Victoria Coren's everyday tale of poker folk

guardian.co.uk

John himself was a wild gambler, always ready to double and bluff. Which is why, on this tribute trip, that sod Matthew kept creeping up behind me and whispering: 'Put £200 on red... it's what he would have wanted...' 'Hang on', I said, too late, when all the money was gone, 'It's not what he would have wanted. It's just what he would have done.' But (simply by way of prolonging the tribute, you understand) it made sense to spend many days after John's death playing more poker than ever.

It's a controversial one, this. At grim times, do you stop playing cards or play even more? Poker fiends are divided on the issue, but my faith lies in upping the ante. Whatever broken hearts, professional crises or family tragedies are making life hell, a card game is the place to forget.

Poker has (for me, anyway) a unique ability to refocus the brain. You've raised on the button with a pair of queens and made trips on the flop: the turn brings a possible straight and a flush; your left-hand opponent moves all-in; and never mind who's dead or who's dumped you, this is something to think about. But when you're happy, you don't need the distraction.

Hence the intriguing symmetry of my Tuesday poker school at the moment.

Little Jimmy is getting married, and playing hardly at all. Harvey is getting divorced, and playing every night. He says: 'I like the escapism. For some people it's drugs, or travelling: putting their problems aside in the high of the night. It's fine as long as you remember that when you get home, the problems are still there.'

Our semi-regular player Alfie, however, disagrees. He says: 'I avoid poker when I'm having a bad time, because I bring my problems to the table.' This, of course, is the counter-argument: that emotional problems can put you 'on tilt', make you play worse. You remember when The Cincinnati Kid leaves town to go chasing after his absconded girlfriend? That's because, according to the book: 'He had been a fool to let her go to her Mama's. There had been something underlying and nervous about his whole week. It was her.'

The message is: don't play until you've sorted your head out. If The Kid can't make peace with his girlfriend, it's going to affect his game. This emotional-tilting tendency is something you often hear in the row about female players. Many believe that women can't 'switch off' the rest of their life when they sit down at a card table. But men (runs the argument) have a working hat, a home hat and a gambling hat, and they don't think about one while wearing the other. If true, this would make women the more sophisticated psychological species; but that's no comfort when the other guy is pocketing your chips.

I can't speak for all women, obviously, but the theory is not true of me.

Here's an example, from a HoldEm tournament last week:

I picked up a pair of aces, and flat-called in first position. The man on my left raised, just as I had expected: he'd been raising every pot. Because he'd been raising every pot, he got four callers. I re-raised all-in. Three people folded and, because the remaining three had no more chips to bet, the cards were turned face-up. One opponent had a pair of queens, the other a 5-6 suited. I certainly had the best hand, but the flop brought a queen to give the other guy three of a kind. So I lost, and was out of the tournament. For the next hour, regardless of anything else in my life, that's what I was angry about, and that's what I was sad about. Does this make me psychologically primitive; a card-hooked simpleton? Of course it does. But what the hell: it's an easier way to be.