End Of An Era
Having a brief flick through Luton's schedule on Cheeseypoker, it seems that the Stud tournaments have finally bitten the dust. I would guess so anyway - Sundays are now taken up with satellites and £5 Hold-em tournaments. You can hardly blame the casino, looking at turnouts of less than 20 on a prime Sunday afternoon slot.
I'm not one for nostalgia, but what a game that was on the right day. 40-50 runners, token nothing prizes for 6th-9th, high antes. What you could do around the bubble - it shouldn't have been allowed ! All in all it was pretty hard not to beat a game where players would regularly do things like open blind for the minimum, look at their cards while the action went round and place their protector on top if, and only if, they had a big pair.
Once I got the hang of if I took at least £10K ? (I'll check it later) out of £20 tournaments at a rate which I assure you would have been totally beyond the laws of physics playing Hold-Em. But even without the TV generation and the Cadillac Of Poker, attendances were on the slide. It was a difficult game for new players to get into. It was slow, many of the regulars were rude and intolerant, the game was very conducive to angle-shooting, open collusion was often condoned * and the amount of fucking about on the showdown (there was no "on their backs" rule) would have tested a saint. "One pair goin in ... I'll ave a little squeeze ... wot av I got to beat ?" while some poor sod was sweating on his whole tournament. And if you made them show first when they were supposed, you were the bad guy for spoiling their fun.
So all in all, the wheel of karma has dispensed its ineffable justice once again. No doubt the likes of George Kiss are now bemoaning what a shame it is. Well, what goes around comes around. Ask yourselves why no-one wants to play with you, if it's not too late for you to change.
* To be honest I condoned it myself on the occasions where players made no attempt to hide it and they were massive donators anyway.
I'm not one for nostalgia, but what a game that was on the right day. 40-50 runners, token nothing prizes for 6th-9th, high antes. What you could do around the bubble - it shouldn't have been allowed ! All in all it was pretty hard not to beat a game where players would regularly do things like open blind for the minimum, look at their cards while the action went round and place their protector on top if, and only if, they had a big pair.
Once I got the hang of if I took at least £10K ? (I'll check it later) out of £20 tournaments at a rate which I assure you would have been totally beyond the laws of physics playing Hold-Em. But even without the TV generation and the Cadillac Of Poker, attendances were on the slide. It was a difficult game for new players to get into. It was slow, many of the regulars were rude and intolerant, the game was very conducive to angle-shooting, open collusion was often condoned * and the amount of fucking about on the showdown (there was no "on their backs" rule) would have tested a saint. "One pair goin in ... I'll ave a little squeeze ... wot av I got to beat ?" while some poor sod was sweating on his whole tournament. And if you made them show first when they were supposed, you were the bad guy for spoiling their fun.
So all in all, the wheel of karma has dispensed its ineffable justice once again. No doubt the likes of George Kiss are now bemoaning what a shame it is. Well, what goes around comes around. Ask yourselves why no-one wants to play with you, if it's not too late for you to change.
* To be honest I condoned it myself on the occasions where players made no attempt to hide it and they were massive donators anyway.
6 Comments:
Yes Andy...the edict came from on high that they needed to attract new players in, and a £5 gamble fest was seen as the route to go
Luton's numbers have been way down since the early summer...maybe six new places to go on a midweek night now from Walthamstow through Harlow dog track through Full House in Reigate etc etc combined with a stunningly hostile attitude from some staff towards the poker punters assured that.
As an aside, the Monday night shootouts (numbers dwindled there too, I seem to remember you trying it in it's early days) are going to be replaced by Omaha comps. Know nothing more yet.
On reading your post I had a skim through October's results. You're not wrong about the turnouts. A few samples :
£100 Shootout, Mon 3rd : 16 runners
£100 NL Rebuy, Fri 14th : 23 runners
£20 PL, Wed 19th : 17 runners
and several more running at less than 30. So it's not just the Stud.
Luton's cardroom may be on borrowed time. I know I haven't been there for a while, so I could be wrong. But attracting new players in £5 tournaments isn't going to help much. Few are going to play cash games (unless they introduce some small max sitdown games). None are going to play in the pit.
Now more than ever, if a casino cardroom wants to survive, it must introduce sustainable cash games. The Vic has them already so it should be ok. The others will struggle, unless the unofficial places start being closed down.
Andy.
What are the start times for these other places? For me, the big drawback with Luton was the 9pm start, later changed to 8.30 but with an extra level chucked in and a longer rebuy period. (So you were back to where we started, as far as getting people into cash games was concerned).
The fact that it took until almost 11pm to get a cash game started made it a non-starter for me most nights.
DY
I agree with you both
Luton is now 8.30pm start for tournaments
there's a good Dealers game there now most nights (now cash game captain as Andy once referred to him has been thrown out for life for chip stealing mid pot, allegedly)
some nights the £100PLHE cash is good, others it's not....pot luck...hardly worth travelling for
Furthermore the laissez faire attitude of the casino towards staffing the card room is a deterrent...who wants to play £6p/h for self deal cash on a cramped table in the corner?...they don't help themselves
As for the unofficial places, it is no surprise that some "establishment" organisations are such long standing lobbyists for their removal from the scene is it? Their easy pickings are being taken from their table and they are too inert to attract the punters back
Should have kept that one for me Andy. The nostalgic walk down seven card stud's memory lane brought a tear to the eye. I'm sure you could have entertainingly stretched that out into 1000 words of fun.
I look forward to the day that some poor sods are bemoaning the old days and how Hold'em in it's hey day had the world under its spell...God only knows what we'll be playing then....
David Lloyd
Indian Poker probably. Easy to understand, would make good TV.
For some reason this made me think of my favourite Luton stud story. A cheeky chappy called Steve (Melville ?) was heads up with a very large Scotsman. "What have I got tae beat, och aye the noo" asks his opponent. "Two pair". "Reet, ah'll have a wee squeeze, it's a broa' bricht moonlicht nicht" (just giving you some colour). A two-minute squeeze later, the Scotsman triumphantly announces "Flush ! Ye Sassenach !". "Two pair" smirks Steve, "Eights and Eights". The Scot leaps up and lunges for our hero, who displays a hitherto unsuspected turn of speed to sprint all the way across the casino and lock himself in the Gents.
I might have taken a liberty or two with the dialogue but the flight to the toilet is Luton folklore.
Andy.
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