When the chips are down

This was no ordinary poker game. These people did not look like poker players. They played poker like poker players, but they did not look like poker players. And my God, they did not talk like poker players.

There was silence for a while, as there always is when strangers sit down together. Just the clack of chips and the riffle of cards. And then, around about that point when I would expect somebody to say something (perhaps something like 'Anyone know what happened in the seven-card?', or possibly 'You c***, how could you call with the three-four of f****** spades and raise on the flop?') the player to my left asked the player to my right if the player on my right was seeing anybody.

And the player on my right told the player on my left about a new relationship that was going rather well, and some charming dates that had been enjoyed. One or two concerns were raised about commitment, but the player on my right (pausing to call a small raise on the flop) expressed the view that this was normal, and that the romance sounded promising. And then the player two places to my left complimented the player three places to my left on her blouse. The player three places to my left smiled, and provided details as to where such a blouse could be acquired locally at reasonable cost.

And I realised I had never played poker with women before.

I mean, I've played with one or two women, obviously. Harvey's wife used to play every week in my Tuesday home game, until she emigrated to America and left me alone with the dirty songs, beer cans and 'big pair' gags.

In casino card rooms there are usually a few women knocking about, but you have to look hard through the crowd of men: like going on safari and occasionally spotting a leopard but, in the end, resigning yourself to the same herd of ragged antelopes.

I'd seen nothing, nothing like this: the women's tournament at the World Series Of Poker in Las Vegas. Women only! The room was a blaze of colour, the chatter was high-pitched, and the losses were gracious. Before the game, where you normally expect to hear a barful of baritones claiming, 'This tournament's got my name all over it.' There was instead a powder-room of girlish blushing modesty: 'I just don't want to do anything stupid'... 'I just hope I'm not the first to be knocked out'.

Make no mistake: there were serious card-sharps here. This is part of the annual poker world championship; the women's tournament costs $1,000 to play and is contested by proper professional players. Nani Dollison (last year's women's champion, who went on to win this year's as well) had already beaten a field of men to win the $2,000 Limit HoldEm tournament earlier in the week.

So they play pretty aggressively. The only difference is, they don't need to act aggressively at the same time. One dazzling redhead scooped her Chinese neighbour's entire stack of chips with a fiendishly hidden set of trips, knocking her clean out of the tournament, while asking the question: 'Are you still dating that construction worker? He seemed cute.'

The only females representing Britain were Debbie Berlin and myself. I tried to make up for it by wearing a glittery Union Jack T-shirt, but this was America: they still asked me where I was from. ('Australia?')

I was slightly jealous of the healthy female environment, unheard of at home. Susie Isaacs (a Southern belle, sitting on my table in novelty dice earrings) has just written a book called 'Ms Poker' which thanks her poker friends 'Darlene, Peggy, "Marge The Sarge", Joanie, June, Barbara, Annie, Fran and Mary Margaret.' My poker friends are called things like Joe and Al.

Poker is simply a part of mass American culture, and family life, in a way that it is not (yet) here; we could never fill a women-only tournament. But that's not to say equality is fully in place over there. They held the women's competition on Mother's Day, encouraged contestants to bring their mums along for a game, asked the gallant cash-playing crowd to 'applaud the ladies, who are all looking lovely' and gave away engraved silver compacts as going-home presents.

I'm not sure they could get away with that for the women's final at Wimbledon. But the ladylike treatment seemed to go down well, among these wolves in leopardskin clothing.