This week was the Comms Solutions Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, which was a two day IT Communications industry event where I had been asked to provide some "entertainment" in the form of poker lessons. I'm not entirely sure why they approached me to do this as opposed to any other poker player, but either way I was very happy to take on the role as it meant I could sit playing poker and chatting to people all day long; two of my favourite pastimes!

As the brief I'd been given was to "teach and entertain" the clients in short 15 minute lessons (sounds slightly dodgy, but I assure you it wasn't!) I decided the best way was to run two levels; beginners and intermediates. The beginners, as you can imagine, were complete novices without an inkling of how the game was played. The intermediates ranged from a couple of fairly seasoned online players to those who occasionally played family and friends at home for smarties and toothpicks. However there was not one person who actually played regular live tournaments, which was even more surprising as 95% of the people there were 20-40 year old males!

The intermediate lessons were the most popular however, and I found the best way to condense actual useful information whilst satisfying their desire to just get some playing time in was to let them play a few hands and then talk through what they should have done. As expected, everyone started off playing every single damn hand regardless of the filth they were holding despite the raises and re-raises that had occurred behind them (which most of the time were silly min-raises). They started to improve once I explained exactly why their call of a re-raise with 4-6 UTG+1 is not a good play and also when they started picturing that every chip they put into the pot was worth £10, but there were still a couple who insisted that "the best strategy is always play and pay to see a flop". Idiots! However, I'd like to think that the few tips and pointers that I could fit into 15 minutes hit home with a few people, and everyone left with a smile on their faces which I guess was the whole point of me being there!

In the evening was a big sit-down dinner with champagne and all the classy bits you'd expect from a smart industry event. I'd somehow agreed to join the five sports celebrities that they'd bought in, most of whom were famous footballers from the 1980s. To be honest I felt slightly fraudulent being up there among them, but then again Russia does class poker as a sport.... Hmmm. Anyway, we were then individually auctioned off for charity where whoever won got the pleasure of having us at their table for the evening. I was quite concerned as everyone else was probably going to go for loads and they'd have to stop the bidding for me at a tenner, but in the end I went for £450, which was more than everyone else! Again probably due to the fact I was female more than anything else, but still was a pleasant surprise. All in all, it was a fun two days, and at least I now know my going rate...

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