Poker revelation

It's a landmark moment when you lose your virginity. And once it's gone, you can never repeat the experience with the same fears and feelings, joys and juices. From that moment on you have to look for other things to try for the first time and just hope they deliver something close to the highs and (usually drunken) lows. I had one of those experiences again last night. For the first time ever I sat down to play a Texas hold'em tournament face-to-face with a table full of people.

To say I absolutely loved it doesn't come close. Think drinking a beer, having sex with the missus and watching Stoke City go 4-nil up against Man Utd all at the same time and we're just about getting there. You see I usually play poker online using software from Victor Chandler (you can find me on there as meejaboy, naturally). I've visited this site ever since I wrote a feature about learning to play poker using information on the net. At the end of the piece I entered a $3 nine-player tournament and came second, getting my stake and a bit more back. I was instantly hooked. From there it's been a diet of low-level 10c tourneys, Late Night Poker on the Discovery Home & Leisure channel and poker tactics books on my Amazon wish list.

To set the scene, this was the first Texas Hold'em event held by Victor Chandler for journalists, clients and associated hangers on. There was even a bit of celebrity colour, with Louise Wener (former frontwoman of Sleeper and now a novelist) and racing 'guru' John McCririck both on hand to steal my chips. Louise was looking gorgeous with a red flower in her hair and John was the typical overblown character we've come to expect - complete with hat, huge face-covering shades and a massive cigar. Top man. I had a decent chat with Lou and her fella, who both seem like the kind of people you'd want to hang out with. By contrast, the only words I exchanged with John were that there were a lot of people in the blokes toilets, to which he replied "OK, I'm going to go in the Ladies".

What started out as three tables - about 32 players by my count - took a good few hours to whittle down to a final table of 10. By the skin of my teeth I was still in it with just less than 2,000 chips. This was a paltry sum when you consider I started with that amount, which meant the other nine players shared the 44,000 chips from those already knocked out. McCririck for one had a stack the size of his personality. The big blind (a mandatory bet for one player each turn) was 600 chips, while the small blind was 300. It was not looking good.

As the game got underway I took down a couple of early pots uncontested to boost my stack, and the player across from me went out. I was at least ninth and already climbing the ladder of places, with the tales I'd tell in the office the next day starting to creep into my head. The real jump in my fortunes came when the cocky guy from Inside Edge magazine announced 'All in'. From the look on his face I don't think he was expecting to get called by three other players, two of them also betting their entire stacks. One of the other all-ins took the whole pot with three Jacks and we were suddenly down to six players. That little beacon of hope which says "Wow, you could still win this" was lit for the first time, although its light was hardly blinding.

I had a minor setback when Lee, the other shortstacked player, went all in without even looking at his cards. I had the Ace and Seven of Diamonds, so it seemed like a natural call as everyone else had already tossed their cards. After a 10-minute argument while he refused to turn his cards over despite being all-in (the free Kronenburg had been flowing, well, freely), he finally submitted. It was a Three and a Six, not even the same suit. Right now I was a massive favourite with two overcards (two cards higher than his). But that's the great thing about this game. When Matt Damon in Rounders says, ""Why does this still seem like gambling to you? I mean, why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker every single year? What are they, the luckiest guys in Las Vegas? It's a skill game", he's only telling half the truth. In actual fact Texas Hold'em is one part skill, one part balls and an added shot of luck. With two threes and a six being laid down in the middle of the table, my shortstacked friend made a full house. It's not what you have when the betting starts, it's what the poker gods decide to give you on the flop, the turn and the river (the five community cards that help make everyone's hands). It looked like the poker gods were telling me I might still make that last tube home.

Back down to about 2,000 chips and with the big blind up to 800, it was all-in with the first two good looking cards I could find. The first time I did this I held out with a low pair on the flop and the other player didn't hit anything on the two remaining cards. The second time I was a massive underdog, but in a reverse of my previous 'bad beat' I made a full house. There were now only four of us left and I'd outlived even my wildest expectations. When a player in front of me went all in and I had the Jack and Queen of Hearts I had a big decision to make. Something was telling me I shouldn't lay down these cards, that there were a lot of outs and I was probably just looking at an Ace. When I called I was proved right, but that didn't make me feel any better. Right now the other player's Ace was winning and I needed to hit something to stay in the tourney. An Ace on the flop had me standing up, ready to concede my chair and shake hands with the victor. But a King on the River meant I could hit a 10 and win with a straight - 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace. When that 10 got turned over I actually whooped and clapped my hands together. It seemed the gods weren't willing to let me off the hook just yet.

The gushing excitement of that pot faded a little when I realised I'd only won 2,000 plus the blinds, making my stack about 5,200. Stealing the blinds a hand later pushed the light from my little beacon of hope up a notch, although the glow wasn't throwing the other players into shadow yet. But with so few chips, when the next good hand came into view I was going to have to go for it again. I managed to get away with just calling a 1,000 big blind with a King and a Four (a hand I'd have mucked without thinking when there were more than four players). There were three of us for the flop, which came King high. McCririck shoved another 3,000 in to try and scare us off. I was all-in quicker than a Michael Shumacher qualifying lap and John mucked his hand. It wasn't much to call, though, and the other player didn't hang about. When he turned over his cards it was obvious why not. He had a Kind as well, but his 'kicker' was a 10. With the three cards on the flop my hand was a Pair of Kings, Eight, Six, Four but his used the 10 and was ahead. The turn card was another Eight, which meant we both now had two pair but the kickers still separated us into winner and loser. An Ace on the river had me extending my hand and almost getting out of my seat, until I realised what had happened. We both made the same best hand - Two Pair with an Ace kicker - and the pot was shared out between us. Phew!

Amazingly I was still in the game and now had a playable stack thanks to the chips John had sacrificed with his bluff. With a Queen King hand on the next deal I flashed 5,000 into the pot. John took what seemed like a generation to call. The flop was an evil one for players with high cards, Four, Five, Seven. I took a good hard look at it and pushed the rest of my chips into the centre of the table, about five or six thousand at this point. I didn't really want John to call, as I needed to hit one of just six cards in the deck if John had already made a pair. After a long old period of thought he finally went for it, my chips hadn't been enough to scare him off. When we turned our cards over everyone agreed we'd both made gutsy plays. I'd gone all-in with King high, and John was only beating me by a single pip. The turn and river didn't bring any joy from the poker gods and after all my earlier great escapes I was finally sent packing by Ace high.

To say I was pleased with my fourth place finish is again breaking some kind of Guiness World Record for understatement. Call Norris McWhirter. By my reckoning I was the highest placed journalist in what had been touted as a 'Journalist tournament'. First place went to a Victor Chandler staffer, second was the celeb guest big John and third was a boxing promoter called Mickey (who deals with VC for sponsorship). I was secretly very pleased to beat the big boys from Inside Edge (a magazine written for gamblers but also looking like it's staffed by gamblers). Those boys obviously came to take no prisoners and I'm glad I wasn't on their table in the early rounds.

Now that I've puntured the poker tournament hymen (sorry to be so graphic, mum), what does it mean for the future? Will the rush of blood to the head and the spread of adrenaline through my system be that little bit less next time, an ever decreasing circle that finally leaves the water clear and unbroken? There are always new things to try, every flops a different hit. And I've yet to get the biggest hit of all, blowing the competition away and claiming top spot. Numero uno. The big cheese.