No Room At The Inn For The Devilfish

It’s good to see that the Devilfish Cup is back! With a $1 million guarantee for $5,300 buy-in, it kicks off on Monday at Dusk Till Dawn and threatens to be great craic… and probably great value.

There are already two big winners. All the registration collected will be split between Dave’s daughter’s trust fund and the excellent MacMillan cancer charity. Well played DTD. partypokerlive president (whatever that means) John Duthie said on Twitter that “the Fish would be chuffed at seeing others benefiting from an event with his name on it.” I can’t help thinking he’d get a bigger kick watching guys losing $5,300, but maybe that’s just me.

Back during the poker boom, Dave played all the made for TV tournaments in the UK, events mainly sponsored by party and 888. They were great fun, but did involve days hanging around hotels and TV studios, which frequently led to chaos as guys tried to keep themselves amused. One of these events lasted two weeks, and pros, internet qualifiers, staff, the TV crew, plus celebs, were all staying in The Marriot in Maidstone.

In the middle of the whole thing, the hotel was overbooked for a couple of nights, so Jonny Natas, who was organizing the thing when he wasn’t busy having the craic, had to get a few of us to stay in the nearby Hilton temporarily. When he asked me to move, I said that’d be fine. He said he wasn’t looking forward to giving the Devilfish the good news that he was on the move as the Fish liked to do the prima donna bit.

A couple of hours later, I was having a coffee in the hotel lobby. Along came the
Devilfish. He was not a happy camper and was moaning about being told he had to switch
hotels. I should have told him I was moving too and it was no big deal, but I couldn’t help myself. I told him he was way too important to be messed about like that and they should have moved an internet qualifier or one of the lads who did the graphics for the TV instead.

I could have left it at that, but I just couldn’t resist telling him I’d been asked to move, but I refused and told them to move someone else instead. He nearly had a seizure. He said it was all my fault. He also passed a few disparaging remarks about the Irish that were a little OTT. Thankfully, I’m not sensitive. He ordered a cab. It was my understanding that he was heading for the TV studio, so he could choke Jonny Natas asap. I suppose I could have mentioned that I was only having a laugh but I found all that talk of choking people a little disconcerting.

Later, I heard the Fish had had a right go at Jonny, accusing him of moving him instead of that Irish gentleman (not his exact words). Poor Jonny tried to explain that I was moving too but the Devilfish called him a liar, saying that he’d just been talking to me and that I had told him exactly what was going on. Oh God.

At midnight, I was happily drinking a pint and reading the paper in The Hilton. Bliss. It didn’t last long as the Devilfish arrived dragging a suitcase behind him. He had a few words with me which I won’t repeat, but you can take it that if I get knocked out of the Devilfish Cup on Monday, the chuckles coming from the sky are the Fish expressing his satisfaction!