I won 900K in my first poker game

I won 900K in my first poker game Shame it was only imaginary cash By Brian Mciver For Daily Record IT'S more famous for golf, but in the last two days St Andrews has played host to Britain's biggest poker tournament. The UK Student Poker Championships saw 260 players compete for £9000 in one of the country's fastest growing sports. We sent BRIAN McIVER to play a few hands. NEVER having played poker before, I always associated it with smoky back rooms in western saloons. These days, however, it is a very lucrative sport, where the best can make millions just by playing on the internet. I enlisted the help of Christian Harris, the organiser of the Student Championships this weekend, to show me what all the fuss was about. We started on Texas Hold 'Em, with every player getting £180,000 in chips and our first hand of two cards. After we all made our initial bet, the dealer started talking about seeing the 'flop' - the technical term for the first three communal cards he deals, or flops, on the table. You add the value or merits of the three flop cards to your hand. After another round of betting, the dealer puts down a fourth card (the turn), and then a fifth (the river), and you use the best five cards out of the flop and your hand. The best hands are royal flush (ace, king, queen, jack and 10 of the same suit), straight flush (five cards from the same suit in order) and four of a kind - for example four aces. Next is the full house (three of a kind plus a pair), flush (five cards of the same suit), straight (five cards in order but of different suits), three of a kind, two pair and then a pair. The first round gave me a queen and a four and although conventional wisdom would say fold, I started upping the bets. With the others convinced a first-timer wouldn't bluff, I took one of my rivals all the way to the end, when a queen was dealt to give me a winning pair, knocking him out. One opponent down and four to go, I was now £250,000 better off and starting to get a taste for this. In our last round, it was all or nothing. I was sitting on a pot of £400,000, with a queen and a four again. Time to go all in - and bet the lot. I prayed for a good card - the sort of luck that the cowboy gets in the movies - and couldn't stop smiling as I was dealt two fours giving me three of a kind, with a queen 'kicker', as well as £900,000. I retired undefeated and richer, if only in imaginary money. With confidence soaring, I asked for an entry form for the big competition. But my teachers were obviously running scared. They refused my entry to the Student Championships - on the flimsy grounds that I wasn't a student.