And The Winner Is...

“Win a luxury holiday to the Bahamas for you and your friends!”

You know those competitions for amazing all expenses paid five star holiday? You probably never hear of anyone winning one, you might even wonder if anyone actually does win them, I used to wonder that, until I won one, but I am the worst winner.

Prostate Cancer UK ran a fundraising campaign called ‘Lad's Night In’. Similar in vein to things like 'Movember' or the 'Ice Bucket Challenge', the idea was to get people to do something fun, in this case play poker, raising money and awareness to help fight prostate cancer. My dad is living with prostate cancer and I play poker, so I got involved. 

Pokerstars were sponsoring the campaign, bringing two things to the table:

- a home game poker pack, including cards and dealer button

- a holiday in the Bahamas for 5, including flights, accommodation, spending money and entry to a side event at the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) to be won in a raffle by those donating their poker cash to Prostate Cancer UK.

I signed up, got my poker pack and organised a home game. There's a group of us that have been having a semi-regular home game going back years now but it had been a while since the last one, so we were due another. I invited just four other players, on the off chance we won the holiday, I didn't want arguments over who got to go to the Bahamas. There are three of us who play poker regularly, John, Brentos and myself, the other two A-bomb and the G-man just come for the social side of it. As you might have guessed, some of these names may not be their given names, except John, John has given me little to work with.

The home game was much like any other we've had in the past but I started it off with a little prostate awareness chat, which I was informed was a bit of a downer but you know, catch it early and all that, prostate cancer can actually be more manageable than other forms of cancer so it’s solid GTO advice. As ever, the three regular poker players wrangled the money from the fish, it’s a skill game people! Although John was the big winner on the night, so maybe not. As I'd organised the night, signed up for the poker pack and hosted it, it was left to me to donate the cash from the game to Prostate Cancer UK.

 Every donation of £100 got a raffle ticket.  

Four weeks later, I got an email from Chris at Prostate Cancer UK, thanking me for taking part in the ‘Lads Night In’ and for donating our poker money to the cause. The email also asked if I could give a phone number and time of day I would be available to talk as they were looking to contact people who had taken part and do a little survey about what worked well and what could be improved on in the future. I intended to get back to them but you know it wasn't high on my list of priorities, so while I had the best intentions the reality was I was probably going to forget to do it. 

Four days later, I got another email from Prostate Cancer UK, stressing how keen they were to contact me. Wanting to assist but not really wanting bothered with a survey at work, I replied with my number and said I would be free outside the usual 9-5 working hours and moved on with my day. That night, Chris from Prostate Cancer UK called, initially maintaining the pretence it was a survey, before finally revealing the big news, we had won the raffle, we had won a trip for five to the Bahamas, including flights, accommodation, a private satellite for entry into one of the PCA tournaments and $5000 for food and drink while we were there. Wow. 

What exactly runs through your head when you get the news that they've won that once in a lifetime holiday for you and your friends? Well, while Chris was babbling away and I maintained a polite and upbeat veneer, the one thought looping around in my head was, "oh no…”

From the moment I heard we had won, I really hoped that I could go on this amazing holiday but I knew that I probably shouldn't go. I think somewhere inside of me, I was holding out for a second magical stroke of luck to support the first one. You see the problem was, the PCA clashed with another big date in my calendar, the birth of my first child. 

My wife is burdened with the onerous responsibility of always being right. She had forewarned me about entering the raffle at all, knowing that the big prize clashed with the arrival of our new child. With a roll of her eyes, she took it in good humour though, her disbelief seemingly quashed by the attitude that this was typical of my behaviour, which it isn’t, I rarely win extravagant luxury holidays to far flung destinations.    

“Well… what are you going to do?” she asked. I didn’t have an answer. I needed to find one and the countdown was on.

9 weeks until the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / 5 weeks until Baby Mack due date

I informed the guys of the big news and quite understandably they were in utter disbelief. No-one believed me. After a few days of sticking to their guns, the guys tentatively accepted I wasn’t playing some cruel joke on them, figuring the punchline to any prank was now long overdue, they boarded the hype train. I discussed my personal dilemma with the guys, they seemed to the whole thing pretty funny, sympathetically.

I discussed my dilemma at work, the reactions were similar, however, there was a clear split between the ‘stay’ and ‘go’ camps of thought. The “you have to go, you can’t miss out” camp was predominately comprised of people without children, while the “you cannot leave your poor wife” camp was mostly parents, strongly spearheaded by the mothers of the office.

8 weeks to the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / 4 weeks until Baby Mack due date

The team at Prostate Cancer UK asked us for a celebratory group photo of the winners, with bit of a Caribbean flavour to it. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of winter, and we live in Glasgow, which does not lend itself to creating a tropical theme. We tried our best, setting up a quick game of poker outside on a glorious Glasgow afternoon. As we discussed things over a few drinks, John and Brentos’s enthusiasm was palpable but as the shadow of uncertainty loomed over me, I realised I wasn’t the only one holding back. The G-man was making noises about difficulty getting time off work but then A-bomb dropped a bombshell, he did not have a passport. Perhaps more worryingly, didn’t seem to share our sense of urgency that he needed to sort one out ASAP.  

Midday sun in Glasgow 

I could really have done with more urgency from Baby Mack too. There was a guy at my work, who recently had a baby that was a few weeks premature, that would have been pretty ideal I thought, that could solve my tricky situation. If Baby Mack was a couple of months old and I was due back at work already, surely it would be more acceptable for me to disappear for a week or so? Hmm…

7 weeks to the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / 3 weeks until Baby Mack due date

Pokerstars got in touch, they were going to book all the flights and accommodation, and required the details of everyone going and scans of their passports. I took the opportunity to see what sort of options we had for tailoring the holiday to better suit my circumstances. If I didn’t go, could I send someone in my place? No, the other four could be swapped about until their details were submitted but I was the named competition winner and it wasn’t transferrable (probably to stop people selling it or something, I imagine). Could we postpone the trip or change the dates? No, it was all set up to match in with the Pokerstars hosted PCA event so the dates weren’t changeable and both Pokerstars and Prostate Cancer UK were hoping to raise awareness with this promotion, so there was a little flexibility with the flights but that was all, either I went as scheduled or my place would be lost.

John and Brentos had sent through their passport scans within 24 hours of asking, I saw that as the normal reaction to the request. I urged A-bomb to renew his as soon as possible, the G-man never really acknowledged it. I continued to deliberate the pros and cons. I was fairly sure it would all work out and was probably all fine but we had a small window to get organised and the stakes were high.

6 weeks to Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / 2 weeks until Baby Mack due date

Another week went by and while John and Brentos were probably already wearing their sun tan lotion in preparation, there was still no word from A-bomb or the G-man. I chased them both up for the passport info and heard nothing back. Just nothing, no reply, no acknowledgement, nothing. Even if I didn't make it, I felt responsible for making sure everyone else did but bloody hell it wasn't easy.

With the uncertainty created by this lack of communication, John, Brentos and myself realised we might need to look at getting a back-up guest, just in case. Despite evidence to the contrary, finding people who want to go on a free luxury holiday to the Bahamas is not difficult. The difficult part is deciding who to ask. Even though I had made it quite clear there was a reasonable chance I might not be able to make it and wasn’t sure when I would know, John and Brentos put me in head decision making role. As this whole crazy thing was my doing, I think they were quite happy just to be on this magical ride, so whatever I wanted they were cool with. As I might not make it to the Bahamas, I wanted to get as much from it as I could and that meant making it the best holiday for my friends (and fingers crossed me too).

Me, John and Brentos are poker degenerates but the G-man and A-bomb are not, they wouldn’t be doing any poker related activities at the PCA but that worked well because they could keep each other company while the rest of us hit the felt. So if I was going to have to replace either of them, I felt it had to be with someone who could hang out with either A-bomb or the G-man while any pokering was happening. Another friend, another John, was shortlisted for the position, although we didn’t tell him this in case the offer never materialised. He had played the odd home game but generally would be a chill by the pool kinda guy and had been friends with A-bomb and the G-man since they were they were kids. John2 also runs his own business which I hoped meant he would be flexible if it came to needing some last minute time off, perfect.

5 weeks to Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / 1 week until Baby Mack due date

The G-man revealed he wouldn’t be able to make it; he was going to be too busy at work. I wasn’t really convinced that was the reason but clearly he didn’t want to go and we didn’t have the time to faff around convincing him otherwise. I called John2 to see if he would like to go to the Bahamas. Like any normal person, he began with general sense of disbelief before snapping my arm off for the offer. John2 seemed incredibly grateful that he had received such an opportunity, what a guy.

As I struggled with my own opportunity, I figured if the baby came soon, with two weeks paternity leave, two weeks annual leave saved up, plus the extra days over the Christmas holidays period, I could feasibly tack this trip onto the end of a month of paternity time and go to the Bahamas instead of going back to work. That’s good, right? I’d be at work all day by that point so that works for everyone, right? Right?

4 weeks to Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / Baby Mack now due

After a lengthy silence on the matter, briefly broken to complain about being harassed for answers, A-bomb pulled out. I was so frustrated with the seemingly difficult task of convincing my friends to go on a free holiday to the Bahamas, a holiday that I desperately wanted to go on but wasn’t sure if I really should go on that I didn’t push A-bomb any further for a reason. That said, it was absolutely maddening that neither A-bomb or the G-man would just talk to me about any of this, whatever this was, just to let me know they weren’t going to go. Instead I was ignored and even made out to be some kind of bad guy for hassling them to go to the Bahamas, I’m such a bastard.

We are the worst winners.   

We needed someone else, I had not accounted for this eventuality, I had not accounted for potentially 3 of the 5 people initially offered this amazing holiday turning it down. Again, we had poker friends who were clamouring for the opportunity but now I didn’t want John2 to be left out while everyone else spent the trip at the tables, although I guess I can think of worse ways to spend 9 days in January. So we brought in another long-time friend, who didn’t play much poker to keep John2 company by the pool and the bar. We finally had four friends eager for some fun in the sun, and me. 

Mrs Mack offered no indication of what my decision should be, she always insisted that she wouldn’t stop me from going, she didn’t want to be the one to make me miss out on such an amazing holiday.

I do genuinely believe that what she said was true but I also believe she’s genuinely too good to me and most probably  wanted me to stay but didn't say anything, biting her tongue for my benefit.

3 weeks to Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / Baby Mack 1 week overdue

Flights and accommodation booked! All set for nine days in the Bahamas!

Mrs Mack grew increasingly.

Mrs Mack grew increasingly uncomfortable.

Mrs Mack grew increasingly uncomfortable about Baby Mack.

Mrs Mack concerns for the health of the baby grew, the longer Baby Mack was overdue, the longer the uncertainty, the more potential for complications. I felt it was probably best not to bother mentioning the PCA and the Bahamas for a bit.

2 weeks to Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure / Baby Mack 2 weeks overdue

I won’t go into the ins and outs (so to speak) but my wife had to be induced after she went two weeks overdue. A couple of days before Christmas day, 15 days before the outbound flight to the Bahamas, Baby Mack finally arrived in the world. While the prospect of not making the trip had long loomed over me, I had always believed there was a chance it might all work out, that life as a new parent might be manageable, my wife would have it all in hand and there would be no issue with me disappearing away for a week. That was a fantasy.

By my own calculations, Mrs Mack lost half of her blood giving birth; she required a blood transfusion and spent some time in the high dependency ward. The high dependency ward was lovely, well as lovely as a hospital can be under the circumstances. The nurses were nice, I was able to be there with my wife and daughter most of the time, we had a warm, quiet room to ourselves, clean and comfortable. Unfortunately (in some ways) it wasn’t long before Mrs Mack was deemed well enough to move to the normal maternity ward, and it was awful. I’m sure the maternity ward nurses aren’t mean people, I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, believing they’re just understaffed or something but they just didn’t seem to care for my wife. Maybe it would have been fine if it was our second or third child and you know what you’re doing but we didn’t. My wife was in a fragile state and yet she felt as though she was left to fend for herself caring for a brand new little person in the world with no real idea of what she was supposed to be doing. I was allowed relatively limited visits, so her isolation was only occasionally broken for tests, checks or when she had no option but to call for help. The room was in a drafty old building with paint flaking off the windows. As my wife struggled on, she was advised the first blood transfusion hadn’t been enough and that she needed a second transfusion. However, taking a second would mean staying in hospital over Christmas. She was not going to do that, not in that ward, not on her own, not over Christmas. So she left, we left, in hindsight sooner than she was ready. I had heard that leaving the hospital, baby in hand was this kind of surreal moment where you can’t believe the grown-ups of the world are letting you just walk out with this new person to care for but that’s not how it seemed to me, to me, we were just surviving.

On our first night home, Baby Mack almost choked to death. When I tell people this story, I don’t feel it is taken seriously, I get the impression people think we were just over-reacting, overly nervous, naive new parents. Maybe they’re right, it was all fine in the end after all but I will never forget the moment I thought my little girl was going to die in my arms when she stopped breathing, when her little body went rigid with her back arched right back, her eyes rolled back in her head, shaking like she was having a seizure.

“I don’t know how to stop this, I don’t know how to help. If I stop trying help to phone an ambulance, will she die? Will an ambulance get here before it’s too late? How long can a newborn go without breathing? Is she going to die? What damage is this going to cause? Is she going to have brain damage?” these thoughts raced through my mind. 
It probably lasted less than a minute but it felt like forever. She finally forced inches of solid white mucus out through her nose. The mucus retained the shape of her tiny insides. She began to breathe again, her body softened and her eyes returned to normal. She was ok.  

Poker, the Bahamas, none of that ever formed a thought in my mind for days to follow but my decision had certainly been made. Mrs Mack and me are both smart and caring people but we felt like we had no idea what we were doing, winging it entirely, managing hour to hour. Not only that but Mrs Mack needed help, she barely had the energy to climb the stairs and the threat of our new baby choking was still heavy on our minds. I might be the worst winner but I’m not the worst.

I sent a replacement to the Bahamas in my stead.

The real Mack is actually paler than paper...

The Whatsapp group that we had used to discuss the holiday arrangements prior continued to be the method of communication throughout the Caribbean adventure. My wife insisted I was torturing myself by following the antics of the boys in the Bahamas but I enjoyed living vicariously. Those first few weeks of parenthood were hard, really really hard and having rolling updates of their shenanigans helped me through the long days and nights of relentless parenting duties. This seemingly random adventure in an exotic locale, with unexpected nonsense around every corner, amused me as I endured the stress and sleep deprivation, little bits of silliness sprinkled in to an otherwise difficult period. 

I heard this guy is super nitty

The guys travelled for days, missed flight connections, talked to reporters, met poker pros, won hundreds of dollars, lost hundreds of dollars, lost a wedding ring, got drunk, partied, relaxed, had fun and took ‘me’ with them along for the ride. One night, at 3am, just two hours since I last went to bed, it was time to change and feed the baby again. After the feeding duties were complete, I checked my phone to see the photo below:

Mock Mack has tangled with bigger pros than I have

There’s Liv Boree, Eugene Katchalov and me (well kind of)! While my friends paraded Mock Mack around, Liv Boree approached them to ask what exactly was going on, they explained and she offered to pose for a photo and then grabbed Eugene and got him in on the act too. I tweeted Liv and Eugene to say thanks and they responded back. Say what you will about Twitter but that’s an amazing tool, I mean, here I am on the other side of the world and yet in some kind of way, there I am, interacting with these big name pros, that’s pretty cool.  

On hearing the whole story of why and how I couldn’t make the trip, Pokerstars sent me a gift card. It wasn’t quite the luxury holiday to the Bahamas but Pokerstars had already given me a holiday to the Bahamas and I didn’t even bother turning up, I thought that was really nice of them. Well played Pokerstars.

Despite not making it to the Bahamas, to the luxury Atlantis resort, with my friends, to enjoy the sun, the poker, the free drinks, the free food, despite the long arduous days and nights back home, I definitely made the right decision by staying at home. The first few weeks (and months) were tough as new parents and while I would have quite liked to have skipped all that, I couldn’t possibly have left my wife to suffer through it alone. But as soon as Baby Mack is old enough to understand, she is never going to hear the end of this! 

You can get more information about Prostate Cancer at their website http://prostatecanceruk.org/ and you can give money by checking out the ‘donate’ section. If you’re reading this, then I assume you play poker and regardless of bankroll, I assume you could probably donate one buy-in and not really miss it, what is one buy-in really? It doesn’t need to be Prostate Cancer, it can be anything, please just give something to a good cause, whatever it might be. One buy-in to whatever charity it is that floats your boat, you won’t miss it and it could really do some good out there, and better it goes to a good cause than potentially going to some lucky donk with a raggy ace.

Donate some time or cash and good things can happen.

Be a winner, like me ☺