Poker Ace! Fife Man's Good Hands

A Fife man has scooped the £50,000 jackpot in a tournament to find Britain's best amateur poker player.

John Shaw from Dunfermline held his nerve to outplay the seven other finalists in the Late Night Poker Ace Tournament.

What makes the 46-year-old father of two's achievement all the more remarkable is that he only started playing the game in February.

John, a security van driver, said today it had been a nerve-wracking experience.

He had to make it through two qualifying rounds, a televised heat and the final, which was shown on Channel 4 late last night.

"I didn't really rate my chances going into the final," he said. "The cards seemed to come for me, so I just went for it. I was lucky. I was really pleased, especially because I was one of the least experienced there. I thought I did really well for someone who had never played the game until the start of the year."

John took the game up after his brother-in-law got a poker set.

"I just got interested and started playing on-line," he said. "My first major success was qualifying for the tournament, but that was more by accident than anything. I had to play two qualifying rounds, a heat and then the final, which took place in July. I've had to keep the result secret since then! It was the first time I'd ever played against real people. What with all the lights and cameras and so on, it was a bit nerve-wracking. I'm not used to that sort of thing, but once you start playing you are concentrating on the cards so much that you forget about everything else."

John's partner Lucy and his children were delighted with his win - they got a cut of his winnings.