“If, after the first twenty minutes, you don’t know who the sucker at the table is, it’s you.”
We would like to begin this report by saying that Paul McFadyen only won the inaugural industry poker night because BarLifeUK threw the game, not wanting to win our own tournament in the same way Robert Mugabe wins his own lottery.
That settled, we can tell you that Quo Vadis is an excellent venue for poker, and that Zdenek Kastanek makes a mean Monkey Shoulder Manhattan.
As we settled around the Monkey Shoulder poker table waiting for the last player, Tony Friel, to arrive, we learned with some alarm that he was a hot-shit online poker player.
This prompted the usual ‘yeah, but it’s not the same as looking into someone’s eyes, innit?’ sort of comment you would expect but secretly not believe.
However it must be true, because Tony bust out and bought back in 3 times during the first hour – the third buy-in being his last as the re-buy period had ended.
This was followed by some enthusiastic betting by Joe Petch, some conservative play from Francesco Turrini, some smart Alec remarks from Dub Dub, inspired bluffing by BarLifeUK, lots of missed table time by Zdenek (he was making the cocktails), non-stop peanut-eating by Dean Callan, and lastly, some outrageous luck and very little skill from Paul McFadyen.
Gradually players fell by the wayside, and left Paul, Dub Dub and BarLifeUK to duke it out – the latter soon getting over excited being called on a stupid bluff that ended our night.
Dub Dub and Macca went heads-up, with Macca holding his nerve and coming home in first place. He then went on to very sportingly spend a chunk of his winnings on drinks for the rest of us, forcing BarLifeUK to now retract the things we said earlier about him being spawny.
Huge thanks must go to Zdenek and Quo Zadis for hosting the night and making some cracking cocktails, and to Monkey Shoulder for supporting the event.
If you would like to play in the next BarLifeUK Industry Poker Night, please email poker@barlifeuk.com