Eventually 140 players took their seats in the fabulous surroundings of the Old Billinsgate Market , this meant the organisers were adding a minimum of $600,000 , first prize was $750,000 !

My table consisted of Paul Magriel or X22 as he is known in seat 2 , John Duthie , winner of the original Poker Million in seat 5 , actor Willie Garson off Sex and the City in seat 7 and Max Pescatori in seat 8 , i was in 9 .

We started with 20,000 chips and blinds of 50 100 so plenty of play and with 90 minutes i had plenty of time to wait for good cards . During the first level i picked up AA and won a small pot when the flop came K high , then in the blinds i had 33 and floped a set but again won a small pot , i ended the level slightly up at 20,975 .

Level 2 i clashed with Max after slow playing AJ in the SB and flopping top 2 , this helped increase my stack to 24,500 .

Without really catching cards i ws maintaining my stack when i won a nice pot preflop , John raised to 1000 and the player to his left , Ed Gerth reraised to 4000 , as he had only played 2 hands i assumed he had QQ or better , i was in the BB and found AA ! at first i considered flat calling and if the initial raiser was a player i thought would pass i would have , but John loves to see flops and if i called the pot would have been 9325 and 3000 for him to call which he would do with a range of hands , i decided to pick up the pot there and then or get it heads up , i raised to 12,000 , John passed and amazingly Ed did to showing his pocket Kings to the amazement of the table , his explanation was textbook " after a raise and a reraise from a player who has only played two hands , he must have Aces to make that raise " He is right of course but it was still a world class fold .

I now had around 28,000 but this was to be my peak . Max raised up to 675 and with AKs i flat called , Paul who raises 2200 and says quack quack did exactly that making it 2875 , Max passed and in position i chose to flat call hoping to trap , flop was J 5 J , Paul moved in for 11,000 , i had to pass . Each round was costing 525 and the last hand worth playing i found was against John , he was making lots of small preflop raises and i called one with A8s , flop was K 6 3 , he quickly checked and i decided to bet out on the turn if he checked again , turn was an A , i bet 600 and John called , river was a 7 , i check called a bet of 2000 as i was sure i was winning , i was until the river , John had A7 and had hit his kicker ! I ended the level at 17,100 .

During the 4th level 2 new players joined our table , in seat 3 Iwan Jones and in seat 8 Garry Bush , first hand and Garry raised to 850 , i called with 44 , as did Iwan in the BB , flop was A 4 2 , checked to Garry he bet 3600 , i moved in for 11,000 more , after a long think Garry made a good laydown showing AQo .

John was table bully now and kept up the aggression by raising every other hand , i was in the BB with 99 , it was 1000 to call , i had 21,000 , if i raised John had 45,000 and could eaailsy set me in , i decided to take a flop , this came Q 6 A , marvellous , i checked as did John , turn was another A , i bet 2000 and John called , river was a K , i checked and John bet 2000 , i was certain he didn't have a Q or an A so unless he had called me with no pair on the turn and hit a K or had a smaller pocket pair my 99 must be good , that and the fact if he has missed a draw he would bluff convinced me , i called , he had KTo !

I ended the level with 18,100 , still comfortable.

We now had a 90 minute dinner break and i got to speak to Iwan , he told me that he only decided to play at 3.30 that morning after playing last night and that two of his mates had clubbed together with him to pay the entry fee , he had come up to London from Cardiff on the 6.30am train after only 2 hours sleep !

The next level 200 400 with a 50 ante was to be the last of the day and for me the last of the tournament . John raised as usual and on the button i picked up AQo and called the 2000 , Paul in the BB counted out his chips and raised to 8700 leaving 9000 , John immediately declared all in , i passed and eventually so did Paul !

A few minutes later i tangled with John again who had just taken out Paul Magriel , actually Paul took himself out , John had won a huge pot and was still stacking his chips , Paul raised his BB 475 more and John called without looking , flop was A 6 7 , John checked and Paul bet 1600 , John now looked at his cards and called , turn was a 5 , John checked and Paul said all in for about 11,000 , John called and turned up A3s , Pauls hand was 45o , had he made a standard size raise of 1600 to 1800 preflop instead of 875 maybe John would have passed .

John raised and i flat called with 88 , flop was K Q 6 , he bet big and i passed , John now preceeded to raise 4 pots in a row , every time the bet was 1650 and every time he picked up 1050 unchallenged , he showed AK , AJ , A? and AJ , he now had over 60,000 so i was pleased that they broke our table as i thought i might finally get some hands and be able to get into contention that was until i sat down next to JJ Lui who with 80,000 was the chip leader and i was told had just had AA back to back !

I had 12,800 and to JJ's left was Robert Williamson , then Noah Boaken , Tony G and Chip Jett in seat one with 60,000 , it was a case of bet and take and with blinds and antes rushing round at 1050 a time i was getting killed , the average was 35,000 and with 9650 left i took a chance with the first pair i had seen in an hour .

There was twenty minutes to go before the end of the day but we were going to start the 6th level in 3 minutes which would cost 1575 a round , Tony G raised to 1200 and Willie Garson in seat 2 flat called , he had 35,000 and i knew from earlier would have raised with a premium hand so an all in raise of a further 8450 would get him out , i also knew that Tony only just had me covered so as he had raised and there had been a flat call my raise all in would look a lot stronger than the 44 it was , and he would not call with less than AQs or TT or better , i moved in and Tony counted his chips quickly and said call , Willie passed and i hoped Tony had AK for a race , unfortunately he had TT , the board would have been good against AK , it came 2 5 2 9 J but no good against an overpair to mine and i was out .

This was a well run event and one that i would love to play again next year , the venue , the organisation , structure with Matt Savage directing and staff were superb with the huge overlay a bonus , so who won ? Well 2 days later when all the big names had been knocked out including in the very late stages Marcel Luske , Chip Jett and Willie Tann ( he came 4th , on the first day he had QQ v KK and flopped a set , then the very next hand TT v AA and flopped another set ! ) the winner was Iwan Jones , the guy who came up at the last minute after 2 hours sleep , well done mate .