For Richer For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker Read online

  It works out for Johnny, though. He wins the World Series of Poker in 1987 and 1988, the fourth man to win back-to-back world titles. In the 1988 tournament, there are 167 players and Johnny Chan reaps the grand prize of $700,000. The field includes some of the great names of poker history: Jack ‘Treetop’ Straus, Puggy Pearson, Crandall Addington, Jack Keller, Johnny Moss, ‘Amarillo Slim’ Preston. They’re pretty much all from Texas.

  Betty Carey is the only female player in the field. There’s a story about the time she lost a big heads-up match to Amarillo Slim, after he tricked her by asking whether she liked her cup of tea. She said, ‘Yes, sure, Slim, it’s great.’ And then, an hour or so later, during a big pot, he asked whether she liked her hand. And when she said she liked her hand, in a slightly different tone of voice from when she said she liked her tea, he knew she was bluffing and he took her money.

  My sympathies are with Betty. I like a nice cup of tea at the table, too.

  ♠

  In a dream, I am just in the middle of folding a 67 offsuit when I am tapped on the shoulder by another me. She is older, filled out in some places, slimmed down in others, still looking very comfortable in the card room.

  She says, ‘I’d have raised with that.’

  I laugh.

  ‘No kidding,’ she says. ‘It’s a lucky hand.’

  ‘So has it all turned out all right?’ I ask.

  ‘Pretty good,’ she nods. ‘You’ve grown up happy enough. You sometimes wish that you were still a teenager, but only because you’ve forgotten what it was like. You play poker all the time now, because there’s nobody to stop you. The game has taken over your life. You’ve won a million dollars. You’ve been to the World Series of Poker. And Al Alvarez has sent you an email, congratulating you on becoming the European Champion.’

  ‘What’s an email?’ I say.

  ‘It’s something that took over everybody else’s life,’ my older self replies.

  I think for a little while.

  ‘Have I got a husband and babies?’ I ask nervously. ‘And a nice house with a big garden?’

  She has her own little think now. Maybe she doesn’t want to scare me. But she also wants me to know that girls are more honest when they’re older.

  ‘No,’ she says eventually. ‘You could probably afford the house and garden, what with the million dollars. But you’ll quite like your little flat. You won’t especially want to move anywhere else. Husband and babies . . . you’re in no rush.’

  ‘When I’m over thirty?’ I ask, in horror. ‘Not married? No children? Aren’t I incredibly lonely? Am I going to die alone?’

  ‘You might,’ she says. ‘But you won’t find it such a scary idea by then. And you’re not lonely. You’ve got poker. You’ve got lots of people. You’re not lonely at all – apart from occasionally, in an enormous, black, existential way, at four o’clock in the morning, when you are driven mad by the mind-blowing concept of finite human consciousness. And fifteen husbands couldn’t cure that!’ she chuckles.

  There is a pause.

  ‘But I’m not at school any more, right?’ I ask.

  And she nods.

  I pick up my next hand, a pair of tens, and I think, well, that’s all right then.

  A PAIR OF JACKS

  Two jacks! Often a trouble hand. And the trouble is: you’re more likely to see an overcard on the flop than not to see one. So it can be kind of a relief if everyone passes before the flop comes down.

  A pair of sevens, something like sevens, that’s easier to play after the flop. You know fine well whether you want action or not. Jacks . . . not quite a big pair, not quite a small one . . . they have this horrible habit of continuing to look good even when they have gone behind. Frozen there, preserved: could still be as good as they look, or could be artificial beauty now. So hard to tell sometimes. The Botox hand.

  How much should I raise with these jacks, then? All-in would be dumb. Let’s not be dumb, on the biggest final table I’ve ever reached. My chip stack is too big to move in; anyone who called would have to be beating two jacks. Suicidal. And I don’t want to chase away every hand that’s worse than mine.

  I don’t mind one caller. I’d like one caller. Blinds 8,000–16,000. I’ll make it 40,000. Enough to show I’m serious. But less than the full pot, give the weaker hand some odds. I bet 40,000.

  Sid Harris re-raises all-in. Damn. I didn’t want anyone to go all-in. I certainly didn’t want Sid Harris to go all-in. Sid plays a hand once an hour or something. Aces, kings.

  Hard to pass a decent pair, though. Haven’t had a good hand for ages. Pairs are so pretty, so enticingly symmetrical. Two curvy jacks, like Christmas stockings hanging in a fireplace. Or two round, juicy queens, like quail on a rotisserie. Two spiky kings, determined and macho, like marching soldiers in profile. Two clean, sharp, pure aces. God, I love looking down at my hole cards and finding a pair of matching picture cards. Painted twins.

  Does Sid have a prettier hand than mine? ‘Whores’ or ‘cowboys’, as the Old School parlance goes? I would never call them ‘whores’. The queens aren’t whores. They are fat, proud, classy ladies. Like Mma Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. And the kings aren’t cowboys. Cowboys are American, and America’s a republic. The kings look Persian to me. Noble Persians, from that ancient land where cards were played in the fourteenth century. Carpets, cats and cards: what a beautiful culture. Has Sid got kings?

  I like Sid. He’s Old School. He lives in Hove and writes books about horse racing. Been playing for a long time. He’s like a classic Vic player. I’ve never actually seen him in the cash game at the Vic, but he would fit right in. Looks right, talks right. Not one of these crazy teenage Swedes. No mindless all-in, all-in, just for the sake of aggression. Thoughtful, gradual poker. And he seems like such a nice man. I don’t really want to knock him out.

  Wait, wrong thought process. I want to knock everybody out. No pity, no mercy. No feminine. He’s not a nice man, he’s an obstacle to victory. I want to knock Sid out. I want to grind him into the ground. I want to send him home skint. I want every chip, I want him pleading for the bus fare. I want to obliterate them all.

  Crazy teenage Swede, of course, it’s easy. I would call in about three seconds. Less. Two jacks, raise, all-in re-raise from a crazy teenage Swede: my chips are in the pot before Björn’s even moved.

  With Sid, you know, it’s more difficult. I have to think about it. The railbirds might disapprove of that. Let’s say I call, cards come over, Sid was making a move, I’ve got massively the best hand – then I thought too long, it looks like a slow roll. But Sid doesn’t seem to make a lot of moves. He’s a solid player. I respect that.

  Then again, I can’t pass. For this situation, I’ve got a hand. It’s a chance to knock out a player. More money. Good chips. He could maybe do this with any pair, any ace. Even if he’s got me beat, I’m not dead. Five cards to come. Plenty of jacks in the deck.

  Well, two.

  But you have to get lucky to win tournaments; got to give yourself the opportunity to get lucky. And this is the most important tournament of my life. It’s the final table of the London EPT, that magical week when the all-important European Poker Tour comes to my own home casino. My regular poker opponents are gathered on the rail, watching. Some of them have shares in my action, others just want to see a local player do well in the big event. $1,000,000 available as first prize. No woman has ever won it before.

  And I got to this final by being gutsy; can’t switch that off now. Can’t hide from chance. If I lose the pot, I still have chips. Not many, but some. I don’t need to win the tournament anyway. It’s enough just to have made the final. I’ve won tournaments before, but never made the final of anything so hugely significant. Just getting here, that’s enough. I’m happy now.

  What am I thinking about? I have two jacks and a man’s gone all-in! It’s Christmas! I call.

  Sid rolls over two nines.

  Poor Sid. It’s a nic
e hand. He’s entitled to be in front. He’s entitled to a 50/50 against a couple of overcards, and he’s entitled to be better off even than that. I raise a lot more often than he does. I’ve raised with some outright rubbish in this tournament so far, and got away with it. He’s entitled to a pass from me in this spot. He’s unlucky I’ve got two jacks.

  Then again, no early cheers. Plenty of nines left in the deck. Two of them. Two fat apostrophes. Two evil hand grenades, waiting to explode out of the dealer’s fist and kill my brave jacks. My vulnerable knaves. Poor boys. I will protect them. I will protect them from the nasty nines. Nina from Pasadena will not come flirting off the deck to wink at my helpless little jack tars, turn their heads and sink their boat. No nine!

  The flop comes: K♦ . . . 4♦ . . . 10♣.

  That’s okay. No risky backdoor flush draw. Sid doesn’t have the nine of diamonds. The curse of Scotland. But why have I let that card come into my head? Why did I even think about it? It’s like I want it to come! I’m practically SUMMONING it out of the pack! Like I’m URGING the turn card to give Sid a set! Go away, curse of Scotland. Focus. Jack of spades, jack of spades, jack of spades . . .

  K♥.

  No problem there. Two pairs each. Mine are better. Blank, blank, blank . . .

  J♠.

  The jack of spades! Just the fellow I wanted to see! Not that it makes any difference. A blank would have done. I don’t need the full house. But I thought about the jack of spades and he just showed up, like sometimes when I’m thinking about my dad and then he rings. Always quite a comforting feeling. A good sign. Good omen. My dad ringing, likely to be a good day. Jack of spades showing up, maybe a good tournament.

  Unlucky, Sid. Well played.

  Wow. I seem to have quite a few chips now. The crowd is shouting encouragement as I stack them.

  And there are only seven of us left.

  2

  THE CHIMNEY SWEEP

  ‘Good luck will rub off when I shakes ’ands with you . . .’

  – from Mary Poppins

  As I deliver the punchline, I run a finger across my chest, describing an imaginary slogan on a T-shirt.

  Then I tell the audience, ‘That wasn’t really a joke. I just felt like touching my tits.’

  They fall about. I seem to have found their level.

  ‘Well,’ I continue, ‘if you want something done properly . . .’

  Another roar of laughter and a round of applause. I’m not actually being funny. I’m just exploiting the fact that it’s 2 a.m., everyone in the club is drunk and a female stand-up comic is a bizarre curio, like a talking monkey. Throw in something rude, and they’re in your pocket.

  It is a good feeling. It seems unfair that butchers and doctors and electricians don’t get applauded for doing their jobs, too.

  ♠

  I have just left school and I’m so happy I could kill myself. Now to work out what to do with the rest of my life. I’ve been writing a ‘teenage newspaper column’ for a couple of years, and an agent got in touch to ask if I’d like to join a stand-up comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Why not? I’m immortal. Nothing could ever frighten me again, after walking into the school hall every lunchtime and wondering who to sit next to.

  So I have chanced my way into this strange, counter-cultural, late-night community. It is a pure meritocracy: you can hold your own or you can’t. London’s little circuit of subterranean comedy clubs, packed and hot if there is an audience in double figures, is utterly seductive for the insecure. You can hide in a private world and prove yourself publicly at the same time.

  It seems to be thought of as a man’s business, with very few female comics in these clubs, and the idea that ‘women can’t hack it’ is irresistible.

  When I’m sitting around with a bunch of comedians in a room above a pub, after the shows are finished, drinking and listening to stories, I feel, for the first time away from my family, an epiphany of belonging. All the school rules are overturned. You can be fat here. You can be short or short-sighted, Jewish or Asian, useless at sport, baffled by sex – it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re brave and quick-witted.

  In fact, the worse your social skills, the more you have to talk about.

  ♠

  I play poker occasionally. Some of my brother’s friends know a couple of people who run a private cash game in Archway, so I visit a couple of times. They are a nice, funny group. A couple of them are famous: Ross Boatman, who’s in London’s Burning, and Jesse Birdsall, who’s in Eldorado. The others are just gamblers who haven’t got to grips with life yet: Barny Boatman, who works for P&O; Chris Colson, who doesn’t seem to do anything much; and Patrick Marber, a stand-up comic who’s thinking of writing a play.

  The games are Omaha, seven stud and hi-lo split. But the stakes are a bit rich for me. I love poker, but I’m bad at it. I lose £200 or £300 every time. I’m currently making £210 a week working in a shop, and £25 a time for comedy performances. The only way to learn poker is to go to a casino (far too scary) or get fleeced in these expensive live games. I can’t resist stopping by every so often for the fun, the scathing banter and the takeaway pizza, but I can’t afford it more than once every few months.

  ♠

  I tell my parents that when the year comes to an end, I’m not going to university. I think I’ve found a sort of vocation in comedy. I love the underworld, I love the screwed-up people, I finally fit in and I am happy. I’m not going to give it up to study T.S. Eliot and The Wife’s Lament. I can’t bear to re-enter the misery of my school years. And I sense that I’d never go back to comedy if I stopped to be a student for three years. I’d lose my nerve, and I can’t risk that. Something finally feels right to me. I’m on my yellow brick road. So, I’m going to write to the admissions tutor at Oxford and say thank you very much, but they should give my place to somebody else.

  Then I look at my father’s face. I love him more than anyone in the world.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I was only joking.’

  ♠

  Having saved up all my shop and comedy money, I have managed to swerve the expensive poker games for long enough to build a travel budget. Most of the girls from my school have gone to India, where they all seem to be getting spiritual and getting food poisoning. They consider this a big plus, since most of them try to throw up after meals anyway, but it doesn’t sound like much fun to me.

  I have no interest in ‘discovering myself’. I want to discover America. My father travelled there in 1960 and spent two adventurous years studying American fiction, dating American girls, driving American cars across American landscapes, eating hamburgers and going on civil rights marches. From him, from the cinema, from Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick and Dallas, I am in love with America, too. I keep a giant folded map in my bedroom, and take it out to stare at the redolent, romantic names: Hawk Springs, Dead Man’s Gulch, Looking Glass Falls.

  Over two tightly budgeted months, my friend Nicky and I take Greyhound buses all round the southern states, up via New York to Massachusetts and on across the country, all the way over to the west coast through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado. We hop aboard a shaky twin-prop flight to Alaska, taking the first train of the season from Anchorage to Fairbanks. We rent a car and drive around the Painted Desert, New Mexico, Arizona and the Grand Canyon. All there is left that we really want to see is Wyoming, the Dakotas and Las Vegas.

  Unfortunately, we start in Las Vegas. I write in my journal:

  Sunday 2nd June

  Nevada is amazing. Right over the state line, in the middle of nothing but dusty hills and sand, there are huge pink and yellow casinos, and nothing else at all. After driving through empty hot landscape for ages, you think you’re imagining them, that they’re a mirage. It’s like that old cartoon where the cars keep driving past the hotel and the man in the fez is standing outside saying, ‘I knew we shouldn’t have built it in the middle of the desert!’

  Then Las Vegas is BREATHTAKING. Mi
llions and millions and millions of neon signs and shiny hotels and pink plastic flamingos and adverts for famous people and sparkle and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. We were going to stay at the Las Vegas Hilton where The Four Tops and The Temptations are appearing nightly, but the Desert Inn has Joan Rivers.

  It’s AMAZING what hotels give you for the money here. The Desert Inn said they’d charge us $75 a night if we agreed to stay two nights, and for that we’ve got a STUNNING room with its own bathroom, seven free drinks each and millions of ‘Buy 5 get 5 free’ tokens for roulette and poker chips. It’s so weird and amazing after all the youth hostels. They valet parked the car!!

  Couldn’t resist the casino and they couldn’t resist us either – business is so slow that they only asked for ID once and my fake student card held up fine. So I was able to lose $5 on fruit machines and $47 on roulette. I was doing all right at roulette, but decided in advance that it was OKAY to lose all my winnings for the fun of playing. Tonight I’m going to try poker.

  We never make it to Wyoming and the Dakotas.

  ♠

  You wouldn’t think there was anything especially character-building about eating cheese sandwiches and reading Milton under a tree. But my college is ambitious, heavily male-dominated, and our tutors approach English Literature with military discipline. They specialize in reducing new students to tears, stripping away our confidence, then gradually bestowing approval as we work longer and longer hours, until we hunch over the books all night with an obsessiveness born of Stockholm Syndrome.

  I like it. Standing my ground with alpha males, not showing fear, trying to make them laugh, noticing their own vulnerabilities, aiming always to win respect – I’ve grown up with my father, and taken my chances with a rowdy Brixton club audience; this is fast becoming a comfort zone. Being shouted at by macho Yeats scholars (a construction which may sound oxymoronic to anyone who’s never met the men in question) is a pleasure. The only terrors of university life lie in the bars and parties, the competition for social and sexual success. It takes two years to find a proper best friend, a quirky theologian called Charlie, who introduces himself to me with a bizarre puppet show and an enormous row about whether or not Beyond The Fringe was funny. Our relationship really takes off when it turns out he is head of the five-strong university cribbage society. Cribbage is much easier with six.