Payback's a Bitch

A few weeks ago I got a phone call at five in the morning from Stormin' Norman. For years, Norman drove a bus by day and played poker all night, which is why I always take taxis. They might all be at it. I figured it couldn't be good news so I went on the attack with a "Do you know it's five o'clock in the morning?"

"Sorry," said Norman, "I forgot you were an hour ahead in France." Sometimes you just can't win.

A couple of weeks later, I was in Maidstone in Kent, playing in and doing what passes for a commentary on a TV poker tournament. During a break, Norman phoned me again to thank me for the small favour I'd done him after the last time we spoke. We had a laugh about this and that for a while before Norman got around to mentioning that he'd be available to play any tournament I couldn't attend myself but felt like sticking somebody into. I asked him if he'd mind travelling to Cork. "Why? Is there a tournament on down there?" asked Norman quite excitedly. "No", I replied. "But that's where the end of the queue is!" That'll teach him.

Reasonable Terms

The credit crunch and hard times may be a whole new ballgame for civilians but any poker player who has served his time could tell you all about them. Banks and credit card companies may have some understanding of fluctuations in stocks and the property market but traditionally they've never really been interested in a sequence of bad rivers occasionally followed by an old fashioned tilt job. They've been known to be so unreasonable that in some cases, rather than give a man who's running bad a moratorium on his debts and a few quid to be getting on with, they've taken poker players to court over minor indiscretions.

I heard of such a case recently where several years ago a credit card company took an Irish player to court over a £6,000 temporary black hole. I have no idea how they expected a gambler to earn the money to pay them back if they are going to be wasting his valuable time talking to a judge, but they did.

While our man was waiting patiently to get this nonsense over with he was encouraged by the fact that he wasn't the only one to be temporarily financially challenged. In fact the victim, whose case came just before his, was in the brown stuff up to his neck. The poor lad owed £40,000 to a credit union.

After a lot of questions about the financial status and future prospects of this unfortunate guy, the judge asked the lawyer representing the credit union what weekly payment they'd consider reasonable in the circumstances. To everyone's surprise, the lawyer said a payment of £12 a week would be acceptable to his clients. Everybody was amazed, including the judge, who asked if he'd heard correctly. On being assured that he had, he shook his head and ordered the lad to make arrangements for this payment. The poker player's respect for the legal system went through the roof and he was a little over excited when it was time for his case to be dealt with. The judge asked him when he thought he'd be in a position to pay off the credit card company. He replied, "If you can get me forty grand at £12 a week from that credit union, I'd be happy to pay them immediately!"

Future Plans

I dropped into the TV studio where the Premier League was being filmed a few days ago, mainly because I had nothing better to do. Nothing at all, actually. They were just about to start the 12th and final heat and I found, to my surprise, that the Devilfish, whom I'd bet on at the start, was the only one out of the 12 players who couldn't possibly make the following day's final. Stoke getting a dodgy penalty to equalise against his beloved Hull City (he'd bet on them) quite understandably didn't improve the Fish's humour, so when PartyPoker's Warren Lush politely asked him if he was going to be attending their tournament in Galway in January, he replied that he didn't know what he was going to be doing the next day, let alone a month ahead. I couldn't help myself and told the Fish that at least we all knew what he wasn't going to be doing the next day. You've got to take the opportunities that come your way in this life.