Playing:Carvill, Banat, Williams H., Summersby, Malloy, Ring
Venue: Banat SouthEast Regional PokerBowl
# Snackage: The ever-expanding Walker’s Sensations range (controversial, in the middle of our Walker’s boycott)
# Hot dogs, with onions (allegedly) – 2 each (count ‘em!) Approximate length of time the crisps lasted on the table: 27 seconds.
Of Luck and Loss
The list of quotations available on the subject of luck is endless, but one of my favourites, and most revealing, is from the French poet, artist and film maker Jean Cocteau:
“We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?”
I like William, don’t get me wrong. I like him a lot. But he is one lucky, lucky bastard. We’re at the Banat SouthEast Regional PokerBowl. Me and Benny are guests of an increasingly civilised Ashford Amateur Poker Association (AAPA). Benny’s on the up after his dramatic break-even at Jamie’s, and I’m looking down the barrel of a £30 loss.
The AAPA play their game on an upturned Subbuteo cloth. There’s an argument that says they shouldn’t bother upturning it, thereby allowing a player to surge up the wing and cross in a pair of Kings, only to find whoever’s at the end of the table blocking the goal with his pocket rockets. But there all analogies with football must end, as the game is much longer than 90 minutes, there’s only one player per team, and we don’t all jump in the shower together afterwards. Not all the time, anyway.
In seat one is our host Banat, playing as passive as a sheet of blotting paper. By the evening’s end he’s still got hold of all his money, but he’s mysteriously lost a couple of bottles of wine. Hic!
In seat two Howard’s rocking a funky metal-hip hop hybrid Fred Durst look, but by hand eleven all he’s got left to bet with is his chocolate starfish, which he puts on his A J. The board reads Q 5 Q 10 9 and Howard gets well and truly fingered when William makes his straight on the river with J K, forcing him to re-buy. Thirteen hands later he’s out of chips again, at the hands of his tormentor William. The flop brings 2 2 9, Howard’s holding A 3. William’s winning with his A K, about a 70% favourite. Turn brings a 4, and now Howard’s four cards to an ace high straight. He’s still only on a 15% chance of winning when he goes all in, but no amount of prolonged and persistent betting can scare off the unusually obstinate Ringo, his fingers crackling tonight with electricity and eager anticipation, with bass notes of cigarette tar. The river brings a 6 and it’s all over. Howard’s £40 down but eager for more punishment, so William shunts a stack of chips back across the table. At some stage after my notes run out he shunts that stack straight back to where it came from to end up 60 quid down.
In seat three, Benny didn’t see past the flop for the first fourteen hands. His subscription to Inside Edge gambling magazine seems to have brought out the zen buddhist in him. The man who previously had an insatiable thirst for action sat focused in the zone and waved away the first 28 cards that were put in front of him. On hand fifteen he makes a well-timed big bet from the button to steal the pot. He’s back again a hand later with another big bet, and another win, safely sliding his cards back into the deck afterwards. We don’t see him again for thirteen hands, when he his A 4 beats my pocket 3’s with the board reading 6 6 A A 4.
Malloy in seat 4 makes some bucks, and William goes home with upwards of 100 quid in his stonewashed pocket. Somewhere in the middle of all this I got caught in a mudslide, so far onto a tilt that the balifs came and reposessed the pinball machine. Trying to win a hand was like nailing a jelly to the ceiling. Going for an Ace high flush with pocket rockets I thought I was on a winner. But William was using a sledgehammer to crack my nuts and with the board showing K Q 5 he kept coming back at me. Turn and flop came 6 5 and I missed my flush but still had the trusty rockets as backup. Until William flipped over his trips 5’s to take my last penny, my shirt, my housekeys, my woman………………….