Live Session #24 (F**k The Fox): Part 1

It's a beautiful Sunday morning and I've dragged myself out of bed to the PC to engage in more blogalisational activities. Yesterday saw me heading down town to meet up with an old friend for a few beers and a catch-up with what has been going on over the last few years. Of course, a trip to the usual haunts was in order and after a couple of pints at a pub called The Pillars Of Hercules we head on down to The Fox.

Now unfortunately, The Fox has been going downhill in my estimations of late and yesterday evening did nothing to dispel my displeasure and annoyances with said place. First off, after stating many times to my mate, Nobby McNobbus, that The Fox had a free membership policy they then conveniently tell him AFTER he's filled out the forms that there is a £10 charge!! Uncool. They say that the charge came into force after they had registered their 10000th member. Hmm.

Now, after checking their website, there appears to be a "Guest Membership" option which is actually free to people who want to visit the club but who don't want to play poker (as was the case with my mate). Strangely, this available option was NOT pointed out by the member of staff who dealt with the membership process in the lobby - even more uncool!! Yeh, yeh; it's "only" £10 but it's the principle of the thing. Sorry Nobby.

Anyway, we enter the club and sit down with our Peronis and whitter on for a bit - and then I feel it's about time to show off some of my poker skills. Now regular readers of my blog will know that the sum total of railers that I've had at the live game comes to precisely zero; so it was a bit weird having someone watching over me while I wove my magic at the tables. Nevertheless, I sit down with the full buy-in (£200) at a £1/£1 game and proceed to donk off £40; giving the lesson to my railer on why it's not a good idea to enter so many hands with so many loose calls. Afterwards he said he was impressed with my skills and thanked me for the "master-class" lesson on how not to play poker.

---------------

Ok, now before moving on, I just want to write a few words about the atmosphere at The Fox. First of all, regular play at The Fox does NOT involve high-stakes poker. It's where you can play a £1/£1 cash game and not feel out of place bringing 30 or 40 quid to the table; it's where small buy-in tournaments take place where you can have a bit of fun with the odd 30 or 40 pounds and the unlikely chance of winning a few hundred quid along with the more highly unlikely (100-1?) outcome of binking around £800 or so. Why not just enjoy the social aspect of it and lighten up for crying out loud!?

With the fast-structure, high donk-factor and with over 80% of the field bound to lose their £38 buy-in anyway do you really need to take it so seriously!? This is NOT life-changing money here, it's a bit of fun where winning any money is just a bit of a bonus. Of course the £325 main event, where the buy-in means a lot more to the majority of players, is different and the seriousness can be excused but, I mean... really.

Finally, a quick word about the ambience, or should that be ambiance? Anyway two things on this: (1) The lighting is still too damn bright. Poker should not be played with full on lighting; it should be played in comfort with soft lighting with players being made to feel relaxed and settled - not where everyone has a huge spotlight blaring on them! (2) What about a little soft music in the background? Again, just to relax players and create some sort of atmosphere. As it is, players get bright light with no aural stimulation (that's AURAL) from the speakers to break the monotony.

So there it is. In my next post I'll tell you about the second part of my evening and the place where they DO get it right.