The Worst Winner

"Oh my god, what's wrong?" b ooms a beautiful bubbly blonde.  Confused by the grim scene she finds in front of her.  She turns to her friend but he doesn't know either, so she approaches the poker table. "What's wrong?" she asks.  Her question is met with silent stares. "I just saw your face as I came in, you look really angry." she says to me.  Bemused, I shrug, not sure what to say, I manage to raise a little smile in her direction.   "Oh my god,  why does everyone look so serious?" I look around me, and she's right. After a night of solid poker, we're one player away from making the final table an yet we look more like we belong in the dentists waiting room.  "You all look pretty sad" I laugh. No-one else joins in though.   "Why does no-one look happy?" Her effervescence is failing to spread.  The line of questioning isn't doing much to lighten the mood.  She watches on, tr...

A fter having such a good time the night before we tried to retrace our steps and find the casino from the night before, alas none of us knew our way around Manchester, we didn't know street names or could even remember where we'd been, so we struggled. Giovanni had given us a business card the night before so we could try out his restaurant but we had lost that, and couldn't remember the name of the place, so that was also a dead end. After a fair bit of wondering and asking for directions we arrived at the Grosvenor Casino. Only it wasn't 'our' Grosvenor Casino, but surely they knew where the other one was, so the same motley crew from the night before waited in line to talk to the girl at the front desk, and when it was our turn, we ended up having the following 'conversation': Us: (not in unison or anything but we were all trying to answer at varying times): "hi there, where is the other Grosvenor Casino?" Girl: "are you members?"...

I was on my cousin's stag do in Manchester at the weekend, obviously the man code rules say I shouldn't reveal anything from the weekend but i had a most enjoyable, scandal free time at the city's casinos, so I reckon it's ok. I didn't really know anyone, apart from my cousin obviously, but that didn't matter much after a few beers. On the first night, five of us found ourselves in a small Grosvenor casino, it was possibly the smallest casino i've been in, certainly not the swankiest, but it nice enough and as we found out over the course of the night, the staff were very friendly and not too strict on policing a bunch of rowdy drunken Scotsmen. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but I don't really 'do' casinos anymore. I play poker, and that's about it. I used to be attracted to the idea of casinos, and tried my hand at various games but since getting into poker, everything else just seems like, well, gambling. But I was happy ...

The Foreigner stalks the floor of the Fallsview Casino in Niagra Falls. N ot quite convinced by his identification, h e almost never made it past security, he was questioned at length before finally being allowed on to the gaming floor. He floats from one table game to next, observing only. He follows the action, reviews the betting, watches the players, follows the cards. Onto the next table, he follows the action, reviews the betting, watches the players, follows the cards. Onto the next table and the next. After some time, he settles behind the empty seat of a Caribbean Poker table, continuing to observe.  When the time is right, he sits down with just enough money for one bet. The  young foreigner wins his first hand, plays another, wins another, he continues this pattern until  he catches the attention of a suited man representing the casino.  The Suit asks The F oreigner  where he is from but it's nowhere he's heard of before.  The Suit asks Th...