Poker Player Ross Boatman who turned professional in 1992

  PICTURE: Tom Boyle  

Poker was an obsession and it turned into a job

ROSS BOATMAN started young. Aged ten, to be precise. He joined in a poker game with his 18-year-old brother Barny at their home in Archway, north London, and that was that. He was hooked.

"I can quite clearly remember raking in a big pot, which they probably let me win to get rid of me," he says.

"But I can remember loving it, from game one."

Boatman, who turned professional in 1992, is best known in non-poker circles for playing firefighter Kevin Medhurst in the long-running television series London's Burning.

"It was the dream job," he says. "It was made when there were still only four channels, and it was getting massive  viewing figures.

"Everything about it was great. But what made it even better was that I managed to persuade three or four of the cast to play poker. It was impossible to lose."

Despite Boatman's impressive acting cv, he has arguably had a greater influence on the poker world. His rise to prominence coincided with the game's surge in popularity, and it was the creation of the Hendon Mob that played an important
role in its entry into the mainstream.

After finishing London's Burning, Boatman took up poker full-time, and it was in a card room on Baker Street that he met Joe Beevers. "He recognised me from the TV," he says.

"We got talking and he invited me to his private game in Hendon, which is where I later met Ram [Vaswani]. It was one night a week, and it became a regular spot."

Together with Barny, the quartet formed a friendship  and became a familiar sight atcard games, first in London and then all over Europe. The Hendon Mob tag, says Boatman, developed over time.

"Ram and I would arrive in Paris, for example, and someone would pipe up,

"Hey, where's the rest of the mob".

The name stuck after they were asked what name they went by for a feature in the Evening Standard. He says: "I knew Hendon wasn't a particularly cool place to come from, but it sounded half cool and half funny. I said yeah, we're the Hendon Mob."

Their website - www.thehendonmob.com - is now a poker institution and has a database of more  than 100,000 players.

The mob's profile soared when they took part  in Channel 4's Late Night Poker programme, which exposed poker to the public  for the first time, allowing viewers to see the players' cards via under-table cameras.

"We were aware we were making poker history," says Boatman. "But not how big it would become."

The mob worked hard to find a sponsor, and were rewarded when PrimaPoker signed them up in a $1m deal. They were the first group of players to secure sponsorship and their profile rocketed in the US, inspiring new poker groups including The Hit Squad.

Times change - and so do sponsors.

Prima were replaced by Full Tilt. "They were very keen to have us," says Boatman. "Our website is huge, and I think it was a big factor in getting the deal."

The mob's success, thinks Boatman, is because it appeals to both the grassroot players and the megastars. "We don't pretend to be the greatest in the world - well, Ram does!" he says. "It wasn't long ago that we were playing around the kitchen table - and we haven't forgotten.

"It started as a social thing. But it became an obsession  and it turned into a job. I don't feel the need to play in the higher stakes games and mix it up with the young kids who play for hundreds of thousands every day."

If he is not acting, the 45-year-old sits at home playing poker on four computer screens. "I'm never in a live game unless I'm in a tournament," he says.

"You can find me on Full Tilt most days. I play for about five hours a day and up to eight games at a time. That's my limit."

Success brings its rewards, and Boatman can afford to enjoy the 40th annual World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this summer in a rented house with a pool, away from the blaring noise and bright lights of the strip.

"I've been to Vegas more  times than I remember," he says. "It's the Mecca. There is a chance to cross swords with people I consider to be the greatest players in the world and play on a level playing field - in tournaments. It's a  chance for glory, and to pick up a bracelet and all the money that goes with it.

"With tournaments it's about the journey, sitting down from day one and working through the levels, changing gears when appropriate. Following your opponent - every blink of the eye, every twitch, every play. There's something very rewarding about watching the field melt away and hopefully working your way to the final table."

Non-mathematicians will take heart from Boatman's admission that it is his weakest subject. "It's not that I don't have any idea of odds - I do," he says. "Pot odds and implied odds, all that kind of thing. I've a good grasp of that - you have to do.

"For me, it's about people and percentages. It's not so much whether they are twiddling their ring or riffling their chips. You have to look into their soul and work out what kind of mood they're in."

Although acting will remain his first love, there's no doubting Boatman's mood.  Look out Vegas.