UK Poker boom update

[hovemag]

Apologies if this belongs in a different forum, but I consider this home.

Poker in the UK is still a niche market, and obviously doesnt have the benefit of a place in our cultural history, but I am very hopeful and increasingly confident it is about to explode into the mainstream.

Two more indications of the increase in interest. First in the magazine section of the Observer (a heavyweight national Sunday newspaper) this weekend there was a feature on Pacific Poker, which included the stat that there had been a sixfold increase of people playing online in the UK over the last 12 months.

And secondly I have just taken a call at work(supply chain managment) from a client who foolishly mentioned the phrase Poker Channel. He got me off the phone 30 mins later, but basically we are getting a new dedicated cable channel for poker starting March 23rd [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Hold on to your hats, the UK is going to go boom,(with the added benefit that hopefully I wont have to stay up till 4am so much for the best games)

[David100]

i hope that happens, it is soo loose at 4am!

I was chatting to someone from uni in a tournament the other day, and he thought the only reason he played badly was because he gets impatient. He said he knew everything as he had read caro's book of tells and supersystems.

When i told him later he did not have folding equity, he was like what is that? He also said he was an sng expert and had played 100s of hands. Can't wait for these fish to arrive [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img])

David (part of the Uk boom)

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
,(with the added benefit that hopefully I wont have to stay up till 4am so much for the best games)


[/ QUOTE ]

About [censored] time.

Mack

[GtrHtr]

Poker in the UK seems dirtier than anywhere else in Europe. Why is that?

[bookish]

We have lower standard of personal hygiene

[Scuba Chuck]

Very good to hear, keep us updated. Would like to have more online fish during the middle part of the day. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Mystic]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker in the UK seems dirtier than anywhere else in Europe. Why is that?

[/ QUOTE ]

What does this mean??

I agree with the original poster, poker in the UK is going to explode. More and more advertisng has appeared over the past six months - on the tube (underground train system in London), and recently Empire have launched a big advertising campaign at Premiership football (read soccer) grounds. The crypto sites have doubled their number of players in a short space of time, and who's to say it won't double again in 2005.

[hovemag]

Poker in the Uk has until recently always been seen as a near criminal activity. House games are unknown, there is no collective knowledge. As for myself apart from a lifelong strange yet completely removed fascination with poker,(possibly based on an episode of Alias Smith and Jones where they played Montana Red Dog that I saw when I was 10yo) I had no knowledge of the game whatsoever. I think I "knew" on an instinctive level that I loved the game, but until a year ago until I chanced upon Late Night Poker on an obscure sattelite channel I didnt know Texas Holdem existed. The hole cards were visible to the camera-I was completely hooked.

As more channels started showing more poker I realised poker might take off over here. I flirted with the idea of starting a home game.I decided to learn how to play to see if I could catch a jump on the rest of the country.
Until 6 months ago I assumed online poker was a ripoff. Then I found this forum and started to grasp the size of this thing. At that point I didnt know there was such a thing as limit [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

There is still a lot of distrust of internet poker, but the walls are coming down. The brits are coming [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[lorinda]

The brits are coming

I think you've missed the boat, the Brits are already here and some have started to leave.

There is WAY too much poker on our tv as it is (Over 70 hours a week) and I think the idea of a poker channel has been recieved with more mirth than wonder.

It's been shown in the past that my sample is skewed and that I deal mainly with poker players, but you are seriously underestimating the amount of poker already played in this country.

I've played and dealt home games all my life and they have never been hard to come across.
Late night poker on channel four got more viewers than the superbowl in season one, and the superbowl was the biggest show every year in the time slot before that, and both shows were 8-10 years ago.

It is an exciting time, and it is still growing, but I think you are discovering things and creating the illusion of massive growth, rather than particuarly big growth existing.

We played poker in junior school at lunchtime, we played it in senior school at lunchtime we played it in 6th form after class.
(Actually Brag was common back then, but I think it counts for the purposes of this discussion)

I know my sample is skewed in the favor of knowing a lot of players, but yours is certainly skewed the other way.

Lori

[hovemag]

It is very likely that a lot more poker is played than I realised, but I wasnt claimimg it didnt exist, but it has always been by a sort of exclusive club rather than the general public. I realise I am hardly blazing a trail, but you cant claim that poker has ever had any true mainstream existance. This is what I(probably somewhat niavely) think is about to change.

You say there is way too much poker, but it is probably more a function of people who have had no previous exposure getting a chance to watch the last few years tournaments. When I caught the bug I was devouring the tournaments for hours a night but once the same ones start coming round again it starts to get tedious. I know watch virtualy no poker on TV but I think it serve a pi]urpose in spreading the word.

Similarly the new channel sounds very much more of the same WPT reruns etc, but again dont knock it, its a sign of the increasing interest.

Poker still seems underground to me, very few people I know or talk to know anything about it, and its not as if Im stuck away in the backwoods away from the action. What I am talking about is a genuine move into the mainstream and a huge increase in new players.

BTW I think your reference to playing brag illustrates rather than refutes my point. We were playing brag, the yanks have a myriad of exotic varuiations to chose from.

I realise I am inferring a lot from my small and likely skewed sample, but hey I am glad I found the game. The missionary enthusiasm of the newly converted.