealt NL at the Vic and the £1/£1 dealer dealt at the Gutshot. £300 is probably not enough if you want to play cash games even if it is for only 3 days. Plus I'd find it hard to believe you can't beat these games.

Slight hijack - recently, Rene Angelil (Celine Dion's husband and manager) was in London for a couple of weeks. You'd expect someone who's spent the best part of the past 10 years or so at Caesars Palace to be interested in anything but a casino, particularly one like the Vic, which by LV standards is a laughable joint. Instead, he popped by to play some poker...

I'm a New Yorker but I have been fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of time in the U.K. the past few years, my last trip was last fall and I played a few hundred hours at The Gutshot Poker Collective in 2006-07. I played the 2/5 and occassional 5/5 if it got off and I did very well. I never booked a loss, had very few break even sessions, quite a few monster sessions where I cashed out for 2000+ pounds and dozens of sessions where I booked decent wins of a few hundred pounds. Those games are very beatable but I have played alot of pot limit poker so I'm not sure how well someone who plays mostly limit or nlhe would do it is a different game. I watched a few of the "pony" games that are self dealt and they looked pretty fishy, I can't even compare it to the $1/2 game here in the states it was far worse. I played in the 75 tourney a few times and found it to be a bad structure with alot of really bad players, basically such a luck fest that I stopped playing in it and stayed in the cash game.

Another poster said that there was no need to tip but that definately wasn't the case in the 2/5 game. Most players tipped, albeit not as much as I did I am a pretty generous tipper. It was greatly appreciated by all the staff there, dealers and waitresses alike. I would recommend that you payed attention to the other players before you stiffed the dealers. After my first session there all the dealers would talk to me on their breaks if I was eating or having a smoke and they gave me alot of valuable information on the other players, I easily made the money back and then some.

I found the games to be very social, much like the clubs I play at in NYC and most of the players were decent guys & gals. I only ever had words once with a proper dandy stockbroker who was being obnoxious but he quickly apologized and tried to become my best friend it was actually pretty funny.

Post a trip report when you get back let us know how it went

Thank You for the great replies guys (especially AMitchA, very informative post).

Would love to try the Gutshot but I'm not sure how convincing I will be just acting "like I know whats going on", I may give it a miss.

I'm going to spend a few days playing micro-stakes NL on Party to get a feel for the game, I will post a trip report as soon as I get back.


Edit: I have a flight monday morning and was planning on just staying up all night sunday playing poker - it has just dawned on me that I will have a large (not as big as a suitcase) bag with me. Any ideas what I could do with this whilst in the casino / gutshot? I can hardly walk up to the table with it!

If you play at the Vic you most likely will be able to leave the suitcase at the cloakroom. They regularly accept smaller size bags, I wouldn't expect that to be a problem.

Awesome, I'll give them a call tomorrow to confirm.

If anyone here is a member of the gutshot and will be playing weds/thurs night, drop me a PM.

If you wanna play small stakes (£0.5-£1 or £1-£2) I would recommend the empire as the games there are crazy soft and the hourly rate is actually taken on the hour instead of every half hour at the Vic so you get more hands in. Also some of the players at the vic £1-£2 are really good, so I would avoid it unless you think you some skills. However I think the £1-£3 game is pretty soft but i've only played it twice so I would look at the action before I sit down if I were you.
Also at the vic unless you arrive early, you'll have to wait ages for the dealer games but there is always a bunch of games going while at the empire (which is open everyday) there is a more limited selection.

If you play against the infamous Pedro at the vic please post comments

any of you Brits wanna fill me in on London's poker scene? What clubs/casinos do you like the best?

Thanks!

I'm trying to become a member in advance per what I have read in the threads, but the web site for GrosvenorCasinos (for the Vic) has a join page that throws an error without actually telling me what the error is.

Can anyone provide an e-mail address or an alternate way to register? Their web page is a little cryptic.

Thanks

This thread is old. The laws have changed about this. Just turn up with your passport/driver's license and you'll be fine.

The home page of their website states:

"Welcome to the Grosvenor Casino London Victoria. Enjoying the fun couldn’t be easier, simply come along with a valid form of ID. Entry is free to anyone aged 18 years or over. We look forward to seeing you soon!"