DEAL ME IN.

Byline: MARTY SMYTH 

Marty tells us what inspired him to choose poker as a career I'VE played a lot of 6-seater TV tournaments now, but this is the first time that I'd had the pleasure of being invited to Late Night Poker.

Everyone's familiar with the poker boom that was created when unknown everyman Chris Moneymaker fluked his way through a couple of online satellites and then 839 players in the 2003 WSOP main event to win $2,500,000.

However, for me, Late Night Poker, with their introduction of under the table cameras, was just as important a part of Poker's history.

It's hard to know if I would be doing what I am now if I hadn't stumbled upon an episode back in 1999.

I'd always played poker with friends since I was at school, but it was mainly with the same group of players and looking back, we were all just gambling rather than trying to play poker.

When we saw this TV show with this new Texas Hold'em game we were all immediately hooked.

Shortly after that we stumbled upon the Jackpot Casino on a weekend trip to Dublin and to our delight saw that they held Texas Hold'em tournaments and cash games.

For the next two years we played Hold'em and Omaha 2 or 3 times a week in Belfast and usually made the weekly trip to Dublin for the Friday night re-buy tournament followed by cash games.

From the start I was one of the winning players in the Belfast game, but Dublin was a real learning curve for me.

Despite a few early wins, I was a losing player at the beginning, and myself and the other Belfast guys were definitely the value in the game.

Most people can appreciate that I've had a lot of luck in my poker career, most obviously in a few tournaments where I've got lucky in a couple of pots, won a load of '50-50s' and taken down the titles, but I've also been lucky in ways that people can't even begin to realise.

If I hadn't really learned how to play the game from playing with all the good regular players then I'd probably be working 9-5 in a poorly paid job in Belfast playing in a weekly poker game where we'd all stick our money in the middle and cross our fingers.

If I hadn't discovered Late Night Poker and the Jackpot Club, I've no doubt that I'd have eventually found my way to internet poker, but I've also no doubt that I wouldn't have been anywhere near good enough to beat the games if it hadn't been for my education in Dublin If things had happened even slightly differently for me in terms of my poker history then life could have been very different for me, and no matter how many bad beats I take, I'll always appreciate how lucky I've been overall.

EVENTS The password for this week's Daily Mirror Freeroll at 8pm on Boylepoker tonight is jackpot.