The Longest Night

Picture the scene, it is January 2002 and online poker is in its infancy. I've discovered the beautiful game through the likes of Late Night Poker and the brilliant Rounders movie, and my passion for poker playing is akin to that of a teenager granted an all-areas day pass at the Playboy Mansion.



It's a Saturday afternoon, not particularly nice, as I am at home in Ireland, which means it is, somewhat predictably, raining.



The weather fits my mood as I am desperately trying to recover from the bad beat that I received in Dublin's Jackpot Card Club the night before.



It doesn't normally bother me, but when a muppet gets a 50-1 shot home in the form of two running cards and with the rent and phone bill both due (and in the pot), well, it makes you emotional in a way only a once homeless and phoneless person would understand.



I choose to crank up the computer and collect the e-mails. After all, as a freelance journalist, one could be a job offer, and that could mean rent money earned the hard way.



No work, no jokes, no special offers from AOL, no mail from anyone I even recognise, but there is a host of messages from the numerous poker sites and information pages I have subscribed to during this honeymoon period with poker.



"Don't forget our $10,000 freeroll tonight at 9 p.m.," says one above a picture that makes its players look like an undertaker's convention. Another claims, "Time is running out for qualification into our $25,000 giveaway," alongside a picture of a Porsche Carrera GT – a connection I could not fathom, as this set of wheels is a £300,000 job.



Still, I must confess, I've always seen myself in a Porsche, although, being practical, a 924 version, which is the "Volkswagen in drag," or a 944 would be the most likely scenario.



Somewhere in between the 3:25 p.m. at Newbury and 4:15 p.m. at Doncaster, with the first leg of my 50p Yankee already down, I do the decent thing by downloading lots of software and depositing the princely sum of £25 into each.



Come 5 p.m., I find myself in a 90-runner tournament that offers the first three finishers a place in the semifinals of some event, which is worth some part of $25,000, less all applicable skim offs, taxes, and VAT.



Don't knock it until you've tried it thinks I, sitting back with a tin of Fosters and a lasagne straight from the microwave.



Well, bugger me, by 6:30 p.m., I have 125,000 of the 180,000 chips in play, and there are still 12 players all sitting on futile stacks that barely cover the next round of blinds.



Four tins of Fosters go as quickly as 10 other players, but I manage to get beaten heads up, meaning I get something like $20 instead of the $30 that I would have "won."



Hey, shit happens, but I'm in the semifinal of some super-duper competition that might give me a trophy, and I love trophies.



I take the opportunity to start on the box of six Millers that are left over from Christmas before taking my chances in the 9 p.m. "undertakers" freebie comp that offers a weekend in Dublin along with a meal in the Merrion Casino – simply irresistible.



There's also $10,000 in prize money, although it is spread thinner than birdseed in Trafalgar Square and won't last any longer!



Around 370 of us all sit tight and play well until the antes go stratospheric, with any two cards once again looking attractive. I'm at Miller bottle number five and cannot find the bottle opener for number six when I realise that this isn't really happening for me, so I carefully pick my moment before going all in.



That moment comes when a player moves his lot in and is promptly called, reraised, called all in, and gets another caller all in. With four huge stacks all pushed in, I figure my 9-2 offsuit is a monster and will be getting paid off at around 9-2.



I'm a genius, as the cards get turned over and they are playing only a pair of kings, queens, jacks, and tens. The flop comes 9-7-2 and I am the clear leader. The next card is a 3, but the final damn card is a 10, and I wet the bed big time.



Gutted and out of beer, I make a coffee, although it is laced with vodka and Baileys. Lovely, I'll have another, another, and another while waiting for a cash game on this site.



Nearly 400 people chasing a bit of free money on the undertakers' site, but they cannot get more than four players on to a 10-seated cash/tournament table.



Ah, I check "Cashier" and see that I have in excess of $100 in my account; don't know how it happened, but it was there. I know, let's play in one of these $109 heads-up thingies.



Thirteen undefeated heads-up games calls for some more refreshments, so my friend John Jameson joins me, along with his associate Diet Coke, and sit snugly alongside the screen. Despite John's help, I cannot handle the next customer and lose $109, much to my disgust.



That's quite enough of all that. The cashier says I have $1,177, which I cannot really figure out, but I don't hesitate to press the "Cash Out" button for the entire amount, as the site gives me the creeps and I will not be coming back in a hurry.



Hey, starting with around £80, this has not been a bad night. The rent is all but sorted, plus I can replace those beer, Baileys, and vodka bottles, and order in a celebratory curry with some of the proceeds prior to the restaurant's 2 a.m. closing time.



But I'm buzzing and decide to play with that bit of change I won on that earlier site, the one with that Porsche.

Munching through a Pershwari Naan, the essential compliment to any Chicken Korma, whilst busily searching for a game, I stumble across a $1-$2 cash game that was worthy of a $50 investment.



I should be able to do this within 20 minutes and then go to bed. But, hold up, I'm in the big blind with 6-2 and the flop has come 6-6-2! My check is followed by bet, call, call, and call.



I better call this because I think I am winning. The next card is a king. I could have conceivably gone behind now, but I doubt it. Look, there is a bet and three callers again. Let's call, why not. The final card is a 6. Um, I have four of a kind!



A small bet is followed by a call and a raise! OK, let's be brave and put in my last $15. It's called, called, and called! Excellent, I'm up to more than $250; this calls for another drink.



My run of form continues, and I get to $2,200 as quickly as my bottle of JJ goes down. I'm probably playing looser than its cap, but I'm going to take this and run, because I have just paid for a flight to Vegas and a month in a hotel.



OK, it's not that easy to leave on a winning streak, and it may be 4 a.m., but I simply cannot miss, so I'm going to press up the odd $200 in an all-or-nothing campaign that would make Nick Leeson proud.



Hey, here is a lively table, and they are real nutters, too. Once again, I cannot stop winning. Within minutes, that $200 has been turned into $2,000, $4,000, and doubled through again to $8,000, and on to $12,000.



I can now see a Porsche in my driveway – not a 924, not a 944, but a 911!



For the first and what was going to be the only time in my life, I came to the conclusion that Internet poker cannot and will not be a success or last. I mean people are throwing thousands of dollars into pots they cannot possibly win.



The world is going to go skint, and I'm going to be the beneficiary. What a fantastic thought.



That's it, I'm out of here with a cool $14,000 profit. But no, no, I pick up pocket kings and really didn't want to see them. Damn, the guy has just raised $3,000 into me and the blinds are only $2.50-$5.



Where is this bloke from? How big is his palace? He must go through bank notes like I go through toilet paper, and probably uses them for the job!



I cannot call. I have won a fortune in one night, and am drunk and happy. I don't want to call. I consult John [Jameson] but, alas, he soon talks me into an … all-in move.



A silence that seems to last an eternity ensues before the dreaded call is made. Another long pause before a flop is created from the wonderful random number generating machine. It displays an ace, queen, and jack, all in hearts; another queen follows, and then another jack.



I'm dead, if this rich Arabian prince, which he surely must be, has any hearts, an ace, a queen, or a jack. The lot has surely gone. I'm sick, and it is not even alcohol induced … well, not just yet.



Suddenly, $24,000 slides its way across the screen to me! In ecstasy, I run a lap of honour around the front room and through to the bombsite of a kitchen, wearing nothing more than a pair of Y-fronts.



I phone up the girlfriend back in England, who is not disgruntled about being woken so early with the news that a year's take-home pay will be in our bank account next week.



We are going on holiday to the most exotic place in existence, and that 911, albeit a secondhand one, is going to have a turbocharger attached to it.



I've done it, I have managed to quit when ahead, and ahead by some considerable way. All that is left for me to do is navigate my way around the cashier section and send that money home.



Unsurprisingly, considering my delirious drunken state and the size of my withdrawal, the cashier section of the site seems to be a little disagreeable with my request. It probably has limits on daily withdrawals, and I'm simply too slaughtered to see straight.



The phone rings to interrupt me. It's my beloved; hell, it didn't take her long to find a holiday, and a ring, too, probably!



"Umm, why are you crying?"



"I have just had a man on the phone from Gibraltar," she explains. "He says he is very sorry, but you cannot send $20,000 odd to your bank account because there is some kind of problem. He is adamant that you will not be paid."



Angrily, I jot down the number of this imbecile who is going to claim that collusion has taken place, I was playing against a stolen credit card, or have in some way hacked into their system and manipulated the cards.



I dare not tell you the details of our conversation, as it was more of a verbal barrage using the maxim, "Attack is the best form of attack." Eventually, when I had run out of expletives, I gave the young customer service representative a brief respite in order for him to explain how he would get my winnings to me in double-quick time.



His response? "Sir, you have been playing on a play-money table for the past five hours, and the $22,000 in your play bank is not withdrawable. What I would say is that no one has ever had such a win on the practise tables, and we are all most impressed!"



Stunned disbelief followed my slamming down of the receiver. If I didn't feel well now, how was I going to feel when waking up with a hangover and the sober reality of my dashed hopes, dreams, and aspirations?



Indeed, sleep failed to disentangle my emotions; it was to be the most painful of hangovers, the type that sends people tea-total or suicidal.



Supermuppet and his runner-runner seemed like a distant memory, and Arabian Prince and his $12,000 all in on nothing a total nightmare turned fairytale. The hard truth is … my clapped-out motor still sat in the driveway, and the girlfriend's bank balance was still overdrawn.



A week later, with Internet poker avoided like the plague, I went on a 36-hour session playing poker with Tarot cards, when I eventually flopped a full house and four people died! But that's another story already claimed by someone else.



In mitigation, Roy did both own up to this embarrassing tale and win more than $3,000 in real money from his £50 start on this fateful night. A year later, he did buy himself a Porsche. He now owns a second car, a red Ferrari.