It sounded like it should be fun. It had all the ingredients. A popular poker player who is a cancer survivor running a charity event for The Irish Cancer Society a few days after Christmas in a great pub venue.
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The player is Peter from Skerrys. About six months ago, in the middle of his battle with cancer, he showed up at a tournament in The Regency Hotel. The guy beside me remarked that he looked like shit. \u201cHe\u2019s still breathing isn\u2019t he?\u201d, I replied: \u201cAnyway, he spoke to me for 45 minutes on the phone the other day without pausing for breath, so he\u2019s okay\u201d. \u201cOnly 45 minutes?\u201d he said, \u201cTold you he wasn\u2019t well”.<\/p>\n
Of course, he was right. It\u2019d take Peter half an hour to get the time from the talking clock. The venue was Joe Mays in Skerrys, where there is a fun game every Tuesday evening. I\u2019d strongly recommend a visit if you enjoy the craic. They\u2019re even very nice to me! I turned up an hour late with popular Irish players Eamonn and Willow Connolly; they asked me to call them that. With Willow involved, that was like being early. After final tabling the partypoker Fitzwilliam Festival before finishing runner up to John Power in the partypoker Grand Prix Cork, Willow was in top form. Eamonn too as she\u2019d stopped whingeing however temporarily. We hit the bar and were soon joined by a Northern Ireland brother and sister team who we are, for reasons that will become obvious, going to call Bonnie and Clyde. It fast became a party as various other players joined us, all in sparkling form. That might explain how it all went pear-shaped later.<\/p>\n
We eventually joined the tournament but continued sinking pints. Clyde was proving a big fan of Hop House 13, which I\u2019m told is quite nice though I\u2019m not sure a guy who is 120lbs soaking wet should be attacking the second gallon with quite as much dedication as Clyde was showing, but I didn\u2019t feel I was really in a position to criticise. He didn\u2019t hang around too long in the tournament but took like a duck to water to the cash game. A duck that had missed a few swimming lessons.<\/p>\n
I was surprisingly detained in the tournament and having a ball so I missed the main action. Barny, oops I mean Clyde, really liked the trophy Peter had laid on, wrapped his coat around it, shook hands with everyone and left the building with it under his arm followed quickly by Bonnie who wisely figured he might need help. I\u2019d swear this was the first time he\u2019d ever \u201cborrowed\u201d anything in his life. There was only one eye witness to this hideous crime.<\/p>\n
As the tournament was drawing to a close, Peter started looking around for the trophy. He had probably spent all week practising the presentation, so he eventually began to panic. Despite being on the recovery from several months chemotherapy, he finished up on his hands and knees crawling under tables searching for a trophy that was about a mile away. He didn\u2019t find it.<\/p>\n
After I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the tournament, the eye witness to the crime, burdened with the guilt of alone knowing what had happened, told me everything. I hadn\u2019t laughed as much all year as I did then.<\/p>\n
Next morning, I messaged Clyde to congratulate him on finally getting his hands on a trophy. He seemed surprised he was a suspect but told me he planned on returning the trophy to the scene of the crime that lunchtime. I couldn\u2019t help phoning Peter later in the afternoon to see what line he\u2019d been fed.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t disappointed. Bonnie and Clyde had explained to him that they had found the trophy in Bonnie\u2019s bag and that it must have fallen in. I said that sounded very plausible indeed. I forgot to mention they had already posted pictures of Clyde posing outside in the dark with his trophy on social media. That would have taken a little explaining! You couldn\u2019t make this stuff up! Happy New Year.<\/p>\n
This article first appeared in Bluff Europe Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n If you\u2019re ready to jump into the action, then\u00a0click here to download partypoker and get started<\/strong>!<\/a><\/p>\nReady to join the party?<\/h3>\n