at Chris Colson’s house. He was in that gang of sharks who gobbled all my college money. But Patrick finally finished that play he was going to write, and it went very well. These days he is back and forth from New York, acting, writing, winning awards and directing his own work on Broadway, so I reassure myself that I have more chance to beat him now. He is far too busy to spend his nights playing cards in a smoke-filled basement full of sick gamblers and stale egg sandwiches, which is where I have the advantage over Patrick Marber. If you don’t stop to think about it.
♠
The real celebrities at the table are the two that I have never met before, but deeply admire, Martin Amis and Stephen Fry. With nothing to go on but Amis’s public image, I decide to put him down as a loose-aggressive player. I am guessing he likes poker for the atmosphere and fellowship, so probably enjoys a gamble. I assume from newspaper stories about his book advances that he is probably comfortable with high stakes.
I know that Fry has played socially at the Groucho Club in London. My instinct is that he would take the game (and victory) less seriously than Amis, but his razor-sharp brain could be cause for concern. When I raise in middle position with A♦ 10♦ and Fry calls, I realize my problem immediately: having no idea what standard of player he is, I don’t know what he’d call with. Is he dazzled by weak aces? Would he slow-play a big pair? It’s a mystery.
The flop comes 5♣ 10♠ 3♥. This looks like a great flop for me. I bet my pair of tens strongly to protect them, but Fry calls. What on earth does he have? It could be anything. And I’m not exactly a Holdem tournament specialist myself. When the turn card pairs the three, I check nervously and so does Fry. The river is a blank; I check that, too, and Fry makes a small bet. I have to call, and he turns over a pair of fives. The Jeeves & Wooster star has a full house! If he had raised on the flop (when he hit his set), I might well have folded. In flat calling and betting small on the end, he squeezed another couple of hundred out of me. So either he undervalued his hand or he’s a much craftier player than I’ve given him credit for. Still, it’s funny how tight we both play with someone else’s money.
Ricky Gervais, meanwhile, clearly loves action and calls with almost anything. For a time, his confidence pays off as the more experienced players fold against him. He calls with 62 offsuit, hits sixes and deuces on the flop and makes money. But, probably not knowing why he’s winning, he doesn’t know when to change gear. If you keep calling with 62 offsuit, you’re going to start losing. Sure enough, his chip lead is gradually whittled away and he’s the first out. He doesn’t seem happy about it.
‘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
