Woke up very early on Saturday morning; I hadn’t planned to as I knew it was going to be a very long day indeed. Unfortunately though I had been disturbed by a late night/early morning call from work and my subconscious mind having experienced this many times before decided of its own volition that the one call would invariably lead to many more and we would be best served by not entering any other level of sleep than the light version, this resulted in me only managing a few unsatisfying hours of nappage*.

At about 4.30am after more failed attempts to drift off than I care to remember; I finally admitted defeat and got out of bed. Now faced with the prospect of a three-hour train journey, followed by a seven-hour poker coaching session and then a poker tournament that could last as long as eight hours, I of course did what any right thinking poker player would do, I jumped online and started playing poker, we poker players are sick, sick people.

This reminds me of a story from a few years back, I was covering the London EPT for poker news, it was Day Four and we had just burst the bubble following three consecutive 14-hour plus sessions over the preceding days. It was now fast approaching 3am and everyone looked exhausted, but looking the most ragged of all was a player I have long been an admirer of: Surinder Sunar.

It seemed to me that Surinder had been nursing a short stack since almost the first hour of Day One, actually now I think about it Surinder always seem to have a short stack! This is one of the great things about his game, he really sticks in there when things aren’t coming easy and I find this an admirable trait because it’s bloody hard sometimes to not just throw the chips in and take a spin when you’re not picking up hands. Surinder though never seems to give his chips away, and when I looked over at him it was plain to see that this level of concentration really was taking its toll and that the last 50 hours of grind had taken a lot out of him, he looked really beaten up, exhausted in fact.

Surinder continued to dig and another hours or so passed, but eventually though his luck finally ran out and he was eliminated whilst attempting one short stack shove too many and he was picked off by a real hand. As he slowly rose from the table he looked dead on his feet, to me he appeared to be completely mentally and physically drained as he trudged from the tournament area. I knew exactly how he felt and I’d only been watching him battle away! A few hands later another player was eliminated and to the joy of the assembled media the TD called play for the day.

As I wearily made my way from the poker room floor of the Vic I heard the speaker system croak into life: “Surinder to the card room, Surinder to the card room, please.” I couldn’t believe it when Surinder excused himself as he brushed past me with a stack of cash game chips in his hand and hunger in his eyes as he searched for the freshly opened up seat. As I said before, these poker players, they’re all a little bit sick you know.

I get a bit wrapped up in my online game and I almost leave it too late to squeeze in breakfast before I leave. Missing breakfast is a cardinal sin for us diabetics. I quickly wolf down my muesli (brekkie one) and leave the wife and daughter in bed as I head off in the direction of Taunton train station to catch the 7.30 to Paddington. I leave the iPod nestled in my jacket idle as I walk to the train station and this allows me some time alone with my thoughts.

Firstly I begin to tackle the guilt I‘ve been feeling since deciding to treat myself to this day some time ago. I had been immensely fortunate to win my ticket through the Orange Belt freeroll, I had though in fact decided that I would be using my Black Belt Poker Belt points to buy in even if I didn’t get lucky so one way or another I was going to use the Belt scheme to get my Academy ticket without actually spending real world money. But even using BBP’s unique rewards system there were always still going to be costs to bare: £70 for a train ticket and other general expenses meant the day will see me depleting my families ‘real world’ money by at least £100.

I hate spending this money because I have always firmly believed that poker shouldn’t cost me anything. If I’m good enough my hobby should be free and if I’m not good enough I should get good enough or give it up. Adding to my sense of unease was a discernable chill emitting from the good lady wife the night before, I sensed she was a bit peeved that this was not only going to cost here in pounds, shillings and pence but also deprive her of a husband on Valentine’s Day morning and the traditional breakfast in bed I always make her.

After some rumination I eventually manage to reconcile my conscience by the fact this day presents five clear opportunities to not only recoup, but possibly even greatly improve upon the day’s outlay.

1. A day’s professional tutelage - this is very hard to quantify the possible or likely return on this, it could be nothing or it could eventually prove more valuable than I could ever imagine.

2. The evening’s competition - much easier to quantify, I could go deep and get my initial outlay back immediately.

3. The last longer - if I managed to outlast all but two other BBP’ers I would get my hand’s on a BBP live ticket, value about 140 quid. 

4. I could make contacts with any of the professional and serious amateur players in attendance and this in turn might form the cornerstone of friendships that help propel my game forward to a much higher standard and thus greatly improve long term profits. 

5. I could rob Neil Channing when his back is turned - this means I will need a confederate to help me carry his wallet from the Vic, but still even with a 50/50 chop the contents of Neil’s wallet could well be enough to retire on.

Taking all this into consideration, eventually even the seemingly eternally hungry little bugger that is the guilt monster that lives in the back of my mind finds he is sated and I’m now free to explore other avenues of interest concerning the day ahead. Primary amongst these thoughts is, ‘Can you actually learn much in a day?’ and secondary is, ‘I play a specialist form of poker, namely Heads-up SNGs - will anything discussed be relevant to me?’ my mind whirls away and raises some good arguments for and against, but the truth is, I won’t really know until after the day has passed.

I collect my tickets and expect a 20 minute wait for my train, so it’s with some degree of surprise I find myself boarding a train to London almost immediately, it’s an earlier train than I had planned to catch but I’ve never been one to look an equine in the chops so I jump onboard. I occupy myself during the three-hour journey listening to Barry Greenstein’s audio recording of his best selling book ‘Ace on the River’ which I have downloaded on my iPod, sick, sick people.

* I know “nappage” isn’t a real word, I just think it should be.

Read Part Two...