We still haven't hit peak times today, and we are already at 14 tables and counting for Day 2 in the Cash Game Festival at Aspers Casino.
Right now, no-limit hold'em and dealer's choice pot-limit Omaha are dominating the action, mostly at lower stakes of £1/£1 and £1/£2. There are a pair of £5/£5 pot-limit Omaha games and an action-packed £5/£10 no limit hold'em game in motion.
Jason Glatzer
London Cash Game Festival Feature Table
Cash Game Festival founder Martin "Franke" von Zweigbergk had fun throughout the feature table and his energy seemed to radiate to the other players on the table as well. In the second to last hand before the table broke up, Zweigbergk was egging the table on that he was going to go all-in.
Undeterred was Ainika Bobrovskaja who open-raised for £90 from early position. Keep in mind, this is just a £1/£1 game and to add to the fun, the Estonian wasn't seen playing many pots in the past few hours.
Keeping his promise, "Franke" yelling in excitement, called-off with his remaining stack of £41. Next to act was England's Fuad Madatov called behind £81, representing the rest of his chips. Everyone else got out of the way and the players turned over their cards.
Bobrovskaja:
Von Zweigbergk:
Madatov:
Both "Franke" and Bobrovskaja were just about drawing dead when the case-king spiked the flop. Neither player had any hope left when the hit the turn, and Madatov tripled up when the appeared on the river.
Von Zweigbergk shared with us he had fun on the feature table despite losing over £800 in a £1/£1 game in about 2 hours. He referred to himself while smiling as a "fish in poker", but then clarified that he felt he was running bad never having the better hand than his opponents. He joked "Why can this be, I know the math says I should be dealt a good hand once in awhile."
The Cash Game Festival co-founders exploits on the feature table are far from done. He shared with us he plans to playing in the six-plus hold'em game that will be on the live stream tomorrow.
Ranking Hero Co-Founder Pedro Canali shared with us his excitement about the Aspers Cash Game Festival when it kicked off yesterday. Ranking Hero is one of the partners of the event and has been engaging the community via a raffle to win a spot on the feature table with a £100 buy-in included.
Canali, however, is also getting into the action himself, splashing chips and having fun on the feature table. The now entrepreneur is well-experienced on the felts amassing almost $700,000 in live tournament cashes since 2009 according to the site he co-founded.
Both a £2/£5 no limit hold'em table recently opened as well as a second £5/£5 Omaha game.
Spain's " Javier" was just involved in a big pot in the no-limit hold'em game. After raising the action pre-flop, he barreling on the flop and turn on a board of with his opponent calling both times. He slowed down when the spiked on the river with both him and his opponent checking.
Javier turned over to rake in pot nearing £400 after his opponent mucked.
Despite just being a £1/£1 game, the current feature table is star-studded. Raigo Aasmaa is a well-known player in his country of Estonia ranking fourth on The Hendon Time All-Time Money List in the country with $433,147 in live tournament cashes. Both him and his girlfriend Ainika Bobrovskaja are among those having fun battling it out in a lower-stakes game.
Anthony Hardy, who also is referred to some of the Aspers Casino locals as "The Booky" just got into the action on a £5/£5 pot-limit Omaha table that recently opened up.
He already has doubled up his opening £1,500 twice to over £6,000 with his holding in one big pot and suited connectors hitting big in another pot.
The Aspers Casino regular shared with us that he has attended many other festivals at Aspers and that he feels the action is usually decent.
While he was not part of the action yesterday, he believes the games will be good due to the many players expected stating that, "With the players coming the game will be good."
The feature table just began action about 10 minutes ago with a £1/£1 table. In addition to Cash Game Festival organizer Martin "Franke" von Zweigbergk among those competing on the feature table there are a few other higher profile players.
The biggest name on this lower stakes table is 2009 WSOP side-event champion Tomas Alenius. He is one of the more popular players in his home country of Sweden. He has over $427,000 in career live tournament earnings according to The Hendon Mob, which includes the almost $198,000 he won on his way to a gold-bracelet in the WSOP $1,500 Limit Hold'em event.
Players are filing in to take part in Day 2 of the Cash Game Festival London at Aspers Casino Westfield Stratford City with already eight-tables in action. As one might expect this early in the day, most of the tables are filled with lower-stakes players playing no-limit hold'em or pot-limit Omaha at £1/£1 and £1/£2 stakes.
However, there is a higher-limit £5/£5 game that is already generating a bit of buzz and excitement throughout the poker room and a £5 a point heads-up pineapple open-face Chinese game that is the same game from running yesterday between Austrian football pro "Mario" and United Kingdom university student Mark Wraith with the duo of just taking a few hours off for rest in a fun back-and-forth match.
Yesterday peaked with an impressive 22 tables of cash-game play, and today is expected to have even more action with a wide-variety of game-formats and blind-structures.
At 6:30 p.m. GST (6:40 p.m. on the stream) the feature table is scheduled to change to a £2/£5 no-limit hold'em game before switching to a big-action £5/£10 pot-limit Omaha table at 9 p.m. BST (9:10 p.m. BST on the stream).
Additionally, the first set of cash-game tournaments are planned to take place at around 6 p.m. Tomorrow, these games are likely to be featured and commentated on via the live stream.
Stay tuned at PokerNews as our Live Reporting Team will bring you updates directly from the Aspers Casino Westfield Stratford City poker room.