theonlinepokerleague.com Blog

Playing live games in the UK for fun and small stakes

June 24, 2007 on 8:11 am | In General |

I’ve been playing online for a couple of years now but I have never ventured anywhere near a card club or casino to get any experience of actually playing live. I heard a few months ago that there was a venture to set up a pub league in Spalding but it was reported that the organiser had to apply for a license to run the event (even though it was free to enter). To be honest I’m not sure if that went any further. I have therefore been doing some research into the area and for the UK this seems to be a booming time where organisations are setting up free poker leagues. One of the most famous is The Nuts Poker League (http://www.thenutspokerleague.com/) who were featured on a business reality TV show and famously was the only idea punted where the entrepreneur managed to get a larger investment than he was asking for! Next comes Redtooth Poker. “Redtooth are the largest supplier of pub quizzes and entertainment in the UK and are committed to providing you with both a legal and fun way of adding poker to your pub” http://www.redtoothpoker.com/default.htm . Now for me this one looks interesting as they have a Spalding pub on their list but with no results or fixtures I can only assume that the venture hasn’t gotten off the ground in our sleepy market town! One of the most interesting things I found was that Rileys Snooker Clubs have a poker league - now these guys are obviously traditionally know for snooker and pool but they have now added poker to their offering and each venue has one or two poker nights a week and with 4 venues in nearby Peterborough I should be able to break my live game virginity at some point! http://pokerleague.rileysltd.com/

I had gotten quite excited about this next site a few weeks ago as it was the first site that I had seen where I could enter a national pub league locally (again Peterbourgh 17 miles away - but hey thats nearly local!). This site is called The Poker Project (http://www.pokerproject.co.uk/) and they were due to play at Yates Wine bar in Peterborough but unfortunately I have now noted that this venue has been removed from their list which is a shame as I am on vacation for a few days and I was planning to take a trip over there tomorrow.

There are a number of other sites but some of them haven’t spread to far from their original sites but I intend to keep an eye on the following in case they get to Lincolnshire and in particular the Spalding area.

Poker Down The Pub - http://www.pokerdownthepub.com/index.asp
Poker In The Pub - http://www.pokerinthepub.com/ (This one looks good for me as they host a game each Tuesday at Bourne which is just 12 miles from where I live)
Amateur National Poker League - http://www.anpl.co.uk/index.asp
Live Pub Poker League - http://livepubpokerleague.com/
Poker.co.uk Live Poker League - http://www.poker.co.uk/league/home.html
Amateur Pub Poker League - http://www.appleholdem.com/poker/index.php?p=9&pp=0&title=Home
I’m sure there are more but this is what I have found to date.