I tell you what, its the last time I advertise a soft comp on blonde. Turning up in humble Luton, Stanley's casino Luton, just after Xmas for a £150 freezeout were, amongst others...
Michigan Jeff
Lovejoy
Jim Reid
Dave Lloyd
Chili
M3Boy
Rookie itb
in the belly (railbirding, he knows he's rubbish)
and, star of the small screen, one Mr A Kendall
fate of course decreed that tikay and I would be drawn on the same table, me two to his right, and next to Jim Reid. Also on the table were two local ladies, Sam and Sophie.
To say Sophie, who we think will sign up to blonde shortly, is a character understates it. Talkative, opinionated, loud, talkative and loud she proceeded to attempt to bully us into meek submission until she ran KK into tikay's AA. After which point she continued to try and bully. Fortunately tikay's comment to her, on several occasions, "are you Trace?" rather whooshed her but amused my small mind anyway. We discovered Sophie was a hairdresser from St Albans. We discovered quite a lot more besides without asking, but I'll leave that for now!
Early doors Sam and Sophie decided that with a few veiled references from assorted players about "him off the telly" that they should know who he was. They racked their brains for a couple of levels and then the questions started?
"are you a jockey?"
"are you Peter Scudamore's dad?"
"frankie dettori?"
but gradually helped by constant comments such as "nice bet Gordon", "nice pass Gordon" and, frequently "it's up to you Gordon" I managed to convince them that they were playing with former ITN and Channel 5 newsreader Gordon Honeycomb.
Soon we got "so are you really a newsreader? you look familiar" and "Gordon, what are you doing now you've given up newsreading?"
It came to the break and the two ladies scurried around the cardroom asking all and sundry who Gordon was. Someone must have spilled the beans because when we came back they knew of blonde and Poker 425. They also commented
"You don't do Poker Night Live then? I hope not, the old guy on that is rubbish!"
When I left, having never really got going after correctly laying down a couple of big hands, tikay was amongst the chip leaders. I thought to myself he was well placed to at least make the final, which I suppose would be the first time I was aware of a newsreader making a final table in Luton, but I could be wrong...
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