Bloggers On The Rail – Million Dollar Cash Game

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

For 5 weeks we ran a Brit Blogger Challenge to award two players a trip to London to watch the Million Dollar Cash Game. The Challenge drew players from throughout the United Kingdom and the play was entertaining. In the end, blogger Acornman and reader BURNLEY FC BB10 (Bullmeister) outlasted the field and earned their way to mingle with the big names and watch the high stakes action.

Acornman forwarded on his trip report and it he had a great time.

For more Million Dollar Cash Game coverage from Germany and London, check out Michael Craig’s blog as he followed along with all the action.

Million Dollar Cash Game Trip Report
by Acornman

My mouth hung open a little, “Durrr” style, when I checked out the cashier page shortly after winning an all expenses paid trip to London to see the Full Tilt Million Dollar cash game. Full Tilt had been more than generous and I resolved to pop in and see the Queen about making Sir AlCantHang’s knighthood an official one after all the hard work he had done to ensure two British players made it to London.

The Britblogger challenge game had been run over the last ten weeks and finishing in the top two had won Bullmeister and me our trips to the Big Smoke. I only knew Bully through playing the Brit Blogger games but it didn’t take us long to get in touch regarding our plans for London. The big man started the wind-ups right off the bat by telling me he’d been credited with nearly twice the amount I had received as prize money!

I was up early to catch the train from Glasgow to London on Wednesday morning and when the 6′ 5″ Bullmeister joined me a couple of hours into the journey at Preston, I managed to quickly squeeze in my opinion that players shouldn’t take $5 blogger games too seriously and thankfully this seemed to stick in his mind as we got around to discussing an outrageous bluff I’d pulled on him during the last game! Bully turned out to be a top bloke and I thoroughly enjoyed his company over our two day stay.

After checking in at our hotel it was straight to the Hellenic Centre for the big game. The atmosphere seemed relaxed and after ordering a couple of beers from the free bar it was time to settle down and watch some of the world’s very best players do battle at the felt.

The tone was set when Patrik Antonious and Phil Ivey were both in blind for $100k each on the first hand! Ivey’s 73 spiked a 3 against K6 and a small ripple of applause broke out. I can imagine how I would feel if I lost a big pot at low stakes I play at and people started applauding. One of the floor guys was quick to ensure there was no more clapping at moments like that.

The audience itself was small and most had no clue about poker as they were paid extras. Both Bully and I felt it was a shame that real poker fans couldn’t have been used, but for the sake of the production we could understand it as everyone turned up on time,the players were pretty much left alone when milling around on breaks and there were no interruptions to play at the tables.( despite Bully’s threat to streak naked and my temptation to step forward and flick Durrrs ears or push his gaping mouth closed!)

There was plenty going on away from the tables too with players playing roshambo for huge money right beside us and Chinese poker for even bigger stakes going on too. There was gambol in the air as well as the cards,that’s for sure!

Bully became close friends with one of the actor extras he was sure had starred in Last of the Mohican’s! Upon receiving his actor friends business card before leaving on Friday it became clear that Bully’s Oscar winning buddy had mainly been starring as a clown/magician at children’s parties!

Other interesting highlights were the change in young Tom “Durrr” Dwan between day one and day two. I realize the boy will take a coinflip for $100k without blinking, but at one point he lost his $150k stack and watching him sitting waiting on a reload, he looked like a wee boy who had won a competition to play with the seasoned pros.( who were all chatting away like old buddies).

From what I could see his play was still fearless during day one, but he was very quiet and just didn’t seem to fit in at the table. By day two he was still playing almost every pot, his confidence around the other pro’s seemed to have grown and he was a lot more chatty and outgoing.

Mike Matusow arriving at the table and not caring who was winning but just wanting to know who the loosest players were was quite funny, as was his $5k promise to anyone who could drag Hellmuth back to the table after the 11-time bracelet winner stormed out. The Hellmuth blow-up came after the tournament director casually touched his shoulder to get his attention and had more to do with him being down over 200k and him playing up to his poker brat image than anything else it seemed to me.

Without hole card cameras it was hard to follow every hand in great detail. Ivey’s set of threes beating Ferguson’s Aces for over $500k stuck in my head and a couple of spectacular Ivey bluffs also caught my eye.I’m looking forward to catching more on the Sky sports coverage during January.

Overall it was a fantastic trip. Henry from Full Tilt made us very welcome and it was an honour and a privilege to get within touching distance of guys playing poker for nosebleed stakes. Bully and I didn’t like to bother many of the pro’s during their breaks but Chris Ferguson was a pleasure to chat to and Gus Hansen was kind enough to sign an autograph for his number one fan ( my Mum!) after the game had ended.

I’ve missed out winning at roulette, avoiding sniffer spaniels, the fine Indian meal Bully and I enjoyed on Thursday night, me sitting down next to Bully at a fast food outlet and offering him the barbecue sauce he’d requested only to find it wasn’t Bully at all, the sexy secretary at the window across the road from the Hellenic Centre and the receptionist losing our room key. (Bully wound me up that we’d probably been robbed!)

Thanks again Full Tilt. It was a blast!

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Tags: Acornman, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Guest Posts

Permalink | September 23rd, 2008 Play Poker on Full Tilt Poker

3 Responses to “Bloggers On The Rail – Million Dollar Cash Game”

BURNLEY FC Says:
September 24th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Mucho Thanko Sir AL for a TOP couple of days. Cannot get over the SUPERB hospitality laid on by Henry and the Full Tilt team and the down to earth attitude of ALL the players there especially Jesus(top man) Was a truly memorable trip that will stay with me for a very long time to come!

CHEERS
Bullmeist
not sure how to blog so he are my thought Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 3:41 am
i probably forever now will consider the 50k horse event winner the world champion now. Everyone knew Chip Reese was the best in the world and the first horse event made that forever known. I dont think there is a pro out there that can out-play all these amatuars without getting extremely lucky. Raymer was the last really good tournement player to win and he is a gentleman. he wins that had in 06 when donkey called of his stack with a qjH raymer makes the final table, none the less that field was 2500, you gotta get cards and chips and you gotta make good lay downs. that guy this year layed down jjj full to only one or two hands that could beat him…. you have to be able to do that to survive and even then you can put your chips in with aa and lose. NO one who was the best player in the tourney has won since the field was small…. unfortunately if the cards always fell as they should, (NO BB) phil helmuth would win every other NL tournament. the man has 11 NL bracelets nothing else. but a chip Reeae (RIP) is going to own him in the other big four!!!! Chip has the biggest win at a table in one day, correct me if im wrong but i think its 4 million. other than nick karisos’ sick ass as soon as he got his first 10k he challenged johnny moss, ( i spelled that wrong but 100 into 40million is unreal) if chip was still alive he would be at that 500k buy in high stakes game and he’d walk away up a million, guarenteed!!!! I here Ivey is chasing that 40 mill bank roll of karisos, i know he’s taken caesars for 4million in the last couple months playing house games!!! good luck phil!!!! and if you want come out to GVR and ill hit you up with 25k in chips, 1@25 2@20 limits. probably 50k a hand on a million line at bacc. holler. just ask for me by my last name Banks!
Brony Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 5:52 am
How have your opponents being playing near the bubble? Oh man, whatever. Just go all in. Basically you’ve eliminated everything except JT, so they both have JT. The big blind is probably suited, since he’s risking his tournament life.