What happens between the list and the felt

Yes. Play runs live and face to face at eight tables, and every hand is pitched by a dealer standing at the table rather than by a screen or a machine. You sit with the other players, handle your own chips and read the board yourself. The Live Poker page describes how a session is run.

The main room holds eight tables, each covered in charcoal cloth with a single birch-green betting line and a padded rail to rest your cards on. Every table carries a wooden caddy with a cut card, a spare setup and a laminated copy of the house rules. The Poker Room page covers how the floor is arranged.

Cards are pitched by hand, and a fresh setup goes on each table after four hours of play. Chips are 10-gram ceramics in denominations of 1, 5, 25, 100 and 500, kept in birch-fronted racks behind the host desk and counted out when you take a seat. Poker Tables & Live Play lists the equipment in detail.

A first visit starts with a walkthrough of about five minutes, covering the list, the chip colours and the four house rules. The night's games and the live list are written in chalk on the board beside the host desk and rubbed out as seats open, and dealers post the current blind level on a small wooden sign at every table change. The call-ahead list opens one hour before the posted start, and a held place lapses 20 minutes past the stated time.

Yes. Learn the Table sessions run on the first Monday of each month and teach shuffling, chip handling and table etiquette to groups of eight. The floor manager keeps a printed seating chart and puts a new player beside a regular wherever the chart allows, so a first hour is rarely spent among strangers.

The four house rules are printed on a card, and a laminated copy sits in the caddy on every table. House rule one is that phones stay face-down on the padded rail and never on the felt. The card is reprinted whenever a rule changes, with the date of the last revision printed in the corner, and dealers introduce themselves by first name at each table change.

A 32-seat dining room sits behind a low half-wall from the poker room, on birch plywood banquettes. The kitchen is a contemporary Canadian bistro menu of six plates and two desserts, including a rotisserie chicken for two, a barley-and-mushroom plate and a smoked-trout salad, and it takes its last order 30 minutes before closing. The menu page carries the full list.

Yes. A runner carries food from the kitchen to the tables between hands, and no plate is ever set on the felt. The Sunday deep-stack tournament runs 30-minute levels with a dinner break long enough to order from the kitchen. Tables can be booked up to 60 days ahead by phone or through the form on the site, and a table is held 30 minutes past the booked time.