Heads Up: We need someone to play poker tonight...
Posted by Ben Chesters on 14 Oct 2008 at 09:10
We need someone to play a heads up game of poker tonight’ I was advised over the telephone. First of all, I didn’t know what ‘heads up’ meant, secondly, the only poker I had played is on Facebook where it’s free of charge and ‘going all in’ is about as meticulously planned and thought out as a ‘back to mine for coffee’ invite from Cheryl Tweedy. Admittedly, the thought of playing in a real casino with a real dealer with real playing cards unnerved me slightly. Being a craven of particular distinction, I immediately wondered who I could relinquish this challenge to. No one sprang to mind, so begrudgingly I accepted.
Two pints of strong Belgian lager later and I felt I would have taken Cool Hand Luke on, and beat him in a fist fight afterwards. As it happens, tonight’s opponent was Adam, a reporter from Nuts Magazine. Adam is currently the subject of a ‘live poker experiment’ being run by www.CircusPoker.co.uk. Over the past five weeks he’s been trained up to play like a pro, with the view to qualifying, and maybe even winning a £100k poker tournament. Adam started off as an amateur, but under the guidance of someone called Waldorf1, he’s apparently developed some promising skills, so there was every chance he could wipe the floor with me. As an added bonus I also risked it being plastered all over his magazine the next day.
After successfully being the only man in London to have trouble flagging a black cab, I managed to arrive at the casino, late, to meet Adam. The venue was the Palm Beach in Mayfair. We sat down at the table to get stuck in, I was out of my depth.
The cards were being dealt and I muddled my way through a couple of hands whilst asking the dealer 'complex' questions as I was struggling to understand the difference between ‘call’ and ‘bet’. I think my opponent thought that my poor grasp of this simple game was a ruse designed to gain me some advantage or to trick him – I can assure you it was not!
We got to the seventh hand and as far as I remember we were reasonably evenly matched in terms of chips, or I was slightly ahead. It was early days though and I assumed I’d be losing my stack as the game unfolded.
I was dealt a King and a 5. I thought that any hand containing a 5 was a hand to fold, but for some reason I wanted to play, after all that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? I bet some chips and then out came the river (or whatever the next cards that come out are called).
There were two 5s on it. Now I’ve put my hand in the fire a few times when I’ve had two pairs and subsequently been burnt by three of a kind. In my mind this is a strong hand. Adam went all in and I was wondering what cards he had but fancied my chances so shoved all my chips in. The rest of the cards were turned and it became clear that my obsession with 'trips' was not misplaced...I won all the chips but lost a potential friend in the process... (only joking Adam!) Seems my first real casino poker game went a lot better than expected.
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