City tycoon loses big in Monaco poker game

 
High stakes: Talal Shakerchi took on some of poker’s biggest names
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Tom Harper14 May 2013

One of London’s richest hedge-fund tycoons has lost almost one million pounds during an unofficial, high-stakes game of poker in Monaco.

Talal Shakerchi, who founded Meditor – which has around £3 billion of assets under management – was one of six high-rollers to take part in Europe’s biggest cash poker game last weekend.

Despite his reputation as a skilled amateur player, the Midland-born financier lost an initial 500,000 Euros and then bought back in with another two trays of chips worth 750,000 Euros.

The 49-year-old was up against four of the world’s top professional players, including Sam Trickett, the UK’s biggest winner in live tournaments with £13 million in recorded career earnings, and Paul Newey, another highly-regarded British amateur who made an estimated £220 million fortune through a Midlands-based consumer lender.

However 12 hours into the game at a hotel in Monte Carlo, Mr Shakerchi had just 84,000 Euros remaining – a loss of more than 1.1 million Euros.

Rumours of the high-stakes game had circulated all week as the continent’s poker elite gathered for the finale of their annual season in a hotel overlooking Monte Carlo. It finally began on Saturday afternoon in a small room away from the television cameras and spectators that were focused on the official events.

Mr Shakerchi, who is worth an estimated £100 million and is a generous philanthropist, is one of many high-flying financiers whose addiction to the wild ups and downs of trading commodities and shares is matched by the thrill of the casinos.

Mr Shakerchi, 49, is little known outside the City but is regarded in financial circles as one of the best stock-pickers of his generation. Of Kurdish descent, he joined BP’s graduate training scheme in the 1980s and later worked at Old Mutual before setting up his own hedge fund, Meditor, in 1998.

In total, more than four million Euros was on the table, which poker experts said that it was probably the biggest sum ever wagered in a public game on European soil.

Meditor did not respond to requests for a comment.

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