European Poker Tour Part II - Hitting The Vic

Read part I of Galen’s trip report here…

I arrived at the Compound just after 9 a.m. and was greeted by a groggy Mike. Gavz was on a mini vacation with his girlfriend Olivia and Tony was still sleeping. Mike went back to bed and I fired up my laptop to put in some hands. To my complete horror my brand new HP was dropping the wireless signal every two minutes. This made it impossible to grind.

This was a trend that would keep up for the entire trip! $1200 not well spent. At this point Tony was awake and let me use his computer. I played 2k hands and swonged like crazy. I dropped 5 buy ins within the first 75 hands but managed a small win in the end. Being down 5 buy ins minimum per session was also a trend that kept up for 90 percent of the trip.

After the session Tony and I went out for a proper English breakfast. We walked down the high street, a street with shops and restaurants, to a place called The Cafe. I don’t eat eggs so I swapped them out for more sausages and bacon alongside my beans and toast.

I must admit English bacon is delicious. I really like how there’s a higher meat to fat ratio and its thicker as well. We had a good chat and caught up on this and that before heading back to the compound. We decided to go play live at the Vic later that night but in the mean time I fired up another 3k hands.

Once again I was insta-stuck 5 buy ins but fought back to even then dropped 8 buy ins then fought back to even. I should add that I was nine-tabling instead of my usual six but the games were just so good I couldn’t help myself. I won’t out specific players publicly but the worst of the worst were spaffing off tons of money yet managing to win my money at the same time. It was very frustrating. Eventually I went on a heater and booked a 2.5 buy in win which would end up being my last winning session for two weeks.

There wasn’t food in the flat but Tony insisted that the Vic had a pretty good selection after 6 p.m. so we drove over there. I assume the driving in London is concerning for a lot of people and I definitely wouldn’t want to drive myself. The fact they drive on the opposite side of the road pales in comparison to speed and tightness of the roads. Luckily for me Tony is a good driver that doesn’t tweak my survival instincts.

We all have friends that can drive twice the speed limit through traffic and it won’t bother you while others driving under the speed limit makes you want to get out of the car ASAP. It was nice to take a tour through London and end up at the Vic near Edgeware station.

I had remembered to pack was my Grovsenor playing card so it took no time at all to get into the poker room. There wasn’t any PLO running so we got stuck on a £5/5 NL game. There was a blonde women to my right splashing around in every pot and it was my intention to stack her.

I found out later that it was Vicky Coren. I was once good at NL but haven’t put any time into improving for years. I raised Q-Q twice and flopped an over card multi way both times. I three bet A-Q three ways and flopped air just to bet-fold.

On a dwindling stack I three-bet T-T just to get cold four-bet and shoved on by the initial raiser so I folded. The long/short of it was I did a lot of folding and no winning. Eventually a £1/3 PLO game opened and Tony and I talked everyone into making it a 5/5 to avoid the rake. Before I get into the PLO I want to write about a hand that caused a lot of debate amongst my friends. If you play NL please chime in and let me know who’s right.

Read part III tomorrow…