A weekend of Live Pokers

I don't really know what got into me this weekend but all I've wanted to do is play live pokers. I decided to make my 2nd appearance at Loose Cannon on Friday night after working, they had a £20 FO but it fairness it was a crapshoot, 3000 chips with a 15 clock and self-dealt so that means slooooooooow hands. As usual I have to interject and take control just so we can play more than 5 hands per level and that always puts me off my game. This lead to me getting fustrated and donking off early making too many fancy plays and heroic calls, but I did find one interesting hand early on before I got 'dealer tilted'.

The hand in question was a 3 way limped pot, I was in early position with 3, 3 and the flop was 4,4,5. Now that doesn't look so bad for 3's but I'm hardly betting for value and I'm not going to inflate the pot early on so I check and the others check too. The turn was the 3rd '4' and I make a small bet (blinds are 25/50 still, pot of 175 and I bet 150). Random loose asian dude in late position just calls. The river is a 3, means nothing to my hand at this stage though, but I had already made my mind up to check it down or possibly check-call as I expected this guy to take a stab at it. He insta bets 800, overbet and he lunched his chips aggressively in my direction across the table, one of the oldest tells in the book, so I know he is weak here, but he might think he is bluffing with a small pair bigger than my own. I decide to trust my instincts and call and he shows 6, 8 for complete air and I got a few looks from the table haha, they must have thought 'this idiot though the 3 helped him'..... no folks I just caught a bluff.

Well I was out by the 5th level and as one nice lady had bought me a drink for my dealing I decided to deal for the next hour or so before heading home. Saturday I took a day off and kicked back and enjoyed a footballing feast on TV, that being Man United v Boro and then Madrid v Barca, neither disappointed. Sunday I went along to something new, I stumbled on a site called London Poker Meetup, basically lots of people running pub games all over London in a little community, so I thought I'd give a £20 freezeout a shout, 5000 chips with a 20min clock. I got there and I wasn't expecting too much to be fair, but it didn't really live up to expectations. I was however expecting an ultra friendly game even if the standard of play wasn't to be much.... that wasn't really the case either, it was very cliquey just like you might find in a casino, no one really spoke much, bad equipment and overly cramped, I'm sure it differs from location to location but if I'm going to play 'non-serious pokers' than I'd rather do it in a nicer setting.

So not too impressed there I decided to head to The International (the new name for 'The Gutshot'). To be honest I'd meant to check this out much sooner but it's kinda out of the way for me but I saw a £30 FO on their site and decided to see what it was all about. I nearly walked past it when I eventually found my way, it's a very discreet little building in a very quiet part of Hackney, you have to buzz to get in and it's underground, seemed a bit illict lol. So I go in and find out as it's bank holiday they had a £100 FO with 10k chips, 20min clock. Pretty impressive really, but way too much for me right now as I'm extremely rusty in my tournament game, but they had a little £1/£1 cash game running so sat down for an hour. This is where it got a little bad for me, there was only 4 of us to begin with and myself and 1 other guy wanted to play 1/1 and the others £1/£2, we stood our ground and the game began but they constantly nagged to play 1/2 or even 2/5, they straddled everytime they could, as did the next couple of guys who joined the game.... now this I don't mind, it's just more dead money in the pot for me but when I didn't partake in their little game they got pissy and made stupid comments about it 'being against his religion' or something stupid. Either way I wasn't impressed, even the dealer encouraged them to straddle, so I left £10.50 up lol.

I'll go back, more than likely to play the odd tournament or maybe a PLO cash game as they are gambling freaks, there was a couple of guys there who had not left the club for 48 hours, wtf? So I can say from my London poker experiences so far that Loose Cannon is the best small stakes/friendly game in town and the best high action game is the Empire at Leicester Square. Maybe see the UKPLers in town sometime. Highlight of the weekend was walking down Cannon Street behind a familiar looking guy thinking to myself 'that looks like Mel Judah!' but then I thought why would he play here? I get inside and within seconds I hear someone shout out, 'Hi Mel'. Whoda funked it?