I play a fair bit of poker, but have never once played online (apparently this is quite unusual, especially for someone who effectively lives online) so I was paticularly happy to get an invite to a Pokerstars tournament last night. Playing poker against Marilyn Monroe, Captain Jack Sparrow, Del Boy and a host of lookalikes was pleasantly surreal after a glass or seventeen of wine, and as luck would have it - and let's face it, it was pretty much pure luck - I won the whole thing too, which was nice. My prize is this rather splendid chip set, which I am now thinking about how to customise.
Highlights of the night were catching up with Sweena (hosting the whole affair with typical panache - excellent job!), beating professional poker star Victoria Coren for the final prize (hee hee) and meeting several tables full of fellow London bloggers, including George Nimeh (who I last bumped into downstairs at Albanach for one of the old Chinwag bashes), ex-colleague Alistair Sibley and a guy who turned out to work for another bit of my - admittedly fairly large - company, DMGT.
The whole event was to promote the launch of the new Twitter Poker league, which sounds like a lark and may just be the push I needed to try the whole winning a fortune online thing. Good times, and rumours that I couldn't actually remember quite whether I'd won the thing or not this morning because of the generous hospitality of the hosts is merely a lie spread by my many enemies to discredit me.
(Image flagrantly stolen from here)
