Live Live Journal
Aug. 13th, 2010 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksSo, last night I headed out for my first live game since April 2010, a £30 freezeout at the Mint Casino in Cromwell Road.
Entering strange casinos in London is no longer the intimidatory affair that it was a few years ago. They ask you if you have used the place before; if you haven't, then they take a picture of you, and that's that. Dress code is now properly relaxed (although ridiculously the casino staff still dress up as if it's silver service -- bow ties and all).
Casinos are still relatively depressing places, with a large percentage of the dry-cleaning profession in west London queueing up for what did, I must say, look like a very good evening buffet.
The main casino is downstairs while the poker room is on the ground floor -- a small room at the front housing a couple of tables (which later had two x £1-£2 NL games running).
The tournament (held in a larger room behind the main small poker room) kicked off late (obviously), but with only 27 runners and a relatively fast structure, I was in no worries about having to suffer a 4am discussion about a chop.
We started with only 2,500 chips (50 big blinds), so within 40 minutes the average stack was down to about 15BB. That only three people went out in the first hour indicated how few of the players there realized the implications of this. They were still trying to play "proper" poker, limping with the hope of seeing a flop. Needless to say in most cases this ambition was cut off at the knees by the three or four players who had some idea of what was going on. Raise comes in. Blinds fold. Original limper moans and thinks for a half a minute, then folds.
Didn't really have a lot of luck, TBH, although I won most pots without my shoves/reshoves being called, so I didn't need it. My one piece of fortune was when I was ahead.
With about 6bb effective stack at 400-800, Kate Szeremata UTG limped on my left. It was passed round to me and I checked my Js 9c -- a typical powerhouse.
Flop came Jd Tc 3d.
I bet 1000 and Kate shoved for about 6000, which had me outchipped by about 300.
All of this seemed very odd. I couldn't see Kate (whose first name I couldn't remember for the first hour of the tournament .. dear me I'm getting old) limping into this kind of passive table with QQ, KK or AA. And I couldn't see her overbetting so much with a set. And I couldn't see here limping UTG with J3 or T3.
All of which seemed to leave some kind of draw hand, maybe Kd Qd. Or perhaps Jh Th, the second of which leaves me dead and the first of which leaves me a 2/1 dog. But she might have lower diamonds, or KQ of another suit (makes me about 55/45 favourite) , or Ax of diamonds (also makes me about 55/45 favourite).
I don't like these probable "most likely a bit ahead, but possibly a long way behind" hands. But with this structure and with it being such a low-stakes tourney, I decided to call. Kate turned over 9d 8d, giving her a straight draw AND the flush draw.
Fortunately I did a Milky Bar Kid and faded both. Kate said afterwards that she was probably favourite. Well, I knew she was favourite because I've had similar hands online a good few times. (I just pokerstoved it and she was 55/45 in front).
That was the last bit of good fortune and I didn't win a pot afterwards. In a single hand my AK = medium stack A6 and < short-stack T7 on a QQ744 board, QT < very short-stack 85, etc etc. Down to five big blinds and six-handed, I shoved UTG with KJs and got called by a 2BB AQ and a 4.5BB A8 off (brave call that, but I think the guy just wanted to go to bed). Needless to say we saw an Ace hit the board.
That left me with 1.2bb sitting down on the final table, although at least I was on the button. Passed for four hands with John Tabatabai reshoving his 20K (25BB) evvery other hand.
Finally in UTG+1 I got to see A5s and had the joy of loudly saying "call" as I put in my 1000 and asked for 200 change. Tabatabai predictably shoved and my nemesis with the A8 put in his last 5000. Dealer then asked me if I wanted to put in my last 200. Hmm, tough one. Tabatabai turned over 44 (whoopee! I have overs!) and serial caller turned over Q2s (not my suit).
Board of QQ5xx saw the end of me, but at least I had the fun of seeing serial caller stitch up Tabatabai as well. I think that JT (who was on the other table) had built up his stack by a series of reshoves and some timid opponents.
I assume that most readers can guess my logic behind just limping with the 800, rather than resignedly saying (as most players still do) "all-in" for the 1000.
Good fun, and I was away in time to catch the second-last train back from Charing Cross.
No-one's going to make a living playing a £30 tournament every night, and with an effective 15% cost hurdle to overcome (including expenses apart from the juice) even a 130% average ROI isn't going to see you winniing more than an average fiver a trip. So it's obviously a social thing.
I should have asked what the rake was for the cash game, but forgot, but it didn't look to me as if there were that many quality players there. One youngish Chinese guy looked tough.
I met the younger Nick of the old Jo & Alex of Tooting "Two Nicks". He's back from Ireland for the summer, perhaps longer, and staying with Alex at the moment. Hard to imagine that those games were eight or so years ago.
I might actually go to the Mint again, because it felt a bit nicer than the Empire TBH, and the parking looked v easy down the adjacent side street.
______________
Entering strange casinos in London is no longer the intimidatory affair that it was a few years ago. They ask you if you have used the place before; if you haven't, then they take a picture of you, and that's that. Dress code is now properly relaxed (although ridiculously the casino staff still dress up as if it's silver service -- bow ties and all).
Casinos are still relatively depressing places, with a large percentage of the dry-cleaning profession in west London queueing up for what did, I must say, look like a very good evening buffet.
The main casino is downstairs while the poker room is on the ground floor -- a small room at the front housing a couple of tables (which later had two x £1-£2 NL games running).
The tournament (held in a larger room behind the main small poker room) kicked off late (obviously), but with only 27 runners and a relatively fast structure, I was in no worries about having to suffer a 4am discussion about a chop.
We started with only 2,500 chips (50 big blinds), so within 40 minutes the average stack was down to about 15BB. That only three people went out in the first hour indicated how few of the players there realized the implications of this. They were still trying to play "proper" poker, limping with the hope of seeing a flop. Needless to say in most cases this ambition was cut off at the knees by the three or four players who had some idea of what was going on. Raise comes in. Blinds fold. Original limper moans and thinks for a half a minute, then folds.
Didn't really have a lot of luck, TBH, although I won most pots without my shoves/reshoves being called, so I didn't need it. My one piece of fortune was when I was ahead.
With about 6bb effective stack at 400-800, Kate Szeremata UTG limped on my left. It was passed round to me and I checked my Js 9c -- a typical powerhouse.
Flop came Jd Tc 3d.
I bet 1000 and Kate shoved for about 6000, which had me outchipped by about 300.
All of this seemed very odd. I couldn't see Kate (whose first name I couldn't remember for the first hour of the tournament .. dear me I'm getting old) limping into this kind of passive table with QQ, KK or AA. And I couldn't see her overbetting so much with a set. And I couldn't see here limping UTG with J3 or T3.
All of which seemed to leave some kind of draw hand, maybe Kd Qd. Or perhaps Jh Th, the second of which leaves me dead and the first of which leaves me a 2/1 dog. But she might have lower diamonds, or KQ of another suit (makes me about 55/45 favourite) , or Ax of diamonds (also makes me about 55/45 favourite).
I don't like these probable "most likely a bit ahead, but possibly a long way behind" hands. But with this structure and with it being such a low-stakes tourney, I decided to call. Kate turned over 9d 8d, giving her a straight draw AND the flush draw.
Fortunately I did a Milky Bar Kid and faded both. Kate said afterwards that she was probably favourite. Well, I knew she was favourite because I've had similar hands online a good few times. (I just pokerstoved it and she was 55/45 in front).
That was the last bit of good fortune and I didn't win a pot afterwards. In a single hand my AK = medium stack A6 and < short-stack T7 on a QQ744 board, QT < very short-stack 85, etc etc. Down to five big blinds and six-handed, I shoved UTG with KJs and got called by a 2BB AQ and a 4.5BB A8 off (brave call that, but I think the guy just wanted to go to bed). Needless to say we saw an Ace hit the board.
That left me with 1.2bb sitting down on the final table, although at least I was on the button. Passed for four hands with John Tabatabai reshoving his 20K (25BB) evvery other hand.
Finally in UTG+1 I got to see A5s and had the joy of loudly saying "call" as I put in my 1000 and asked for 200 change. Tabatabai predictably shoved and my nemesis with the A8 put in his last 5000. Dealer then asked me if I wanted to put in my last 200. Hmm, tough one. Tabatabai turned over 44 (whoopee! I have overs!) and serial caller turned over Q2s (not my suit).
Board of QQ5xx saw the end of me, but at least I had the fun of seeing serial caller stitch up Tabatabai as well. I think that JT (who was on the other table) had built up his stack by a series of reshoves and some timid opponents.
I assume that most readers can guess my logic behind just limping with the 800, rather than resignedly saying (as most players still do) "all-in" for the 1000.
Good fun, and I was away in time to catch the second-last train back from Charing Cross.
No-one's going to make a living playing a £30 tournament every night, and with an effective 15% cost hurdle to overcome (including expenses apart from the juice) even a 130% average ROI isn't going to see you winniing more than an average fiver a trip. So it's obviously a social thing.
I should have asked what the rake was for the cash game, but forgot, but it didn't look to me as if there were that many quality players there. One youngish Chinese guy looked tough.
I met the younger Nick of the old Jo & Alex of Tooting "Two Nicks". He's back from Ireland for the summer, perhaps longer, and staying with Alex at the moment. Hard to imagine that those games were eight or so years ago.
I might actually go to the Mint again, because it felt a bit nicer than the Empire TBH, and the parking looked v easy down the adjacent side street.
______________
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-21 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 11:12 am (UTC)TBH I'm with Andy on live vs online: It might be much tougher online, but the sheer volume that you can put in decreases the variance and increases the likely overall win rate. The overheads involved in playing live for anything but fun are such that it's very difficult to make a living. And even then you probably have to put up with year-long dry patches.
It could probably don in Las Vegas, but in the UK? I really don't think that you have the liquidity of fish. Friday night from 8pm to 3am does not a potential living make. It's the wet Wednesday evenings in the Vic that you have to think about.
PJ