I was trawling through the results of a poker tournament held in the UK last week, when I came across the familiar name of Neil Carr. Surely not the same Neil Carr, I thought, who heads up the forwards desk at HBOS. And indeed it is.
Word reaches me that Neil and his brother Trevor, who also works at HBOS and runs the bank’s FX options team, decided to enter the tournament after a successful run playing online. Before the two brothers went off, I hear that Neil managed to broke his older brother into sharing any winnings, which at the time looked like a good trade, as Trev had by far better track record.
However, in the tournament itself, Trev soon folded, getting knocked out in the early rounds. Neil progressed through to the final, beating many poker luminaries on the way, such as Michael Greco, who British readers may know better as Beppe from TV soap EastEnders. Neil finally came second and his efforts netted him a gross £50,300. This cheered up Trev no end, as he got half of it. As I always say, why be good, if you can be lucky?