King of the River - Literally

So as you may have realised if you've been reading my colleague Claire Miller's blog - the latest craze to sweep through the Capital newsroom is Poker.

Yep - we're really down with the hip kids now. 

Forget anything Olympic sports related, or playing on the Nintendo Wii or even just going to the pub for a laugh after work - now it's all about the cards.

Or at least it should be - if half of us knew how to play poker that is - and I'm afraid that I (did) fall into that category.

If we're talking snap, or cheat, or s***head then I'm there like a shot - but for most of my life poker has just seemed a bit too complicated.  Or at least it was until I started learning it ahead of our first office tournament.

(If you've read Claire's blog , you'll know that I didn't win the tournament because she did.  But I'll have you know I came in a quite respectable position which wasn't last!)

Anyway, the person who had the unenviable task of teaching us novices was Capital's sports editor Phil Blacker - who for months has been wowing us with his tales of Poker playing prowess.

At first we took all of this with a bit of a pinch of salt - but Phil, along with teaching us the difference between a 'flush' and a 'royal flush' has this week more than proved his skill.

After professional player John Tabatabai came into the Capital studios to give us all some tips, our Phil was then asked to play against a load of other people from the media and 19 year old World Series champion Annette Obrestad in a tournament this week - with a very unusual venue.

To mark the start of the World Series of Poker Europe in Leicester Square, Phil played the game, suspended from a crane, 50 feet above the Thames near Tower Bridge - strapped into his seat using a roller-coaster style seat belt!

How cool (and perhaps a little bit scary) is that!!

I'm pleased to say that Phil won the tournament - but this is the bit I really love, he won it on the 'river' card.  Which, if you excuse the pun, really does make Phil 'king of the river'.

Well done Phil. But don't spend too long basking in your glory.

The antes are about to be upped for the Capital news poker re-match when we hope to give you a run for your chips (we don't play for money, there's a credit crunch on).

And the rest of us are feeling confident - having played poker on an almost daily basis since the last game, and getting to the stage where we don't even need crib sheets anymore to know the winning combinations.

But there is one important task left to do - you still need to explain to a certain member of the newsteam (who shall remain nameless) why having three pairs in poker isn't allowed.

Good luck with that one!