One of the things about poker is that it is a great leveller and on the right day, an unfenced player can beat one of the best players in the world. All it takes is for the underdog to be at the top of their game, for the top player to be far from their best and then the turning of the cards can do the rest. Over the long-term, the skilled and experienced player will come out on top but in individual games, there are no limits as to what can actually happen. This is why players always need to bear in mind that playing poker can be risky and that they should only ever afford to bet what they can afford to lose.
The issue with this fact is that what one person can afford to lose will not be the same as other people. A couple of years back when the gambling debts run up by footballers such as Michael Owen or Wayne Rooney were made public, there was shock and outrage from people who are perpetually offended by everything in life. This was huge sums of money, more than the average yearly wage for most folk but of course, for the players committing the case to these games, it was the equivalent of a couple of hundred pound for the standard casino player. It was certainly an amount you would rather have than lose but you can handle losses like this every once in a while.
This is why it is important to bear in mind that while there has been consternation about the losses run up by a poker player from the UK at the EPT event in France, it is best to place it into context with respect to their annual income.
Poker losses are all relative
Talal Shakerchi managed to lose a sum of more than £850,000 in a single poker game being played at the EPT event. It was not an official event, it was an unofficial event being played around the grand final and there were 6 players who all paid more than £400,000 to sit down at the table together.
This is a huge sum of cash but the fact that Mr Shakerchi has managed set up his own hedge fund firm, Meditor, indicates that he is in a position to play these huge sums of money. There is also the fact that he has reportedly won more than £1m playing poker in recent times. It is right that certain people will be disgusted at the amount of losses run up by poker players but it is important to retain a perspective about what actually happened. Poker can still be a fun game to play at every level but it is important that UK poker players find the level that they are comfortable with.