How many ‘What happened next?’ type situations can possibly come up in a game that involves nine people wedged around a stationary table with a single deck of cards?

More than you can imagine. At a recent Virgin Poker Festival all it took for me to stumble, fall and, smash my own tournament teeth to pieces was for two people not to play a single hand.

There were two no-shows, which meant that not only were there a couple of 10,000-strong stacks slowly leaking chips onto the table, but also that the action was almost short-handed.

I was more than happy with the strange situation, as it gave me an excuse to get involved in more pots.