The Month of May

The month of May was going to be something special to me, because Manchester United had made the European Cup final and everything was set for May 21. Moscow, here I come! My good friend Simon Zach had managed to get me executive tickets for the final, with accommodations and a first-class flight. My bags were packed, and I was ready for the adventure. The first-ever European Cup final I remember watching was in 1968 when Manchester United beat Benfica 4-1, with the goals scored by George Best, Brian Kidd, and Bobby Charlton twice.

You can imagine that I was absolutely devastated when I was requested to do an after-dinner speech on May 22 for the scrap-metal merchants of Great Britain. It meant that I would have to miss Moscow, but I knew secretly that work had to come before pleasure. When the engine blew up in my diesel van, I realized that May might not turn out to be the month I had planned.

The after-dinner speech went well. I guess you could say that I've rehearsed for these moments all my life, and those 15 or 20 minutes of me holding an audience in the Eton Hotel in the heart of Birmingham is just about the biggest buzz I ever get in the gambling world. I wouldn't say that I'd swap it for a gold bracelet, but it's close.

The only other two days that I had to work in May were in running the qualifiers for the Ladbrokes Poker Million at Leyton Orient Football Club. My devoted friend Spivver had been running satellites for the previous six weeks, and Bridgnorth was emptied. We must have taken 30 people down to Leyton Orient to play for two Poker Million seats and one seat in the 888.com UK Open. We all went to Waltham Abbey one night, and took over the karaoke in town. It was still light out at 10 o'clock at night as we stood outside the Welsh Harp pub laughing and drinking beer, when it was requested that I sing Sweet Caroline.

Rumor has it that I sing the song better than Neil Diamond himself, but I think it was me who started the rumor. I've sung that song many times in many places. It must have been 12 years ago at the Master Classics of Poker at the Holland Casino in Amsterdam, and I was merry. I'd noticed where the tournament director had left his cordless microphone lying unattended, so I soon announced to 800 people on three different levels, "None other than Neil Diamond is in the building! And we've asked him if he would sing live for us at the Holland Casino in the heart of Amsterdam -- and he has agreed to sing!"

You can imagine that this was all a bit confusing for the people in the Holland Casino, as Sister Sledge was singing We Are Family live in the basement at the time. In all the mix-up, with people not knowing whether it was true or false, the roulette wheels stopped spinning, the blackjack games stopped, and the poker dealers stopped dealing, and Sister Sledge stopped singing We Are Family in the basement as I started to sing, "Where it began …" Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed security guards running wild, looking for the cordless mike that had gone missing. I was hidden in a sea of a dozen poker players, and I managed to sing the entire song with all of the gaming area joining in the chorus!

The good news is that Ladbrokes has asked me to run my own karaoke in the Rio casino during the World Series of Poker, and every night, the opening song will be Sweet Caroline. You can see me singing the song live on YouTube, when I performed it a few years ago on the Ladbrokes poker cruise. And I nearly got through two verses before Norman Pace managed to get the microphone back. Fair play to Norman, as he managed to do what no one else at the Holland Casino could do.

Next stop: Las Vegas!

Mad Marty Wilson is a professional gambler and poker consultant for Matchroom Sport.