Academy on Television!

Tabloid and I took full advantage of our flexible working hours to accept an open invitation on the Gutshot forum to appear in a BBC 3 Documentary. It was surely only a matter of time before Aunty jumped on the Poker ratings winning bandwagon, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Poker features heavily in the coming year. This project seemed straightforward if a little uninspiring, the ideas being that they would take two newbies and get them to play against players of various levels before sending them on to the WPT. I was looking forward to a game and tried not to have any preconceptions about the premise of the show although at the back of my mind was the fact that with all the creative genius in television maybe they could do better than rework the same ideas over and over again. Then of course I remembered that that is largely all that is on television!

Having arrive punctually to meet up outside a cafe near bank we were told that we were not needed yet and that we could wait in a pub if we wanted, I was ordering my first beer of the day moments later. Having been told we would be needed till 15:30 we were actually still in the pub at around that time and as all of you who have seen me drink before will no doubt testify I hold my drink as well as colander. Fortunately we were called to the set before any further drinking would have required anything filmed with me in it to require a post watershed slot. We were taken into a small room off the main room to be briefed and introduced to the two players we were to be up against.

Shortly after a brief chat and being miked up we were lead to the table. I must say that the settings were the plushest I have yet played in and quite a change from the surroundings I am used to. The game itself was Hold’em in a tournament format with everyone getting a very healthy chipstack I had to fancy my chances and was feeling even more confident when I looked down to see rockets! A nice bet was called a little too quickly by the TV player immediately to my left and whilst still deciding how to play the flop I found that I now had a set. I raised a large amount because there were 2 spades on the flop and was a little disappointed at the turn being a spade, I adjusted my bet on the turn to give myself odds for a boat chase when the river far from filling me up brought the 4^th Spade!!! I checked and the TV player went all in, which naturally I couldn’t call, tossing my aces face up into the muck and very glad of the size of the starting stacks.

The game progressed a while without incident until the same TV guy ripped a card while shuffling – no mean feat with plastic cards and we had to have a new deck. The next thing I knew I was dealt 8’s which is decent enough on a 5 handed table so being in first position I decided to raise up which I did only to find everyone calling to Liv ( the other not TV player who some of you will have seen from the TV show that Lee was in) reraised me by quite a bit, I decided that with the amount in the pot it was worth a call if I could catch an eight I could potentially treble up, TV fella from before calls as well but his friend folds as does Tabloid – the only thing they can do in the circumstances. The flop is an Ace and the 10 and 8 of hearts, right now the only hands I am losing to are rockets and tens – although that said anyone with a straight and flush draw would be level as well. I push all in to protect against the flush and praying that Liv had Anna Kournikova and sure that TV would have to fold – he didn’t !!! She then went all in and he called!!!! I looked at Tab as if to say I believe I am ahead here he was still getting over his fold since he had passed the pocket 10s!!!! Liv however quite unbelievably showed rockets and TV the J9 of hearts – basically with a straight flush, flush and straight draw and more outs than Gay pride. I am preparing to be eliminated of course when the turn brings quads – and having said sorry to Liv and tipping my head back in relief at not being first out I hear Tabloid say “ A STRAIGHT FLUSH!!!! The penny dropped just behind my jaw. Ok I said, look I know I have been paid to be here and its not like I have been paid to be here but this is fixed – to which the two TV players looked shocked at my suggestion, what do you mean fixed. There is no way in the world my quads just got beat by a straight flush on the river in a hand where someone had flopped trip aces and another person had folded a set of 10s. It then turned out that the other player had folded Ks preflop so to summarise,

4 PLAYERS PREFLOP DEALT POCKET PAIRS

3 OF THEM MAKE A SET ON THE FLOP

ONE THEN TURNS QUADS

THE ONLY PLAYER WITHOUT A PAIR RIVERS A STRAIGHT FLUSH HITTING A ONE OUTER!!!!

Im no mathematician but even I could see this scenario was at least billions to one! They still tried to convince us that this was possible the other guy actually said “this hand will have been played before” NO I said it wont have but if it happened in a cash game someone would be leaving their limbless!

Of course that had been exactly the reaction they had been looking for and they quickly admitted that the project was actually to find how easy it would be to cheat at poker and get away with it. They went on to explain that we had given exactly the reaction they had been looking for and that surprisingly no one had yet sussed it, a fact I still doubt can be true. I know very few players who would not have spotted that one coming.

This hand will have been played before indeed! In fact come to think of it I think I remember a similar hand played between the easter bunny, santa claus and SuperMan and if memory serves Santa won it! The cheating fuck!