G5 Poker

I first met Paul “The Marbella Kid” Zimbler a couple of years ago at a poker festival in Torre Real, not far from Marbella itself. He was handing out baseball caps for a revolutionary new card room called ‘Dusk Till Dawn’.

And now, a few years later, he is launching his own business - a poker school aimed at new professionals and amateurs looking for that extra edge.

With all the interest spreading virally around the net about TIPS, I was lucky enough to get a place on the launch event at a glossy new hotel in Elstree, north of London. Arriving the night before, I sank a few beers with an old friend from deepest somerset who spotted me whilst walking through the bar. It’s a small world.

The day started a little behind schedule, as one of the guest speakers was having problems in traffic, as were a couple of the people attending the course. Paul had laid on egg, bacon and sausage rolls for breakfast along with copious quantities of coffee and there are worse ways to kill the 20 minutes before we kick-off.

With everyone present, Paul started proceedings with a short introduction and a couple of Youtube videos showing some key concepts - he paused each of these at various points, asked what we would do and why, told us what he would do and why, and in one of them showed himself making a mistake. It was a refreshing and fairly counter-egotistical way of illustrating that everyone makes mistakes, even the pros, and if you can spot these mistakes then even the amateurs and less experienced players can take advantage.

We were then treated to a talk by Nik Persaud - an experienced cash and tournament player who stressed the importance of remembering some of the simple rules - such as Sklanksy’s fundamental theorem, and illustrated with examples. Nik is a very energetic and enthusiastic teacher.

A short break and we played a STT (the winner of each receiving a prize) with a chance to think about what we’d learned already in a real poker game. It’s a nice touch. Too much theory all at once can be boring and can be forgotten. By playing a short (and at 8 minute blinds it was very short) game it helped it all sink in.

And thus the day continued. James Browning from Sky Poker was there and gave some very focused and pertinent advice, we played another small STT after some seminars and the final was on tells and body language.

And then we got to put everything we learned on the day into practice in the main competition - with a chance to win a couple of seats at the WSOPE £1k event.

I failed miserably. I was first out when in the first hand I ran AK into AA and lost a chunk, then made an expert read to decide that nobody had hit top pair on a 4-way flop and my second pair was good, especially when a blank fell on the turn. Unfortunately Nik had hit a set of blanks and I was gone in hand # 5. Belatedly, I remembered a piece of James’ advice: “If you play a tournament and don’t really committ to it, or have somewhere to be, you may as well just burn your entry fee”.

I got in the car and drove the 4 hours back to York ready to meet the new girlfriend’s parents the next day. How very true his advice was.

Paul’s instincts are spot on. He knows what the market needs, and is providing it. TIPS is going to be a huge success, and I’m looking forward to going on one of the longer 2-day courses once he get’s them up and running.

Check The International Poker School’s website here.

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Reviewed by The Reverend on 2009-05-22 at 16:22:42

So having driven within 5 minutes of the place almost every day since it opened, I finally got to see what it was like on Friday when, on my way home from work and having stopped off for a pint and a bite to eat near Hanger Lane (garlic pizza bread with an onion salad on the side, not the meal of choice when you’re about to be sat in close proximity to others for several hours) a friend rang to see if I knew where the Western was. Having pointed him in the direction of the Mob database I was rung back a couple of minutes later to be told there was a £10 rebuy on and I was playing. Protesting I had no passport or photo ID I was reassured that we would all go in together and there would be no problem.

Fast forward 40 minutes and I am at the club, my friends are still trying to figure out where the place is and with the tournament about to start they are on the phone asking me to go into the club I’m not a member of without suitable ID and get the start of the tournament delayed until they turn up……

Anyhows, I’m allowed in, and with a solitary tenner in my wallet I’m wondering how I can sign up 3 people. The Western doesn’t have a cash machine and doesn’t do cashback - so far so bad. I’m told there is one a short distance away but there’s no time for playing chicken on the dual carriageway to get to it, but in the meantime why aren’t they taking my money for my entry? £500 freeroll, no rebuys, just a monkey in the pot and not a penny to pay. Had I actually had any money to buy into a real event I might have been a bit peeved but as it was - perfect. They even let me sign up my mates who were on their way.

Off to the bar and £2.50 for a beer is quite reasonable, even moreso when the very friendly barman hands me a second for free. Free tournament, free beer, I like this place!

The tournament starts, no dealers obviously but a good mix of complete novices and people who can keep the game moving, first hand in and the chap on my right smacks the table and knocks both of my beers and his to the floor. I look at him and am not sure if he’s being rude not apologising or waiting to see if I smack him in the face first. Luckily the beers are in bottles and not much is spilt, and as it’s buy one get one free I get two replacements from the gentleman responsible to boot.

£2.50 for 4 beers and my tournament entry. I like this place a lot!

The playing area is extremely spacious compared to every other London cardroom (Gutshot’s new playing area is nice though I must say), the staff are friendly and the atmosphere is a hell of a lot nicer than everywhere else I’ve played in London, although we were only playing small stakes admittedly. Lost the freeroll but won the SnG I played afterwards for a ton Smile.

To top off the evening we sat down in a cash game and were joined by a very pissed off Jon Wong (4th in the Irish Open) who had been doing his money at the Omaha table and tried to sit down with several hundred at our £100 max game. He proceeded to pot almost every hand until he ran into my friend’s pocket kings with his K,T. Now Moo is a bad enough loser at the best of times, so when he did his stack with cowboys to the maniac with K,T that was the end of the night, although it was a great way to finish it (for me anyway).

A very pleasant evening, and I highly recommend the place. Although next time I’ll be checking there is a real tournament taking place, and be visiting the cash point in good time beforehand.

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