Is live poker alive in the U.K?

I'm not really sure why I'm writing this blog, I suppose it is almost just a stream of concious thought that I was having this evening and I wanted to immortalise that thought within the blockchain!

I am a big poker fan, I play often, I study often, and this leads to me (hopefully) winning often! I enjoy playing poker in a live setting much more than I do playing online, however live poker seems somewhat difficult to come by in my local area and, from past experience, much of the United Kingdom. This is somewhat down to lack of casinos, with there only being one in my closest city, which is 20 minutes drive from my home, and when I am at university the nearest casino is an hour's drive away! Now, maybe I just chose my uni poorly, and I got unlucky with casino locations in my home area, but even a lot of the larger cities (except London obviously) only have one or two casinos in them! This is pitiful compared to in the United States, where the larger cities will have three, four, five, or even more casinos in them!

To me, it seems that the U.S. has a much better climate to play poker in, obviously this is helped by Las Vegas, with all the media and film coverage glamourising poker in Vegas - to quote Rounders, "I was dreaming of Vegas and the fuckin' Mirage". And this is obviously fantastic for the poker community as a whole, as it brings more people to the game. People who are maybe not the most experienced players, who just want to sit down and play for some fun - which is obviously a blessing for the more experienced players, as they can capitalise on the newer player's inexperience to make some money!

It just seems that the poker community in the U.K. is less vibrant than it is in Vegas, and the U.S. as a whole. I've never played in one of the bigger cities such as London or Birmingham, and so my opinions could be completely skewed and way off, but it seems to me that, because there is less exposure to poker in the U.K. then less people are willing to play.

I think this is probably due to people still viewing it as gambling rather than a skill game. Sure, in the short term, there is an element of luck, but over a long period of time, with a large sample size, the good players will win money overall. Needless to say that many people do not quite understand this concept, as I've found with my family members when trying to explain the game! This must be off-putting to some, and there will be some hesitation due to the fact that they are playing with real money, but in my eyes I see it as I am paying to do a hobby, something that I enjoy, and then there is the possibility that I leave with a profit and if I do then that's brilliant! If I end up down £50 after 5 hours, well that's ok because I've paid £5 an hour to do something I enjoy!

There also seems to be somewhat a lack of media coverage of poker in the U.K. I believe. I am aware that Channel 4 used to run various poker games in the mid to late 2000's, with the big players at the the time - players such as Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey to name a few. These programs are no longer on, which means there is much less public interest in the game, and so newer players are not coming through and learning about this beautiful game!

I have heard talk of Channel 4 working alongside PokerStars to bring a new series of cash game programs to Channel 4 in the New Year of 2018. These were filmed at the PokerStars Championship Monaco, with various players and personalities such as Jake Cody, Jaime Staples and even a member of the public who won a seat in the game, and got to keep his profits (should he make any!). This would be super super beneficial for the U.K. scene, especially as it will be airing on Channel 4, which is a fairly high profile channel out here.

So to conclude, and I guess the whole point of this little essay is to say that to improve the U.K. live poker scene, we probably need more readily available access to casinos or poker rooms that are good quality and don't shaft the players. Alongside this, we probably also need prospective new players to get a greater exposure to the game, likely through the media, to get them interested to play and learn about this game that we love!

Well, thanks for reading my first post onto Steemit, hopefully I made a decent amount of sense and my opinions and comments aren't way off what may actually be the case in the world, I'm just saying it like I see it! And if you want to discuss anything I've said then feel free to drop a comment and we can have a chat about it!