There from the beginning;
with love, for Giles.
FROM BELSIZE PARK TO BOW
Today, I might win a quarter of a million dollars.
There are only eleven opponents to beat. Unfortunately, they are the eleven toughest poker players in the world. According to the title of this televised battle, we are The Premier League.
Phil The Brat Hellmuth is playing: hes won eleven world titles. Dave Devilfish Ulliott is there: the most feared and celebrated player in Britain. Marcel Lske, The Flying Dutchman, is in the line-up: hes such a big star now, he is releasing albums of himself singing poker songs. Between them, my opponents have won fifty million dollars playing cards.
So Im a little nervous. The minicab, sent by the production company, has been waiting outside for ten minutes while I hunt around my flat for keys, phones, lipstick, newspaper for the lunchbreak, 5,000 packet in case of a cash game in the hotel afterwards, pen, tissues, apple. I run out of the house pretty flustered and we have been cruising down Haverstock Hill for some time before I notice that the eyes in the driving mirror have a familiar mournful crinkle.
I say, Ray? Is that you?
I met Riverboat Ray at a cash game somewhere round the back of Islington in about 1999. He stuck in my mind after he told a miserable story about losing a poker hand five years before. He recounted every card and every bet on every street of the hand, as bitterly as if it had been five minutes ago. Later that evening, he mentioned that he had a new granddaughter. Whats her name? I asked. Ray frowned, thought for a while, then shook his head. Nope. Its gone.
I havent seen him for ages. Now, here he is at the wheel of my courtesy car. Ray tells me hes been banned from the casino in Luton for three years, after a fight with Frank Farnham. It was all to do with an Omaha Hi-Lo hand where Ray is heads-up with Frank Farnhams dad, and Frank Farnhams dad says that Ray has won the pot with three of a kind, but then Frank leans over his dads shoulder and points out that he has a straight. Frank Farnham has no business doing this, especially in a significant 200 pot, and it all turns ugly, and the car park is mentioned, and now Riverboat Ray is writing letter after letter to the card room manager in Luton to try and get himself reinstated.
I think about that old Islington game, and how frightened I would have been to lose a 200 pot. There were no televised tournaments then, no celebrities, no courtesy cars. None of that stuff existed in poker when I first met Riverboat Ray and I never saw it coming. I didnt want it, either. Poker wasnt about fame, it was about hiding.
But now here I am, lounging about in the back of a complimentary taxi, swept through London to be made up and photographed and settled at a table to take my shot at a million-dollar prize pool with a bunch of famous faces, while Ray is writing letters to try and get himself reinstated at the 50 table in Luton.
Why me? Why me and not him? How come I get to be Queen Alice, gliding across the chessboard to be crowned, while Ray is still the White Knight sitting on a gate?
Waiting to take the left-hand filter at Kings Cross, graciously wishing me luck, Riverboat Ray is probably wondering the same thing.
But if you asked my mother, she would say the question was what was I doing in an illegal poker game round the back of Islington with men called Riverboat anyway. My parents tried their best. French lessons, ballet lessons, lots of books, careful elocution. Yet I seem to have grown up into Nicely Nicely Johnson.
Are you not going to take Mile End Road? I ask.
Nah, says Ray. Solid traffic. Well go the back way.
As he launches into another unlucky Omaha story, I drift away a little. I dont think Ray would mind. We tell these gloomy tales to exorcise them, not because we need them listened to. The rhythm of his words... up and down... with the flush draw... bet the pot... the turn comes over... is like a gentle piece of familiar background music.
If I were driving my own car, Id be listening to my poker tape. The story of my life, the soundtrack of the imaginary film, which I have played from Liverpool to the Isle of Man, from London to Baden, from Nice to Monte Carlo, from Los Angeles to Vegas.
The Gambler is on there, of course, which I first heard twenty years ago when it was recommended by the boys in my brothers game. Better Not Look Down by B.B. King, which reminded me, before those first tournaments in the Stakis basement, to be brave. Rescue Me by Fontella Bass, which made me laugh en route to Late Night Poker when I had no idea what I was doing. There Is Always One More Time by Johnny Adams, from when I first met the Hendon Mob, saw the hope in their eyes and the visions they hatched, and learned from it. Beyond The Blue Horizon, because that could inspire anyone to feel hopeful.
Killing Me Softly, which was playing in the cab as we drove back to McCarran airport in the magical Moneymaker year. Desperado by The Eagles, which filled my head with the romantic glamour of flying solo through life, until I got my heart broken and it stopped being funny for a while.
Come And Get It from The Beatles Anthology 3, which makes me thump the steering wheel and think positive, tell myself Im a winner like a man would. Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart by Janis Joplin, because I came to understand that tournament poker is a bruising, crippling, endlessly disappointing and rejecting enterprise so you have to embrace the masochism, and I love the way she sounds like she is begging for the pain. Then Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head by B.J. Thomas, because its only a game.
You Can Get It If You Really Want by Jimmy Cliff, because it turned out I can win just like anybody else can, everything can click and flow, cards can fall right, spells can be cast, fireworks can go off, and if your trophy isnt shining yet, then you have to keep believing.
Only New York Going On by Francis Dunnery, because everything happens at 4 a.m. All the winning, all the losing, all the adrenaline, all the pain, and all the staring out of windows in empty hotel rooms, with money or without.
And Let The River Run by Carly Simon, because that is what its all about. The river runs its own course, at its own pace, according to its own will, and all you can do is learn how to raft without drowning.
Funny how so many of them are about being alone. All of them, really. And yet, poker is the most companionable thing I do. The Tuesday game is my only regular social fixture. The Vic is my home from home. So much laughter and friendship and adventure and money. It hasnt been lonely, has it?
I started playing poker to make friends and meet boys. Now Im turning up with 5,000 in my pocket, thinking I can beat the world champion. I dont know if something went very right, or very wrong.
Youve gone quiet, says Riverboat Ray as we clunk through the iron gates of the studio.
Well... its been a long journey, I reply. From there to here.
Ray says, It wouldve been longer if I took Mile End Road.
PART ONE
