A year spinning balls and dealing blackjack to assorted cretins began to grate. Luckily the casino had a card room and I was trained  to deal poker. This was much more interesting than the pit. The characters, the banter and the intricacies of poker compared to mindless roulette.
 
In the next seven or eight years I primarily worked in card rooms either running tournaments or dealing cash games. And on my nights off I sought out private games with other dealers, dice boys and security staff in compliant pubs, snooker clubs and dingy flats. These games were very soft and professionals were deliberately excluded. By 1997 I was employed at the Vic's card room dealing to the legends and stalwarts of the game. However gaming staff were still barred from playing in other casinos in the UK, so a few of us travelled the Eurostar to play in the Aviation in Paris. The players there were decades behind the faces in London and I suppose it was after a profitable trip that I began to consider the life of a pro, most of my colleagues said I would be skint within the year. That was 1998 and I’m still struggling on!


I can't say it’s been that lucrative, the bad runs, the bad beats punctuated by the odd high. But it’s certainly been fun, I’ve met some great individuals and travelled to far flung places in search of value. In eleven years poker has certainly changed, originally an underground scene of which the general public was largely unaware. Now it’s on TV every other night. And the Internet has transformed the tournament scene too but remarkably a lot of the old school are still about. I've played all Withnail's guests and The Coach somewhere, possibly the dungeon, Luton, the Rainbow, Amsterdam, Vegas and spielers and private games all over north London. Fortunately there were some fish as well in those games. And so to Macau courtesy of Withnail poker. Certainly the furthest I've travelled looking for a good game.

 

Lawrence Robjent (The Paperboy)