IT'S Singapore, late November, and I haven't a clue what I'm doing in a three-day James Bond-style poker marathon. All I know is I'm no 007 - and if I'm not very careful I am about to make a (Casino) Royale pig's ear of my hand. Over there is Gus Hansen, behind him is Tony G - two of the most famous poker players in the world. All around me are men - and one or two women - who have paid £5,000 to enter the three-day marathon Betfair Asian Poker Tour. My credentials? The odd night playing with mates at the Liver Vaults pub in Liverpool. If I even dreamed of being as good as Hansen I'd have to wake up and apologise. An hour into this marathon threeday event and there's a good-looking bloke at the next table with a mountain of chips. Sitting on top of them is a packet of Tic-Tac mints. Is it some some smart-alec demonstration of how minted he is? Or is he a dyslexic who thinks it's a good tactic? I've no idea. All I do know is that it is becoming increasingly annoying. Like the rest of us reckon about sex, poker players all think they're much better than they are. I know I'm clueless, but I'm holding my own. The priority for a novice like me is not to be first out. There are 350 players in this tournament - please God let someone go out before me. Just then, 90 minutes in, there's an announcement. "Ladies and gentlemen. We have our first casualty." Necks strain in search of this pathetic specimen but he has already been swallowed by a hole in the ground. Things are beginning to look decidedly more encouraging. I thought I'd last half an hour - but here I am two hours in and two players at my table of 10 are worse off. However, if you're going to make a mark in tournaments like this you have first to make a move. I make a move... and regret it. My Ace-10 is beaten by a pair of queens and what was a respectable stack of chips is now a mite forlorn.
Now I'm heavily committed - too heavily - - to a pot with a pair of jacks but a smooth-looking Dane has three kings and kills me.
"He milked you like a cow," is the encouraging comment from another at our table, an Irishman called Scott Gray who finished fourth at the 2002 World Series (poker's World Cup) in Vegas. The stack of chips before me is now jockey-sized - flat jockey-sized.
My confidence is lower and to cap it all they've changed the dealer from gorgeous Russian Anna to a hairy Yank. I don't catch her name.
Then sanctuary. Two aces in the hole and I'm all in. Two hands later it's two kings in the hole and I'm all in again.
The stack, though not mountainous, has a merry molehill look and fat ladies everywhere stop singing. Then, the whispers begin.
Gus is out. Hansen has crashed out little more than eight hours in. And I'm still in there fighting.
My ambition after surviving the first exit was to make the top 200, then the top 100. And here I am, just 120 players left, aware that the prize for finishing 36th is £5,000.
By midnight I've been at it for 11 hours. My eyes are playing up. I had a stack in front of me a minute ago but I look again and there are only nine £1,000 chips.
But I've proved myself. In this room of sharks a little fish has survived this long. It punctures the myth that poker players are a different breed. We've all marvelled at their alleged mental agility, their coolness under pressure, their ability to treat huge sums like pocket change.
But it's taken them - and these are some of the best players in the world - almost 12 hours to get shut of little me. Now I'm up against one of them - a bearded Aussie called Paul.
I'm all in on Q-10 (not ideal, but I simply had to make a move) and he's showing A-K. Then the flop drops. It's 7-5-Q, giving me a pair of queens.
The bearded Aussie looks horrorstruck until I realise that's his normal expression. The next card's a six, so I'm still leading with one card to come. Sadly it's a king, giving Beard Man top pair, and I'm out.
I get up and nod to the other players but no one sees me. I no longer exist.
All they're looking at is the dealer shuffling the cards for the next deal. Women have dumped me less cruelly.
I've finished 86th, just 50 places out of the money, and beaten more than 250 of these so-called pros.
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