By David Lloyd

A few years ago, when I was still living in London, I was sitting in the Vic, pondering the meaning of life (as you do) when I began to wonder what the hell I was doing in there anyway. After four or five hours of playing check the nuts with everyone else at the table, I looked down at the troops in front of me (my chips, that is) to find them all present and correct. A quick headcount had confirmed that I was ‘waving not drowning.’ I’d started late in the afternoon with £800 on the table, I now had £812 (cue fanfare and Party Poker fireworks) and somehow it just didn’t feel like much of an achievement.

As I surveyed the room, hoping to spot an easier table, I realised I was already there. Just behind me, the £50 round of each was in full swing…I say full swing but…err for full swing read motionless quagmire. I was in one of the three £100 PLO games that were so rocked up, even the dealers were checking! A £50 stud game just to my right featured five 7 card stud pro’s slowly sipping the life blood out of each other because no one else was playing the game anymore. None of the new blood wanted to play 7 card. A whole generation of Stud Pro’s left at the proverbial alter as the action eloped with the slut Omaha. I remember a time when stud was THE game, now it was on its last legs and these guys were an endangered species.

Over by what they laughingly refer to as the Salon Prive, there was a £250 PLO game that looked just as bad as all the others. Next door to that was the £1000 dealers game which always looked like the liveliest table in the room, even with Stewart Ruben and Donnacha O’dea in it. Two days earlier, there’d been something like 70 grand in one particular pot and they hadn’t even dealt the turn card. Even in the world weary, seen it all world of the Vic, it’s the kind of event that has everyone up on their feet from the other tables just to witness the outcome. I remember thinking, “Up and down the country, kids are wandering home from school, kicking tin cans…there’s a three bedroom provincial semi in the pot and all those kids haven’t even had their tea yet.”

Totally frustrated by the lack of value in the room, I called out to Jeff Leigh at the desk. “Jeff, can you put me on the transfer list please?”

Jeff looked up and motioned at the other tables, “Sure David, where do you want to go?”

“Luton please, anywhere but here Jeff, even Luton mate!

Jeff looked back with his usual look of dismay, “You can’t be that bleedin’ desperate!”

The truth is…I was. Two days later, I could be found sitting in the liveliest table in the room, taking a shot at the big game, breaking one of the cardinal rules and playing on a short bankroll. How did I get on? Well that’s another story, one I’ll tell another time.