Looking Older Every Day!

The first event of the Irish Open festival was a phase 1 and Day 1 of the Dusk Till Dawn 6 millions guaranteed tournament. (sponsored by partypoker and played to a conclusion next week in Nottingham.) I started well and then it kinda fizzled out so I tilted into the cash game to balance the books. I got a seat beside Willie Tan who’s been gambling for about two or three hundred years and is beginning to look it. Willie is a fine poker player, listing winning a WSOP bracelet among his accomplishments, and is also famous for his love of animals. Especially horses who run around a racetrack, usually a tad too slowly for Willie’s liking. Willie is also very keen on a game called craps. I don’t understand the game myself but from what I saw of Willie in action a number of years ago in Foxwoods, I think the idea is to throw dice around and do your bollocks as quickly as possible. Then, the house very generously gives the good customers comps for all sorts of goodies. A chap who appeared to me to be on the cynical side suggested to me that that was so they didn’t starve to death whilst between bankrolls and become ex good customers, but I figured he was just jealous. The casino had obviously taken quite a shine to Willie because they gave him dinner and lots of drink vouchers and 2 tickets for the Tom Jones concert that evening. Willie invited me to be his companion for the evening. I considered this a great honour, especially as my host doesn’t drink so I was drinking for two. Due to some ridiculous law, you can’t drink doubles there but apparently you can drink as many singles as you like. So I did. After a while, I didn’t care if we were watching Tom Jones or Casey Jones, but Willie did! He loved it. Especially when Tom started bashing out “Sex Bomb”. I was telling a few lads in The Vic a couple of months later that you haven’t lived till you’ve seen Willie shake his head around to this number, but they said they were fed up watching Willie shaking his head, as horse racing fans tend to do it quite often.

Anyway, I was sitting beside Willie in this PLO game in Dublin, winning a few quid and having the craic with Willie. Everything was going along swimmingly until Willie asked me what age I was. I told him I was 59. He said “No way!” I was quite chuffed and told him I was definitely about to hit 60 in June. He shook his head and stated again that he didn’t believe me." You can’t be 59. You’ve got to be older than that.” I didn’t like the way this was going, so I ignored him but that didn’t help. There were a few more episodes of “xxxx me. You can’t be that young!” accompanied by a shake of the head. After about the fifth time, I lost it and told him to xxxx off. Next time he gets freebies for Tom Jones or anyone else for that matter, he can go on his own!

I will be at millions in Dusk Till Dawn next week and at partypoker grand prix Dublin in the Clayton airport hotel from the 28th of April till the 1st of May, I will be the guy looking more than 59.