If anyone in British poker has been there and done it all, it’s Mickey Wernick. He’s the nearest we have to one of the old Texas road gamblers. When I was writing my book Swimming with the Devilfish I wanted to interview Mickey, and Mickey wanted to be interviewed – but I could never pin him down.

If I went to Walsall (where he said he would be) he’d be in Brighton; I’d go down to Brighton, only to find he was in Walsall. To Luton, only he was in Blackpool. Once I phoned his partner Dawn to ask where he was.