Where's My Cards!?!

At one stage on the 888 Irish Tour, I was asked if the story about a hand I’d played 25 years ago was true. I said it depended on which version you’d heard.

The incident occurred in the Rathmines club [Dublin], a spot where the bizarre was usual and treated as such. It couldn’t last and it didn’t. The guys involved in the pot were me, Johnny “Suitcase” and Peter Mulligan. “Suitcase” was so called because he developed the habit whilst in Vegas of jumping up and shouting “Suitcase!” every time he was all in which was apparently an indication that if he was called and lost he was off to the airport.

As Johnny was the same height standing up as he was sitting down the standing up bit impressed no one but the shout was admired far and wide. Peter Mulligan was so called because that was his name.

We were playing a three table, £100 tournament. Mulligan was dealing and I was seated directly to his right. After a while, I raised a pot, “Suitcase” called and then bet when three clubs appeared on the flop. For a second I thought this was great news. Then I realised Peter, who was at least half in the bag, had very efficiently taken my two lovely clubs away preflop. I felt like a complete idiot for not realising that this was a strong possibility and I should have been more careful. Especially as I’d been in the pub with the dealer. So I moved all-in anyway and Johnny mucked his hand.

That should have been the end of it but the Irish love a good story, especially if they can embellish it. They did. Over the years, the tournament got bigger and bigger until it eventually became a cash game. I’ve heard it told by several eye witnesses who weren’t even in Dublin at the time. Last time I heard it the pot was 30K. Sterling.

Years later Nicky Power asked me about the pot. I told him the truth. You’d think he might have learnt something from it. You know like it’s considered a good idea to protect your hand at all times. Not at all!

That’d be too simple for Nicky. A while later, he was very deep in the Irish Open. Roland de Wolfe has bet the flop. Nicky moved all in. This was ballsy of him as Roland was running like God at the time. It was particularly so as, when Roland passed, Nicky revealed that he had no cards. He went on to make the final table and is these days living happily in a lunatic asylum known to outsiders as Waterford.

It goes on. One day, I was talking to TJ Cloutier who began to tell me a story about how he won a pot after the dealer stole his hand. I swear I kept a straight face when I asked him why a player of his experience hadn’t protected his cards.