Lex Live returns to London in April 2020

Lex Veldhuis will be returning to London in April 2020 for the third installment of Lex Live, his hugely popular Twitch community poker festival.

Get these dates marked off in your calendars, folks: April 17-26 2020.

Then get your travel and accommodation booked because you’re not going to miss this.

After fantastic stops in Namur, Belgium (March 2019) and London (October 2019), Lex Live 3 will again take place in London, at Aspers Casino in Stratford Westfield City.

“Lex Live 2 was a massive success. Everyone had a great time, so there was absolutely no reason to switch to a different venue,” Veldhuis says. “It just felt like a home run. I took a lot of feedback from people and everyone said the location was perfect.

“Everyone loved how willing John [Scanlon, Head of Poker at Aspers] and everyone at the casino was in being up for anything. People were able to deal their own sit and gos, the welcome party was awesome, John got behind the turntables and DJ’d. We felt like we’d been invited into somebody’s home, as opposed to us being the loud people visiting.”

Scroll down for our full interview with Veldhuis.

Amidst a schedule full of unique side events and fun communal activities outside of the casino (stay tuned for announcements of those), the focal point of Lex Live is the £230 Main Event (dates of which you’ll find below).

Flight 1 – Sat 18th April 18:00
Flight 2 – Thu 23rd April 18:00
Flight 3 – Fri 24th April 18:00
Flight 4 – Sat 25th April 14:00
Flight 5 Turbo – Sat 25th April 19:00
Final Day – Sun 26th April 13:00

Things will kick off with a £60 welcome event on Friday 17th April, beginning at 6pm.

Back in October at Lex Live 2, Kyle McCague took home the first-place prize of £26,945 after a three-way chop with Cristian-Gicu Stanciu (2nd – £20,095) and Atanas Pavlov (3rd – £20,015).

At the inaugural Lex Live in Namur back in March, it was Danny de Vos who emerged victorious, winning €29,300 after a heads-up deal with Abdelkrim Chenoufi (€19,500).

We sat down for a chat with Lex Veldhuis at EPT Prague, where he’s in town to commentate on the €5,300 Main Event.  Here’s what he had to say.


PokerStars Blog: Hi Lex, we’re excited about the announcement of Lex Live 3. How did you work with Aspers this time around?

Lex Veldhuis: It’s a back and forth for sure. John has decades of experience and is so good at putting together a schedule. I go on his advice for things that work and what doesn’t, and I listen to my community to input what they would like, and the combination of those two gives you something that improves on last time.

While we’re only announcing the £230 Main Event today, there are plenty of new additions to the schedule. Is there anything you want people to know?

There is one thing I can let people in on early. Last time we thought that organising side events early (11am) would be nice as it meant there would be no other tournaments going on and we could be as loud as we want. But I think 11am was a little too early, as when people busted them they would find themselves at 1pm wondering what they were going to do for the rest of the day. There was so much hype, but then it died down and we’d have to build it back up for the evenings. This time events will start later.

Finally, what would you like to say to people out there who are thinking of coming to Lex Live for the first time?

I think one of the main things stopping people from making the jump and coming to a Lex Live is they have a hard time making connections. They’re worried they’ll come to the event and not reach out to anybody because of anxiety. But the nice thing about Lex Live is we all have the same things in common: you like Twitch, you like poker, you get the jokes, you know the references. We see people from all walks of life–a 40-year-old CEO and a 21-year-old who dropped out of school–they connect because they get the same things. People will also reach out to you at the event and invite you to join in with community sit and gos.

I would advise anyone who comes here to just walk up to their favourite streamers and introduce yourself. All the streamers are there to meet people. If you introduce yourself to me, ask me anything. You can be as honest as you want.

Some people say “Oh, did you travel on your own to Lex Live?”. The answer, really, is no. We might have all traveled from different places, but really we’re going to the same vacation.

There’s no reason to think you won’t fit in, or that you’ll be lonely. I will guarantee you that.

We’ll have multiple drinking nights and welcome parties, but if you don’t drink there is absolutely no peer pressure. Everyone allows everyone else to be themselves. If you don’t drink, that’s absolutely fine, we have lots of other things going on. If you can’t play £200 events, that’s absolutely fine. You can always just play £30 community sit and gos.

I can’t encourage people enough to come. It’s a great social event, and I think it would be great for people to get out and experience it. You’ll see there are so many people just like you.

Article originally posted on PokerStars Blog
by Jack Stanton