When the chips are down

I may not know much about poker, but I know what I like. And what I like is a pair of Aces. I'll also smile at a pair of Kings, or Ace-King suited. It's a very special feeling, peeling back the corners of your two HoldEm cards and finding one of those hands. It's like blearily pulling back the front door too early in the morning, and finding a bunch of flowers sent by your lover. (Usually, of course, you just peel back your cards to see 9-4 offsuit. That's like opening the door and finding a letter from your lover saying 'Bored now, goodbye. And I hate your hair.')

Malmuth and Sklansky, authors of about a million respected poker books, have a special chapter in HoldEm Poker For Advanced Players about initial bets in early position. There, they advise, you should 'raise with AK'. In the chapter on middle position, they advise 'you virtually never just call with the large, suited connectors such as AK'. And in the chapter on late position, 'raise or reraise with Group One hands: AA, KK, QQ, JJ or AK suited.' So why not just say at the beginning 'Always raise with AK suited'? Well, they've got a book to fill.

So anyway, I was running a poker tournament at a gambling party for Esquire magazine. London's professional tournament directors were all busy, so Esquire settled for a journalist with a sufficiently sick poker addiction to have a vague idea how these things are done.

I have watched the top tournament directors, including Jack McLelland (the charismatic director of the World Series Of Poker) and I flatter myself to think that I ran that Esquire tournament exactly like McLelland would have done. If, that is, McLelland was given a constant supply of free wine, became unable to discern hearts from diamonds, kept forgetting to put the antes up, and got distracted by long conversations with his brother who was playing next to the bloke out of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. And had started the tournament bang on time, after which the rules strictly demand that no new players can sit down, but had suddenly allowed John Thompson to join in because he'd seen him on The Fast Show and was a bit starstruck.

Thank heavens for the Hendon Mob, my favourite foursome of professional poker players, who turned up and acted as 'table captains', pointing out as I tucked into my third bottle that no, a pair of eights does not beat a flush, and anyway that is not a pair of eights, that is only one eight, but unfortunately the tournament director is seeing double.

Nevertheless, I am never too drunk to remember my Malmuth & Sklansky and recite it to David Baddiel. Baddiel had played a great game: having been unlucky early on, he had fought like a pro and made the final table. But he was low on chips so (leaning slightly and holding a table) I said 'This is no-limit. If you find a decent pair, or Ace-King, stick all your chips in.'

First hand of the final, he found AK. He looked at me, and his face said 'I would not bet all my chips with this.' But he took my advice, bet all-in, and got knocked out. I delivered an excellent speech about how in the long run it will pay to play these hands, odds are odds, but there are always statistical anomalies in a one-off card game, etc. etc.

'I'm sorry', said David Baddiel, 'but I can't quite make out what you're saying. Do you need to sit down?' So what is the moral of this story? Play to your instincts and chuck AK away if it doesn't feel lucky? Of course not.

The moral is, if you want to be sure to win at poker, you must play every single day of your life.

The next week, at a private cash game in Kings Cross, I met an excellent example of such a player. His name was Ray. He was just starting a story about a game of four-card Omaha that had happened two months before ('I had K-Q-J-10 and made two pair with an up-and-down straight on the flop...') when somebody congratulated him on recently becoming a grandfather again. 'What's the baby's name?' I asked. 'Do you know', said Ray, 'I honestly can't remember.'

Now there's a player.