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I don’t get out much. I stay in watching Get Out. But tonight I went into London to play poker. Long term readeers will know that a decade and a half ago I got caught up in the poker craze, almost foolishly considering going semi-pro, even though I was not really good or patient enough to do very well. And for a period of time, when I was depressed and sitting in my house, playing online for hours, I seemed to want to lose. And was very successful. Luckily that period only lasted about a month.
I had lots of fun with poker too - with a home game with lots of friends that ran for many years and a bit of work too, including Heads Up With Richard Herring, my first attempt at an interview show, which came at a time when I really needed the work (mainly to pay for my gambling habit to be fair).
I was also commissioned to write a book about trying to go from Poker Zero to Poker Hero in a year, though the publishers wouldn’t give me any money for playing poker, so I realised that my small advance would likely be eaten up very quickly and I’d be writing a book for no money. And if I won at poker, then I wouldn’t need to write a book anyway.
I both didn’t take the game seriously enough to succeed and took it too seriously to always have fun. If you take your bad beats or mistakes to heart then you have a night out followed by a sleepless night of annoyance.
But tonight, I was meeting up with an old friend (who coincidentally got drawn in the chair next to mine on the same table) to go to a swanky club in central London to play in a small tournament. My only ambition for the evening was to enjoy it and not worry about what happened. I’d play as well as I could, but winning or losing was not the objective.
And that was a huge success. In spite of having to travel in on a train that didn’t have enough electricity in it (somehow) so was 65 minutes late and very hot, I got in on time and had a coffee at Bar Italia whilst some street punks banged drums and played with fire in there middle of the road. For entertainment I think or maybe as a practice run for post-Brexit. When they were gone a police car parked opposite us and a very cheery armed police officer stood outside it, enjoying the sun. A man in a suit on a moped attempted to pass by the cop stopped him, smiled and told him he was going the wrong way up a one way street. They exchanged a joke or two and the suited man went back the right way. I guess this policeman had bigger fish to fry and was only interested in crimes where he got to use his gun.
We were a long way from Hertfordshire. Where there are no police and criminals run rampant.
Really nice to see my old flat-mate and the father of one of my god-daughters (he feels I have not done a great job, having never sent any Christmas or birthday cards or tried to teach her about Jesus or take any interest in her life - but she was a bridesmaid at my wedding. What more does he want?) It’s been a few years since I’ve seen him properly. Time has flown by so fast.
I won’t, as I used to, bore you with details of the poker, though I played my hands pretty well (and got pocket aces three times, which is pretty lucky, though I failed to make much of them) before my AK got beaten by AJ (oh I still managed to bore you). But I’d enjoyed the company of my friend and the strangers I met on my table, a wily older man who was a very strong player, a slightly looser journalist who kept going all in and losing and having to rebuy and a couple of bankers who were both about to get married (but not too each other). I only really lost one big hand, but it was the last one, of course, and though I had loads of chips, the person who beat me had more. I was OK with it. I got to leave in time for my train and had lots of play and some nice food.
I wasn’t even slightly cross about losing and wished everyone left in the game a genuine good luck and went home.
