The Staffroom

Jeff Duvall

Mon, 24 May 2010 17:57:32 +0100

I'm not a red-type pro, have never been sponsored (although considering an offer from Saga), haven't written a book, and when I started playing poker the only computer around was at IBM's HQ and weighed two tons! I haven’t even got a nickname...nothing repeatable anyhow.

Lawrence Robjent “The Paperboy”

Mon, 17 May 2010 17:55:09 +0100

At university I was almost a degenerate gambler, I spent more time in the bookies than attending lectures. Upon graduation my miserable degree in Politics wasn't that attractive to prospective employers in the recession of the late eighties. I spotted a vacancy in a local casino, the manager said I was overqualified but I was just pleased to be offered a job especially as night shifts allowed me to continue patronising the bookies in the afternoon.

Julian Gardner

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:43:35 +0000

Im Julian Gardner age 31. I discovered poker watching my father play when I was 14 and found it fascinating so continued to watch as often as I could. I started playing myself and it became an obsession. Over the next few years I was spending more and more time playing poker tournaments/cash games and less and less time studying. Therefore I failed my A Levels and didn't have a place in University. That summer I decided I would try to make a living as a full time poker player.

Dave Colclough

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 23:33:24 +0000

I remember playing cards with my Granddad and family in Stoke somewhere around the same time I wanted to be Kevin Keegan scoring against Newcastle in the 74 Cup Final ... and we were playing a penny a life even at that age (and no it wasn't old money). I'd loved slippery Ace, Crazy Eights and was schooled up to a 'Nap' standard of card playing before I’d left school.

Neil “Badbeat” Channing

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:04:14 +0000

I first met The Coach when I was eleven. Up until then I'd done very little gambling, but that doesn't mean he deserves all the blame for starting me off.

I was thirteen when I started playing Hold’em - I'd worked out the rules from reading Al Alvarez's excellent "The Biggest Game in Town". I introduced it to the home game that my sister's boyfriend held. The other guys were two years older than me but I always won by focusing on the game rather than illicit drinking and smoking.

Julian “Yoyo” Thew

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:26:09 +0000

We grew up playing board games & whilst I always had that competitive spirit within me I hated all sports until I reached my teens. In fairness that should really read ‘I hated all team sports’ & when I realised that there were singular competitive pursuits outside of the school gates I got on just fine.
Age catches up with us all though & as those sporting urges began to fade I needed a new outlet. It started with a Saturday night home game about ten years ago, a book read, a visit to a card room & within the year I was hooked.

Andy Ward

Sun, 8 Nov 2009 00:16:49 +0000

I'm Andy Ward. I've been playing poker for 11 years, three of those as a full-time professional. My two major poker career decisions were motivated by the need to avoid going on a killing spree - and it's worked out quite well! First, when live tournament players became too infuriating I switched to online; then, when working as a software developer also began to grate, in summer 2006 I quit to try my luck playing poker. I ran good, shipping a tournament in Tunica for $80K in January 2007, and a 2nd place at the WSOP later that year for $120K. In the last two years I've been focusing on online MTTs, making good money and generally lurking around the lower end of the top ten in the P5s UK rankings. Recently I've branched out into the smaller TV 6-max tournaments, gaining a (justified) reputation as a robotic shove monkey. I'll be playing as a "guest player" for Withnail's Poker School in the GUKPT Luton, in a way returning to my roots as I started off playing £10 rebuy tournaments in the old Grosvenor Luton casino. It seems a very long time ago!

Vicky Coren

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 00:23:46 +0100

Bill “Miros” Purle

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 00:22:52 +0100

They say the devil makes work for idle hands, which pretty much sums up how I fell into playing poker for a living. Watching Late Night Poker at university seemed harmless enough at the time, but, just as a bit of innocent glue-sniffing inexorably leads to injecting heroin into your eyeballs, so the husky tones of Lucy Rokach and the demented squealing of Jesse May led me down the slippery slope to a life of shameless degeneracy. Before I knew it I was whiling away my final days of higher education with all-nighters in the computer room, honing my limit hold'em skills against drunk Americans and wondering what the hell I was going to do for a job.

Paul Spillane

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:20:32 +0100

Back in the late 70s I discovered as a teenager (amongst other things!) that poker was a game of skill. It's the only way I could explain why I did my bollocks in every week in our home game. I found out a book was the reason one of mates was a constant winner which led me down a path from which my life was never to recover. Like The Coach, I graduated from the tough poker school at Reading where both he and the legend Bob Coombes were the major influences on my poker education; they were so effective that I turned professional soon after with their final words of advice ringing in my ears "Paul, don't bloody do it you fool"

The Novice

Sat, 1 Aug 2009 00:14:57 +0100

My name is Clive and I am officially “The Novice". An apt title! I’ve been playing poker for roughly five years, initially a couple of times a month with a regular crowd and in the last year or so, on-line. Withnail used to play regularly in our modest "school" and it soon became obvious that at the end of the evening the money was all too often heading his way. That convinced me that however random the cards may be, there is no doubt that skill overrides luck!! Under the watchful eye of The Coach, Withnail and our regular guests my aim is to see how much I can improve over the next year and at the same time find out what it is like to enter some live tournaments and rub shoulders with a few veterans of the tour. I hope at the end of it I might take a couple of bob back off Withnail! One thing’s for sure, I definitely qualify as "The Novice".

The Coach

Sat, 1 Aug 2009 00:08:47 +0100

Withnail

Sat, 1 Aug 2009 00:06:08 +0100

I've been playing poker since I was eleven years old - mostly losing my pocket money to the bloke who gave it to me. He never gave it back either. When I was 21, I went to Las Vegas and finished 4th in my first ever tournament at Treasure Island. I was hooked for life. I've played in the World Series Main Event every year since 2002, finishing twice in the money. I've struggled to keep my action addiction under wraps for the past few years due to work and family and things but for one year only ....