Stripped Deck

You can lead a horse to water, you can fleece a donkey on the river, but one thing you can’t do is knock an attractive Asian girl off a pot when her bra is at stake.

This may seem like a curious but unimportant fact in your average game of poker but when you’re competing in the largest game of strip poker ever – as chronicled by the Guinness Book of World Records no less – it’s a worthy maxim that could save you from getting your plums out for the world’s press.

What started off as an April Fool’s Day wind-up about a world record attempt to stage the biggest game of strip poker – as punted around by a PR man at Paddy Power – somehow snowballed into reality after one too many journalists wrote back asking for more details.

Which is why some four months later I’m sat opposite Liverpool’s bare-chested answer to Kris Kristofferson and a stunning oriental girl, who’s hitting river cards like they’re lippy teenagers, while an ageing ‘actress’ asks me if I’m going to whirl a towel above my head while my old chap does similar windmills. As Saturdays go it’s slightly more surreal than watching Football Focus.

And they’re off…

Come the big day and all 195 players have been kitted out in Paddy Power pants, shorts, t-shirt, cap and either sweatband or bra, but with a blind structure as vicious as a Yorkshire Terrier the clothes, which double as rebuy tokens, are stripped faster than a wannabe glamour girl in John Leslie’s bedroom. If I didn’t need further evidence that I had to be prepared to lose it all, my neighbour – the actress – readily strips down to the silicon and gives a full extrovert spin to the cameras revealing hole cards and all.

Meanwhile, the pretty Asian girl is calling every hand down to the river. Sitting in just my briefs I think I’m ahead with top pair on the flop. So I get all my chips in the middle and she calls. I’m ahead but inevitably she spikes an Ace on the turn and, with a little cheer from the table, my pants are off as I resign myself to a final doomed reload.

Would you be willing to do the same? It’s a vital question to ask yourself if you want to play cards. What are you willing to risk? And I’m not just talking money, I’m talking dignity. I’ve always believed shame is an overrated concept but when it comes to getting your old chap out in front of 200 strangers do you really want to push with just top pair? I did, and dribbled out (figuratively not literally) in 60th, naked and proud.

Admittedly, getting four of the more attractive (female) competitors to commiserate me while I shielded myself with a solitary copy of PokerPlayer helped to soothe the pain (as did the free bar).

The lesson to be learned, though, is never to sit down at a table if you’re not willing to play the stakes. The eventual winner, Jon Young from Slough, ended up naked having used all his rebuys but walked away with a cut of the £10,000 prize pool and entry into next Easter’s Irish Open. He also got his bearded face known around the world as the World Strip Poker Champion.

The event made the news on US TV breakfast show Good Morning America and got plenty of column inches in newspapers from Germany to Jamaica to China. Had Young not put his tackle on the block he would have missed out on his chance for both the glory and money. Now, there’s an analogy you could live your life by.

How to play strip poker

Presuming that you’ll be playing strip poker with no more than 10 people, set up the game as a fast-paced sit-and-go. Ultimately it comes down to whether you want to play poker with stripping as a penalty or you’re using poker as a way to get naked. Each player starts with 1500 chips and roughly the same amount of clothes. When you’re out of chips you have to remove an item of clothing, which buys you back in for another 1500 chips. Start the blinds at 25/50 and either increase them every 15 minutes or when someone re-buys.