For the Love of Poker

I suppose that for most of us, the attraction of poker is winning money without having to work our fingers to the bone. Superficially, it does seem easy. The rules are technically simple and easy to grasp. What's more, you don't have to be either an Einstein or Tiger Woods to compete at the highest level. With Lady Luck sitting on your shoulder for a few days, presto, you could become a multimillionaire!



Anyone can play poker: couch potato, fitness freak, black, white, green with purple spots, Buddhist, atheist, devout or nonbeliever, it doesn't matter. In fact, I've often noticed that when a particularly attractive woman comes to a casino, her presence is barely registered on the gamblers' Richter scales, so absorbed are they in their particular poison.



This is a game that is definitely not elitist, and the apprenticeship can be as long or as short as you like, because if you're the flavour of the month with Madame Luck, the sky's the limit. I have known and seen poker players win World Series of Poker bracelets who have never played that particular game before, and we've all witnessed the meteoric rise of novices in the World Series: players who have just started playing and players who play very occasionally. One from the latter category once sent me to an early bath in the World Series main event. I'm still in shock. An elderly gentleman wearing a tweed jacket sat down to my immediate left. He didn't look like an American, and when he spoke to a waitress, I knew he was a fellow Brit. Having never laid eyes on him before, I was intrigued, so I started to chat with him.

It transpired that the last time he'd played was at the same event the previous year, and before that, 15 years ago, and it was only because a friend had left him some money in his will with the specific requirement that he use it to play in the World Series of Poker. So, there he was, sitting next to me and minding his own business, and playing like a total novice. He had three moves: pass, huge raise, and all in; no halfway measures, no subtlety, no trickery, just blood and thunder. In the first level, when the blinds were still only $25-$50, his preflop raises were $5,000! Halfway through the second level, he limped in from under the gun and a few others joined in. I was in the big blind. I looked down at my cards and found two queens, so I raised it to $600. He made it $5,000, and I set him in. He called like a shot and showed big slick, fair enough. I made a set and he hit a gutshot on the river. My stack was decimated, and I exited shortly afterward. Steam coming out of every orifice, I wanted to mortgage my house and bet that he wouldn't survive the first day. Fortunately for me, nobody wanted to take the bet, because three days later he was still playing and eventually finished 40th out of a field of 839!



There can be few other games or sports that are as easy to learn, in which old and young, men and women, novice and expert can compete on level terms, and in which the outcome is definitely not assured. Two years ago, Paddy Hicks, a bright, aggressive septuagenarian (who was taking poker lessons at the time), came second in the Irish Winter championship, and recently, Eric Dalby, age 74, ploughed through a field of 209 to win a quarter of a million dollars in the first Ladbrokes cruise. Whilst Eric was carving up the final table, a few of us were propping up the bar just before dinner when Tony Cascarino joined us and also started to wax lyrical about the game. "In what other sport can you find yourself next to a champion and compete with him on level terms and even beat him?" None that I can think of, Tony.



But for me, one of the most appealing things about poker is that it is such a social activity. You meet a wide variety of people, and if you're lucky, some become lifelong friends. I am not saying that everything in poker is a bed of roses or that everyone you meet is a Mother Teresa, far from it, but I am saying that the people who play poker are rich in their diversity and that every situation is unique, and personally I find that fascinating. Surely, this is what is so attractive about poker, it opens its arms to all and sundry without distinction. ´

Lucy "Golden Ovaries" Rokach has long been one of the most successful tournament players in Europe, with 14 major ­European titles to her name in the last five years alone. She hails from the Midlands in the UK, but can usually be found on the European tournament trail.