So the multi-talented surprise new player, let’s call him ‘Jack’, didn’t show. It’s happened before, promises from potential joiners who fall at the last hurdle, either because something good comes on the TV, because signing up to the Pokerstars software is like swimming through quicksand or because they get caught out by the final gotcha when they try and put too little money in their account. Jack: the crypto-warrior, future golfing legend, plasterer (really good plasterer), keto-expert… who once told me he’s pretty good at poker so I reckon he’s got to be good, we’ll see if he shows up next week.
Of those that did show up we had Everton dialling in from Val d’Isére, Saurabh, Pete, Alan & Cameron with a few of the regular players missing. Nat was wandering around Covent Garden on a geofencing adventure, David was up-north visiting family and unlike Ev who seems to be able to ‘dial in’ from anywhere at all no matter who he is with or what he is doing, David couldn’t manage it this time because the fog on the Tyne was too thick and interfered with his internet connection.
In other news, Pete has put his Porsche into hibernation for the winter because it’s too cold and the roads are too slippy to drive it and risk getting it scratched or even worse bent out of shape by one of the Epsom massive. So he’s wrapped it up in a nice cosy tartan blanket and left it on trickle charge. We’re all praying that it will still work when he takes it out again next year. It should do because he says he knows what he’s doing.
We all said, it. It’s Saurabh’s game this week. Even Pete said it, Pete, who himself was chip lead for most of the first half before scoring an own goal and donating the majority of his chips to Cam and then later on a good few to Alan. Pete called it first – it’s Saurabh’s game this week. Pete then uttered his famous words ‘See you later lads. That’s it, I’m definitely going out now.’ Obviously that’s not when he actually went out, everyone folded and he stayed in the game a good while after that, getting a fresh injection of a few chips… but he’d never get close to Saurabh again. Could any of us?
Gabriel joined too, just to say Hi. Unfortunately too late to join the action but hopefully he will join next week. He promised he would anyway but none of us could see his fingers. At least he got to witness Saurabh’s canny play and take some notes, until the really aggressive bits were too much for him and he had to leave. To be fair he couldn’t observe the table anyway because his version of Pokerstars wouldn’t let him, he just got to watch Saurabh’s changing expressions. Mesmerising.
Everyone said it and everyone felt it too. The momentum was with Saurabh this week. He was chip lead for a good chunk of the game and playing really well (even better than he did last week). Everyone thought Saurabh was going to win.
But then, he didn’t.