For Richer, For Poorer. Victoria Coren
‘What am I supposed to do now?’ he asks.
‘There’s a shotgun in the drawer,’ says Stephen Fry.
♠
Things seem a little prickly between the two comics. Stephen Fry is the next player out and the two of them end up in a cash game back at the hotel. I hear that Fry gets the better of Gervais again, is not above a few cheeky put-downs when he wins the pot, and Gervais snaps, ‘I might be bad at poker, but at least I’m not gay.’
You hear some pretty sharp gibes at the poker table, and when word of this barb gets round the professional players, they are surprised and amused to hear that the celebrity game threw up as much needle as a real one. But these players are not familiar with the ironic trend in late-night Channel 4 comedy. Gervais must have been joking. He must have been.
♠
I get unlucky with AQ against Anthony Holden’s AT. The inevitable ten comes down to seal my fate, and I walk away wondering whether to be a pessimist (I had two bad beats on Late Night Poker!) or an optimist (I had two free shots at Late Night Poker!).
Amis is hitting ace after ace, but he’s also drinking a fair bit and the two old muckers Alvarez and Holden soon have the novelist’s chips off him and play on heads-up until Holden emerges triumphant. But Amis certainly wins the prize for looking most like a Hollywood movie gambler, having mastered the art of rolling cigarettes in one hand while holding his cards with the other. Everybody smokes on Late Night Poker, but Amis does it best.
♠
When the celebrities leave town, I hear that Stephen Fry did not notice the difference between me and Kate Szeremeta, daughter of Nic the commentator. He chatted to her in the cash game, assuming she was the same girl he played with in the tournament. Fair enough: two gambling blondes, we’re similar enough. But we have different tastes, admire different men and express our admiration in different ways. I’m a little embarrassed that Stephen Fry has left Cardiff thinking that it’s me who has Ben Elton’s face tattooed in four colours across her stomach.
♠
I’m definitely sticking around for the rest of the week to watch the main tournament. Since I’ve been away, the Tuesday night players have organized a satellite game so that one of them (apart from me) will represent the others in the TV series. Ten of them put in £150 each, and James wins the satellite. I’m so delighted to see him when he turns up. This high-stakes world is still daunting for me, and it’s lovely to see a fraternal Tuesday face.
James does great, getting heads-up with Mike Magee to finish second and make the semi-final. Sadly, he is knocked out of that pretty early. But in the commentary, Jesse May pays James several compliments – while also referring to him throughout by his surname, which Jesse mispronounces. The Sweep loves the mispronunciation. It makes his year.
♠
Once the celebrities leave town, it is business as usual. Cash games on the side, yelps of protest about going into make-up, nerves about being filmed. Bambos, Howard Plant, Peter The Bandit, they are all back again for the new series. Malcolm Harwood has returned, having had a heart bypass and been warned by the doctor to ‘avoid too much excitement’. We all hope he doesn’t flop quads.
Malcolm’s wife and fellow player Somkhuan has taken to phoning the temple back home in Thailand before big games, pledging money to Buddha if she wins and asking the local priests to curse her opponents with misfortune if they knock her out. The night before her heat, she pops into the bar to check the spelling of Ram Vaswani’s name. Luckily, Ram gets knocked out before she does, thus saving himself from a plague of frogs.
But when Dave Devilfish Ulliott turns up, in his trademark red shades, I think: that fellow seems like one of the celebrities, not the normal players. He has a certain charisma, a certain air of expectation, of droit de seigneur. That’s as well as being a memorable character, a funny storyteller; I think he’d be right at home on Parkinson. I am pleased to see him, even though he stares immediately at my chest and says, ‘There’s a couple of things I wanna talk to you about.’
When I say ‘celebrity’, he’s more of a Bernard Manning than a Cary Grant.
♠
Devilfish is not the first to test me with cheeky puns and saucy comments at the poker table. I’ve lost count of the number of players who try to turn the conversation round to ‘big pairs’. But few of them make actual passes and I’d never accept. I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl, and I’m certainly not looking to get romantically involved with one of these shady gamblers, all questionable cash payments and sunglasses indoors.
I love the game, but full-time poker is a different world and I’m perfectly happy with the divide. I don’t want to screw any of them, date any of them or marry any of them. I have no interest in embracing life as a gangster’s moll, a gambler’s bit of totty; I don’t even want to play bigger myself. I am happy to be here among the high rollers again, but I remember my comfort zone when I see them joined by James from the Tuesday game. He and I are recreational players, hobbyists, in it part-time for the fun, not the money.
I know there are tournaments around the world, but they cost too much, they happen too far away and I’m just a writer who likes playing poker in a couple of local London casinos. A small profit on my hobby, that’s all I want. The rest is Wonderland and it can stay there.
♠
At the end of the week, a black Porsche 911 draws up outside the hotel. The number plate is JOE 911. Its driver, Joe ‘The Elegance’ Beevers, is a cocky young Londoner with slick hair and an Armani suit. I smile to myself at the number plate, smile to myself at the nickname, shake hands with this new player, and tumble down the rabbit hole.
JACKS AGAIN
Here it is again: the Botox hand, looks better than it is. Lovely on its own, but hard to play after the flop when there’s an overcard, which is more likely than there not being one.
I find JJ under the gun this time. When I found this hand earlier, I raised, Sid Harris went all-in and it worked out pretty nicely for me. But I want to mix my game up, so now I decide to limp. I flat call the big blind, 16,000.
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