New player wants new stuff

[Siliqua]

Hey guys, just found the site through Google, looks like it's gonna be very handy for me.

I'm a relatively new player, only started a few proper holdem games recently (as a host and sole dealer, talk about being dropped in the deep end); nothing too formal, just with mates at school. Thing is, I'm using these grotty cards and a beginners set of 4gm chips, and would like to get onto something better as me and some others move into more regular, serious amateur play (we're not there yet of course, but we seem to be approaching fast).

Money's probably not an issue, I can scab off others, get them to chip in; problem is I'm in sunny old England, and since we all know you Americans do poker best, I'm pretty much forced to import stuff from you lot.

So basically what I want to know is, what should I be buying/replacing, how much of it and from where? We don't really need extras like card shufflers and holders, but it might be worth us investing in a table (if our school will let us have one of course).

Cheers guys.




P.S. In case this raises legal issues (I don't know about laws, I'm a language student), me and my mates are all 18, which I'm pretty sure is the legal age for gambling over here. Feel free to laugh at me if I'm being paranoid, it was just the mention of 'school'.

[BeerWench13]

Check out the links
<-------over here.
There are good sites and many will ship to the UK. There are also uk sites where you can find very nice merchandise (or so I've been told). I'm in the US, so have had no reason to really verify this.

[UrAteUp]

Well at least you see that America is the best for poker... .

Your best bet is to check on this forum for websites that will be able to give you what you want. Look down on the left of this page...toward the bottom you will see a banner for a poker supply store. I am sure they also serve UK folk too seeing as we have a ton of them here.

If your after a table, I suggest you see if any of your mates are handy. If so make your own. You can save a ton of money.


Good luck and good games.

[Iron Butt]

First thing I'd get is a decent 2 deck plastic card setup. This is the cheapest item and really improves the game as they reduce card issues and you can move the deal faster (one person deals, one shuffles and prepares to deal). Kem, Copag, Dal Negro are popular brands. You might want to browse the posts here, this ground has been very thoroughly covered.

Next, chips. In the low end chips, prices are way down, like cased 500 sets under $50. There's not much difference in the low end usually, but you still get the benefit of standard size chips being easier to count and stack plus being cooler or w/e LOL. Chips have also been discussed to death here, look around.

One item that's free: No matter what table you play on, use some kind of padding, like even just a blanket with a tablecloth over. Makes handling the cards and chips a lot easier.

A table's nice, but expensive and kinda awkward to have around when you're not using it. I have one, don't use it much. The table padding trick gives you most of the benefit and weighs 80 lbs. less LOL. The tabletops are pretty useless IMO, they wear quick and often don't have decent felt on them anyway.

Hope it helps, have fun.