Catching up....

Stone Cold Nuts – A Day at the World Strip Poker Championships

A friend phoned me two days after the PaddyPower World Strip Poker Championship in shock. She’d opened her morning paper on the train, saw a topless picture of me and promptly spat coffee all over her fellow passengers. I’ve had that feeling all month (the total shock bit, not the spitting coffee). I’m still not quite sure what to make of it all. My arm is red raw from all the people I got to pinch me to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. World Strip Poker Champion. Yeah I read that right. £10,000 cash. Yep. Seat in the Irish Poker Open. OK. Guinness Book of Records. Got it…….WHAT ???!!!

I’d ventured down to the inaugural event thinking it would make a great article. Go down, interview the organisers and a couple of players, perhaps even take part. OK I was always going to take part but the plan was to write about it. So sure enough some 8 hours after it all kicked off I’m jumping around with my crown jewels out in front of what feels like half the world’s media. My carefully-worked plans to get knocked out in time to make my monthly game down the local Irish pub were in tatters.

And the article? There’s still a blank page in my notebook headed ‘Interview with Strip Poker Champ’. I may frame it for posterity. So how did it all go so right? First off I’ve played in big poker tournaments before but I’ve never experienced an atmosphere as electric and as downright FUN as this. Round One to me – it’s exactly how I like playing. I have no time for amateur poker tournaments with the atmosphere of a morgue on half-price day. Everyone seemed to be in the spirit of things. The dealers were smiling, everyone was chatting, the mix of seasoned players and rank first-timers seamless.

Like some sort of mass Cult wedding, everyone began the tournament decked out in the standard issue uniform supplied by PaddyPower: caps, wristbands, t-shirts, shorts and suspiciously see-through tops for the girls. Players were given 1000 in chips to start with. If you ran out, you bought more chips in exchange for an item of clothing. Run out of clothes and you were gone!

As the media hoards engulfed the first guy to be knocked out (by me I think, sorry again mate!) it dawned on me what an event this was. As the day went on and the stakes increased, so did the media intensity. The chance of a guy or girl baring all caused whole swathes of players to put their cards down and get on their chairs as a herd of photographers scenting blood raced over to capture the glory. Excellent !









Some hours later and we get into the business end. The photographers stop taking an interest in all-ins as players start dropping like flies. Down to the last two tables I’m hanging on by my fingernails with a dwindling stack and a dwindling wardrobe. Then suddenly I hit an astonishing run of cards. Rockets twice in the space of 5 hands, followed by a beautiful open-ended straight and flush draw which rivers. Each time I double up sending another disgruntled player to the changing room. I cast an eye over the other table and figure I’m chip leader. What’s going on here then?! Something which has only really dawned on me in the last few weeks or so is why I was so full of confidence at this time. I’m pretty sure it was the fact that I was sitting in just my very brief briefs (kindly supplied by the organisers). So often have I played in cardrooms or stuffy pubs and sat…and sweated….and sweated some more….and got hot and bothered….and, er, lost. Relaxed, comfortable, semi-nude, perhaps that’s the key!!

With sadly the last girl knocked out on the bubble, I headed to the final table of 9 men as comfortable chip leader. However with the blinds at eye-watering levels, I wasn’t counting anything vaguely chicken-related until they’d hatched, left home, put a deposit down on a flat and settled down for eggs of their own. And I duly, in the space of about three hands, managed to kindly donate half my stack to the other players. Damn, was the pressure getting to me? The lights, the fully audible commentators describing every showdown, the scrum of photographers and spectators huddled round. NOW I’m serious. Forget my usual tight play, time to gamble. I started to hurl big bluffs around the table like a petulant child. If I was called my cards seemed to hold up. Nothing was going wrong.

The next thing I remember is there being just the three of us. I’m sure there was an X-Files style loss of time somewhere. I must check the video evidence later. The pressure gets to the slick Italian in the slick shades and we’re heads-up. It’s coin-toss territory. I call an all-in from my opponent and my (on the surface at least) pitiful hand manages to pair up and I leap out of my chair, victorious. The full frontal strip was borne of a mind not in any kind of close vicinity to the building. But hey, it was for charity. I head into the night, a World Champion, glad that I dumped one set of Irishmen for another. I’m sure they’ll understand. Fair balls to ya guys and girls. Fair balls.