Victoria Coren in the Guardian Poker Column

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Latest

29/09/2006

No. 66

he Guardian Poker Column

Victoria Coren

Friday Sep 29th, 2006

How to play poker
(How to play has been running from issue 16)

My editor thinks that I should spend this week's column explaining how I managed, last Sunday, to win the European Poker Championship and £500,000. I can see his point. It would be a natural thing to do in a column which is broadly intended to explain, after all, how to win at poker. Or, at least, how not to lose at poker. Or how not to lose very much.

The problem (apart from the obvious difficulty of tackling the theme "Ooh, get me and my big win") is that I don't really remember. The four-day tournament is a blur, punctuated by flashes of memory, as they say happens when you drown. Maybe I'm drowning in money?

I remember feeling unhappy when the tournament began, because I was having a bad day for other reasons, and folding rather dizzily under the aggression of seven young Scandinavian opponents on my first table, until - already reduced, much too early in a competition of this slow speed, to half my chip stack - I got up to talk to a friend and then sat down feeling better.

I remember being moved to a table of more experienced and well-known professionals, all of whom played better than the youthful all-in merchants, and yet were somehow easier for me to play against because their bets actually meant something.

I remember Phil Ivey being knocked out after one hand on my fifth table, and how I felt simultaneously disappointed not to play a few pots with him (because he is the greatest tournament player in the world) and relieved at his exit (because he is the greatest tournament player in the world).

I remember making a very well-judged call to double up my chips at one key stage, and a very unfortunate raise (as it turned out) with 88 against AA and hitting an 8 on the flop for miraculous survival. And I remember three significant hands from the final table.

The rest is just a fuzzy memory of a large field getting magically smaller and smaller. So I can't really explain it at all, except via two big, general factors in tournament poker.

Being "in the zone" is being focused, making the right decisions, and knowing the reason for every bet that you make. Being "on form" is hitting lucky cards at the right time. Either of these can get you a long way in a tournament; when both happen together, you're unbeatable.

Ivey is probably "in the zone" all the time, and "on form" enough to win a lot of major tournaments. For me, it could be 10 years before the two come together again. That's why, after the madness of the past five days, I think I will spend the next week just staring in disbelief at the trophy.