Live Session #56: A Break-Even Evening - Part 1

With just a few days left before my week off work comes to its inevitable end, along with the fact that we're having our last few days of sunshine before the clocks go back and we're plunged into darkness, I took myself off to ol' London Town yesterday to try my hand at a bit of live poker. Without doubt, it was the busiest evening in London I've seen in a long time with Halloween celebrations kicking off big-time and the poker tables absolutely heaving.

First stop, at about 8PM, was The Empire but as they too were having some sort of Halloween promotion with a huge raffle to boot, the waiting list was the longest I have ever seen in my entire life. Later, when I went back I learnt that this list had reached an insane 60 players!! With The Empire being far too crowded I wandered over to The Golden Nugget but the opposite was the case here: zero cash game tables were in operation. This meant I had to pop into The Fox but I didn't really like the vibe. As it was a mild evening and the town just seemed to be a hype of activity, I decided to take the walk through Soho and along Oxford Street to Edgeware Road in order to give The Vic a short whirl before heading back to The Empire.

Yeh, I know their promotion, and their 50p drop on pots over £20, means it's a rip-off to those who don't visit the place that often but I was willing to pay this price just to get a bit of poker in. After about a half hour wait, and with the time at around 10:30PM, I finally played my first hand of poker at a fresh £1/£1 table that was just starting up. I buy £150 in chips which makes me the big stack. Furthermore, thankfully, the table was incredibly soft with absolutely no one stepping out of line and with the other players as easy to read as "Peter and Jane."

Key Hand #1

I started well but this was the only significant hand I played at the table: it's early doors and a few places to my right is a player who was on the same table as me as my last visit and who I constantly raised and who I won chips from in every pot I played against him. I'm in mid-position and I look down at A Q of clubs. I open for £6 and get a couple of callers. The flop brings three clubs right there giving me the flush straight away. Mr Whipping Boy pops in a £10 bet which I smooth call, the other villain folds. The turn brings a harmless low spade and Mr Whipping throws in another £15 which, again, I smooth call. The river brings another club which is not a great card for me and has Mr WB checking. I throw in another £30 and I'm pretty sure this villain hates me right now. He reluctantly makes the call and I take down a nice pot for a healthy ~£60 profit.

---------------   

 

I stay for another hour and a half or so and decide just to go on cruise control and not get tricky. I go card-dead for the rest of the session and don't make any more progress and I leave with a £205 stack and a fairly reasonable £55 profit. In fact, feeling no pressure, I was perfectly happy to just soak up the atmosphere of The Vic (which is easily the finest poker room in London for design, space and comfort by the way). After this, I felt there was more poker to be had so with the time at around midnight I jumped on a bus back to Picadilly Circus.

--Part 2 to follow--