#252 – London Journal #18 – Last Night in London, Part B – I Never Close

While Patrik Antonius – who, by the way, wears a giant Breitling studded with diamonds – and Roland de Wolfe played Chinese Poker in the suite, the rest of us moved out on the balcony to smoke cigars. When we came in, they were still at it and someone also put on the TV, which was showing a documentary about baseball.

Watching a baseball documentary and Chinese Poker in the middle of the night was dreadful business. I love baseball but hate hearing Ken Burns wax ignorant about its charms. And is there anything worse than watching Chinese Poker? And I still have to pack, and I have to catch a ride to the airport in 6 hours.

But business it was. I never want to miss an opportunity to do more, see more, learn more. You never know when something is going to happen in poker, so my motto is this: Open for business 24 hours a day.

And damned if something didn’t happen. At 3:30 AM, Patrik and Roland decided to raise the stakes to $2,000 a point, which is, in industry talk, pretty fuckin’ high. On the first deal, de Wolfe swept or scooped – I don’t pretend to know the lingo of Chinese Poker – and had a royalty, taking 24 points, which was worth $48,000.

Patrik just forced a small grin and said, “It’s just not my day.”

Uncle Tilty announced he was going to bed, so we all took the hint that it was time to leave. Antonius and de Wolfe swiped Uncle Tilty’s cards (at least I think they were his cards – it makes a better story if they stole them, so I’ll leave it this way until I get served with the legal papers) and followed me to the elevator, where they planned to continue the game in Patrik’s room.

In the tiny elevator, Roland suddenly remembered something. “My car is parked at the Vic and I have to pick it up by 6 AM. We can play for one hour.”

They were still discussing it as the doors closed behind them and I descended to the lobby. Passing the rear entrance where Andy Bloch said he saw two men having sex, I wandered the streets of Soho in the rain. Remarkably, it was the first rain of my 17 days in London.

I found a cab and, returning to my hotel, I wondered how it’s going to end up between Roland de Wolfe and Patrik Antonius. Maybe they would play Chinese Poker for one more hour, and Roland would hustle to get his car out of the Victoria Casino’s car park. Or maybe, one way or another, Antonius would buy de Wolfe another car to keep the action going a little longer.