Poker Traveller
Thursday, 1 August 2013
We present a far more grassroots-y look at the tournament trail this month. Cardiff, Southend and Bolton.
Cardiff - The APAT Welsh Amateur Poker Championships: 3 - 4 August
The centre of Cardiff and Cardiff Bay has experienced a lot of regeneration over the past decade and the centre of town is now a vibrant shopping mecca. The APAT Welsh Amateur Poker Championships arrives at the beginning of the month for a £75 + 7 NLH Main Event. Here’s a whistle-stop tour…
Casino
The Grosvenor G Casino Cardiff is located in the heart of Cardiff Bay, the posh bit of town. The poker room usually has ten tables and offers hold’em, Omaha and dealer’s choice games, with stakes from £0.25-£0.50 up to £2-£5. Like all G Casinos, it’s modern and breezy, with a good, inexpensive restaurant and reasonable bar tariffs. It forms part of the Red Dragon Centre, which offers shops, bars, restaurants bowling and a cinema.
Eat When in South Wales, one simply must sample the local faggots – the most unfortunately-named regional speciality since Condom Armagnac. Faggots are meatballs made of minced pork and offal, usually served with gravy peas and mash. Lovely, they are, but if offal’s not your thing, we suggest the
Mint and Mustard, an excellent curry house on Whitchurch Road.
The Potted Pig, in the centre of town, serves very good classic British food, but it may also involve some offal.
Drink You can’t beat a good old-fashioned rowdy Saturday night out in the centre of Cardiff. Unfortunately, many of the city centre pubs our now frightful chain pubs – the price of gentrification. We recommend The Old Arcade, however, a traditional, rugby-mad pub with a good beer garden, a stone’s throw from Cardiff Arms Park and the Millenium Stadium. Incidentally, Wales doesn’t really have a big history of brewing, due to the influence of the Temperance Movement and the Presbyterian moral code, so the local ale ain’t that great (in our opinion). Pint of lager it is, then.
Stay The
St David’s Hotel & Spa is located on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay, not far from the casino. It has classy rooms with views of the bay and an excellent bar and restaurant. It’s not the cheapest place to stay in town, but you’ve come to win the tournament, right? The dead money can stay at the Travelodge!
Attractions Wales is basically wall-to-wall castles. There are literally shed-loads of ’em. Literally! Shed-loads! They were mostly built by the English as bastions of repression, which sucks, but it’s fine coz we’re all good friends now (cough).
Dominating the centre of town is
Cardiff Castle is a medieval castle with mad Victorian gothic bits built into it. A short drive away is Caerphilly Castle, which, occupying around 30 acres is the second largest castle in Britain.
Cardiff Arms Park is a must-visit, whether it’s for a spot of rugger or a rock concert. Not much on in August, however, but tours of the stadium also operate daily and are well worth the £8.50.
Southend - Genting Poker Series - Leg 4: 11 to 13 August Pack your bucket and spade coz we’re off to sunny Southend for the Genting Poker Series, a £400 + £40 NLH main event with £100,000 guaranteed. Ah, English seaside towns! There was a time when the population of London’s East End would decamp to Southend for its annual summer holiday, but now that we all go to “Marbs”, our seaside towns can be a bit – well, weird. Our advice? Embrace the weirdness...
CasinoGenting Club Westcliff has a fantastic view of the Thames Estuary. That may not be as impressive as saying it has a fantastic view of the Niagra Falls or the pyramids at Giza, but it still floats our boat. And talking of geezers, there are plenty of them – Essex ones – and they’re employed by the casino to make your visit a first-class experience.
The card room is a seven-night operation incorporating tournaments and cash games every night. They’re also running a great progressive jackpot for all tournaments, with a royal flush netting 80% and a straight flush 10% of the pot. Thursday sees plenty of cash game action, including a £1/£3 game with £200 minimum sit down and no maximum, and a £1/£2 game with £40 minimum sit down and a £400 maximum.
Eat It simply has to be fish and chips on the pier while the wind sprays you with mushy peas and seagulls hover aggressively. The best fish and chips are to be found at
The Fisherman’s Wharf, a posh chippie by the pier, which is also a fully-licensed restaurant if the pier proves too windy and the seagulls too aggressive. There is also a good choice of grills, steaks and vegetarian dishes, plus the all-important estuary view.
Drink The pubs in Southend are like those in most seaside resorts – big chain pubs (we won’t mention names but you know who we mean), selling cheap beer and filled with vaguely threatening-looking people with tattoos. If that’s for you, then fine. If not, we recommend the more genteel experience of drinking at the hotel bars (see below) or the bar at the casino.
Stay Dominating the seafront is the oddly-named
Park Inn by Radisson Palace, a gorgeous Georgian monster hotel with affordable prices and wonderful views of the estuary. There’s a good bar and grill, with a good view of the estuary, and for those seeking to escape the garish chain pubs there is a chic, relaxing restaurant bar which also affords admirable estuary views.
Attractions Southend has the world’s longest pier. Unfortunately, in 2005 it was badly damaged by a fire, started in the pier pub, and is still undergoing renovation, but the Pier Railway, a narrow-gauge railway that runs the full 1.34 miles and will offer you seriously good views of the estuary because you’ll be in the sodding estuary.
Other than that there’s the usual stuff you get at the seaside: amusement arcades, bumper cars, whirling waltzers, hot donuts, greasy burgers, saucy postcards, candy floss, screaming naked children, fat men in England tracksuits – and, did we mention, stunning views of the estuary.
Bolton - 2013 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour - Leg 8: 4 to 11 August 2013 CasinoLike a lot of the G Casinos up north, the G Casino Bolton is more than just a casino, it’s a proper night out: a slap-up meal, flowing beer, plus good ol’ northern club entertainment and tribute acts – all at friendly Boltonian prices. Last month there was a talent competition! Imagine staging a talent competition at the Vic! (We can’t!)
But, of course, you’re here for business as well as fun and the card room delivers, with plenty of low to medium stakes cash games and tournaments running every day of the week.
Eat We hope that when in Bolton all your pots truly are hot, but for a truly hot Lancashire hotpot, head to
Susanna’s Restaurant and Pub at 38 Little Scotland. Traditionalists might also like to try a butter pie, a regional speciality filled with onions and potatoes.
Other than that they have chips and curry and kebabs and Gregg’s and stuff.
Drink Don’t be put off by the
story recently reported in the Daily Mail of “Britain’s toughest pub”, The Flying Shuttle, the name of which locals had modified to “The Lying Slut”. According to the Mail, it took 13 police officers to close it down, all whom confessed afterwards to feeling “unsafe”. The clientele were clearly not respondents in that survey by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
It seems that Bolton pubs have suffered from closures recently, including, sadly, the beautiful half-timber Old Man and Scythe, which was the third oldest pub in Britain until last year. However, do look out for pubs run by
Bank Top, Bolton’s excellent local brewery, such as the Brewery Tap on Belmont Road.
Stay Accommodation in Bolton is pretty no nonsense, which means it’s decent and affordable but nothing too sexy. We can recommend the Premier Inn which is right by the Reebok Stadium and a short cab ride into town.
AttractionsWhen a town starts its list of attractions on its Wikipedia page with “town hall”, alarm bells should start ringing. I mean, it’s a really good town hall – really first class, as town halls go – but come on Bolton!
Excitingly, Bolton is twinned with Le Mans, the home of endurance racing, but we’re not sure why – perhaps it’s something to with the devilish A666 dual carriageway that serves the town.
The West Pennine Moors, 90 square miles of beautiful moorland and reservoirs, offer a dramatic backdrop to the town and are ideal for a spot of hiking. Or you could just spend the whole time in the casino. Yes, we think we’ll do that.