Your Favourite Venue(s)

[David]

Hey all

So, 888PL (in some form or another) has been around for a few years now. Over that time, what venues are your favourite? Maybe it was the location, or the meals. Maybe the TD/TC running the event did a great job and left an impression. Maybe it was the group of friends you went with - or the friends you mate by going.

Often, players play at a venue for a period of time - maybe one season, maybe a year. This could be down to personal commitments, or other things in your life that change.

Your interpretation of what makes a good venue a great venue could be different to the next person, so let us know what you do and don't like.

It doesn't matter where you are in Australia - let us know what really impressed you - and where it was!

Edit: Former and current staff, what venues did you enjoy running?

[rcon]

Studio 89: Venue & players, general sunday afternoon drinking session.
Paradise: nplsa table and weekend kickoff. Weird pool table, but awesome jukebox
Kentish: coz I could walk there. Couple of fun trips in to town after too
Johnny Miller Thursday night lamb curry! Geezer set the scene for what was a great little venue.
Royal@Kent town. Awesome late game on a Thursday. Knew the bar staff and most of the players. Fun times.

Will expand more on this later.

[Glyn Parsons]

Studio 89: Venue & players, general sunday afternoon drinking session.
Paradise: nplsa table and weekend kickoff. Weird pool table, but awesome jukebox
Kentish: coz I could walk there. Couple of fun trips in to town after too
JOLLY Miller Thursday night lamb curry! Geezer set the scene for what was a great little venue.
Royal@Kent town. Awesome late game on a Thursday. Knew the bar staff and most of the players. Fun times.

Will expand more on this later.

Small correction, and Kentish Arms was a fantastic venue with a great outdoor setting, big heaters/tv's, and good food!

[rcon]

lol@johnny!!

[Swanky]

My Favourite Venue:

Venue: Louisiana Tavern
Location: Elizabeth Shopping Centre, Elizabeth, South Australia
Tournament Director: Dakota “The Screaming Russian” Tran
Night: Mondays. 6:30pm Rego for a 7:30pm start.
Other event’s during the week: Karaoke, Bands on weekends. (Screaming Jets played here a few times)

I love the “Loui”. From the time it opened it’s doors a few years ago (probably 5 at least now). This bar appealed to me straight away as it had a Louisiana theme to it in particular New Orleans.

I went to New Orleans back in 2005 and fell in love with it. It was just before Katrina struck, I had made a few good friends there and so I was glued to my TV during the hurricane.

Every time I walk through the doors of the Loui, it takes me back to that amazing holiday.

This place is great for food, serving some amazing Cajun dishes, native “Nawlins” as well as your standard pub fare.

Bud is the pub’s “local” beer, but you can get pretty much everything you’d expect in a normal bar.

The staff are always super friendly, for the girls, the guys are hot, for the guys the girls are hot. It also kind of reminds me of Hooters, but not quite as sexual. It seems hard to explain, you’re certainly not walking in to a bar full of girls in skimpy shorts and shirts, but it has that Hooters sports bar feel about. Their buffalo wings are reminiscent of Hooters buffalo wings, and washed down with a Bud, once again it takes me back 

While you’re there, try the fillet mignon, it’s to die for! I’m also partial to their chicken parmy with the Cajun spices, damn that’s good.

Dakota runs a great game there (as usual) and the locals are always friendly. They usually get around 40 to 50 runners and it’s generally good fun play.

I really do love this place and out of a possible 5 Swankys it easily gets 7!

If you’re from Adelaide, get to the Loui, if you’re not from Adelaide, GET TO THE LOUIE!

[bennymacca]

Cliffs: benny the cunt gets all nostalgic about his beginnings in pub poker.

Venues that I can remember as being my “regular” at one point in time: Old Spot Hotel Gawler, Willaston Hotel, Kingsford Hotel, Sir John Franklin, Louisiana Tavern, Chenzo’s Italian Restaurant, Brahma Lodge Hotel.

The venue that I remember most fondly would have to be the Old Spot in Gawler, because that is where I first started playing pub poker. For those that don’t know, the old spot is in the main street of Gawler, and is probably on the “rougher” side of pubs, and it is most probably owned by bikies, but in the beginning they were really happy to have poker there.

This was back in 2007 I think it was, and my brother Matt and I had been playing online for a couple of years now, but had never played live save for some laughable home games (no chips, just 10c and 20c pieces ). So when we heard about NPL poker, we thought it would be a perfect chance to take our game to the next level and start playing live.

So we headed to the Old Spot for the first time, and the place was absolutely filled with smoke, so much so that your throat was sore by the end of the night. But we registered and went and got a meal. At the time it was really nerve racking because I had no idea how good I was compared to other people, and wasn’t that fluent in shuffling and dealing etc. It was just all foreign to me, the place, the atmosphere, and the other players. I remember finishing 14th from about 30 runners and I remember being proud of myself that I made points, but Matthew finished 11th I think so I was annoyed that he beat me . I don’t remember much about how people played, but I remember that there were lots of beginners obviously, and there were some players that had played before. I remember that pretty quickly there was some great good natured rivalries that struck up between myself, my bro, the O'Reilly boys, Cathy Lambert and it was also the first time when I met a lot of the Gawler boys like Aaron and JD. Dakota was my first ever TD, (and is still my current one, and I remember thinking that he was an awesome bloke, now, not so much ) I can still remember my first ever win, which was about 4 weeks in I think, back in those days everyone stayed till the end to see who won, so there was like 20 people watching me and Daniel O'Reilly go heads up. I remember finishing first on the leaderboard at the end of the season, with 2 wins, which I was really happy with.

The Willaston was also a great venue, and that is where I first met Matty Norwood and a lot of the other Gawler crew.

The other venue that I loved was when the Kingsford had a game on a Friday night. It started later than normal, at 9pm, so it was good to go home, relax for a few hours, and then go down on a Friday night and have a few beers and play poker. We tried to sit at the same table every week, which usually consisted of a mix of me, Aaron, JD, Gareth, Toddy, Stevo, Zack, Renee and Heath, Haylee and Thommo, Kyle, and some others. The game would finish at about 1230, and so then we would all trek down to Aaron’s shed and play till about 5am . This is when I started to become good mates with all of these boys as well.

Obviously during this time I started contributing on the forum regularly and that’s how I met and became mates with all the guys on the forum, and I think it is awesome that I can call most of the staff friends now as well

I am getting all nostalgic now thinking about all the friendships I have made via pub poker, that now transcend just being poker buddies, it really is pretty cool and something that I am really grateful to 888pl for.

[666HARPS666]

Louisiana Tavern only went there once & old man Swanky lies the food was not good it was FANTASTIC & big, only problem was no Tabasco for Bacon & my T,N,T's , but they had a hot sauce. It is the sort of venue I would go to all the time "pity its a 10+ hour drive".
I love my venue The Hoppers Club for the T,C's most of the players "amazing how many are still playing there that were there 5 years ago" & the staff.
Harpsy rating [_]) [_]) [_]) [_]) [_]) / 5

[krunchie]

did you just break my copyrighted rating system harps

[AceLosesKing]

The other venue that I loved was when the Kingsford had a game on a Friday night. It started later than normal, at 9pm, so it was good to go home, relax for a few hours, and then go down on a Friday night and have a few beers and play poker. We tried to sit at the same table every week, which usually consisted of a mix of me, Aaron, JD, Gareth, Toddy, Stevo, Zack, Renee and Heath, Haylee and Thommo, Kyle, and some others. The game would finish at about 1230, and so then we would all trek down to Aaron’s shed and play till about 5am . This is when I started to become good mates with all of these boys as well.

Miss these nights so much.

[krunchie]

this is my local venue
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/huge-blaz ... 6129073973

not sure where i will play now