Games: Poker

It's never been busier or more frenetic at the World Series of Poker than it is this year. Binion's Horseshoe, that glittery, garish saloon downtown, with its come as y'are, cowboy, and bet-ya boots style, is jumping.

A record field is contesting the no-limit Hold 'em World Championship this week. The action, literally, never stops. Even at 6am, 10 or 12 games are still sleep-walking through the graveyard shift.

I was glad that Donnacha 0'Dea, the Irish player and one of the most popular all-round poker players in London, raised the European flag so high early on. He won the pot-limit Omaha championship, with a first prize of $154,800. He is one of the best players on the circuit but does not usually bother with tournaments. Anyway, Donnacha defeated 182 competitors, including the great Johnny Chan in a two-and-a-half-hour heads-up final. Chan tops the roster of all-time world series money winners, with tournament earnings of $2.3m.

The crucial hand saw Donnacha with K-J-5-3 flop a wheel (A-2-3-4-5) while Chan ( known as the Orient Express) flopped a set of 4s.The straight held up and in the next hand Donn finished him off by catching four 8s. British player Steve Rydell, a former jeweller from Stoke-on-Trent, finished a creditable fifth, winning $17,415.

Some people believe that the Europeans play Omaha better than the Americans, who are superior at Hold 'em. Maybe so, maybe not. The real distinction is probably between pot-limit poker, where the British are far more experienced, and limit play, which is the style the Americans are used to.

Anyway, the old country is not doing too badly at Hold 'em either. The last three in a field of 172 in the pot-limit event were all our boys.

Steve Rydell on this, his first visit to the World Series, led all the way at the final table to take first place, with a prize of $104,600. Dave "Devil Fish" Ulliott from Hull was second. "I started the final table in lowest chip position and played my socks off," he declared. Surindar Sunar of Wolverhampton - probably the most consistent tournament player in England - came third.

You want to know how I'm doing myself, don't you? Well, I have managed to win enough in the cash games to pay for my satellite entries. In the super-satellite I played, which cost only $220 to enter, I lasted all of 15 minutes. The finalists all won their $10,000 entry fee into the World Championship.

But you won't get any hard luck stories from me. The week is still young!