The history of the Poker Million

This year’s Ladbrokes Poker Million finals are about to hit a television screen near you. And if you’re yet to see any of the action, don’t worry – it’s not too late. This December, a dozen players will sit down to battle for a place at the live broadcast final table to fight for the $1.2m first prize.

The Poker Million, now in its fifth incarnation, broke onto the circuit in 2000 with a huge £1m first prize payout. Just a few years on the tournament is one of the centrepieces of British poker and continues to play a major part in pushing poker to the masses.

While the World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker remain compulsive viewing for poker fans wanting exciting highlight packages, there’s only one big poker tournament broadcast live on primetime TV on a major British network – Sky Sports – and that’s the Poker Million.

Could’ve been a contender

It was promoter Barry Hearn, the man behind sporting legends such as Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank and Steve Davis, that brought the concept of live TV poker to the UK through his company Matchroom Sport. ‘I was promoting a fight in the States and I saw a load of people queuing up for a poker tournament. I wasn’t a poker player at the time so I wondered what was going on. I went and watched and thought it was great,’ says Hearn. ‘All the players’ buy-ins were paying for the prize money. [In other sports] I have to give them that!’

It didn’t take long for Hearn to take to the tables himself and he actually made the second day of the first Poker Million event, which took place in Douglas on the Isle of Man in November 2000. The £6,000 buy-in had built up a chunky prize pool already juiced significantly by Ladbrokes, who kicked in some quarter-of-a million dollars.

The fat pot brought in players from far and wide, including the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan and Amarillo Slim. According to Poker Million commentator Jesse ‘the voice of poker’ May that first tournament was ‘legendary’ and not just in terms of the Poker Million but in the entire history of poker. ‘It was the first poker tournament to be shown live on TV and that first prize of £1m was one of the biggest prizes in poker. Remember, Chris Ferguson had got $1.5m that year to win the World Series [in the days before the Main Event online qualifier explosion]. There were about seven or eight world champions playing in that field,’ says May.

British steel

But out of an incredibly strong line-up it was Brit John Duthie who stepped up his game to become a millionaire. May claims that Duthie gave one of the greatest final table performances you’ll ever see. ‘People on the last couple of tables with him all agreed that he was the one guy that wouldn’t make any moves because he was the tightest player. But he then bluffed his way to a million pounds,’ says May. ‘He never picked up a hand. Nobody thought he was bluffing but they were some of the greatest bluffs I’ve ever seen. He’d bet out before the flop with nothing and bet on the flop and the turn without hitting anything.’

Duthie’s sublime play was just one of the highlights though. With some of the world’s greatest players condensed on just one small island there was plenty of action to go round. ‘It was a real festival,’ says May. ‘The bar scene was incredible. At one point there was a huge prop bet made over whether Howard Plant, an English player, could pick up Howard Lederer and dead-lift him. Howard Lederer was a really big guy back then (before having his stomach stapled) but he still managed to pick him up and put him over his head! You can just imagine what had to be going on in the bar for that to happen.’

Most of the American players hadn’t seen cameras under the table before, which British players had already been exposed to on Late Night Poker. Consequently the green room (the behind-thescenes TV production room) was full of big-name players from the States who were screaming at the monitors. It was a watershed for many of them who suddenly realised the potential it had to change the game.

But the Poker Million failed to reappear the following year. Hearn had been trying to get the tournament set up in London but ran into problems trying to get the event registered. ‘The police may have thrown me inside if I’d done it and I didn’t fancy that! There’s a lot more common sense now [about poker events] than there was then. It wasn’t possible to do it again until we switched it into Sky’s studios.’

Whirlwind action

The shift onto the broadcaster’s premises saw the Poker Million resurrected in 2003 with a new format of six-seater heats, which proved to be much more viewerfriendly. The short-handed games promoted more action and less folding. And the tournament was given a mainstream boost when snooker legend Jimmy White went on to win, pipping The Hendon Mob’s Joe Beevers to the $150,000 first prize.

The following year it was highly respected Irish player Donnacha O’Dea’s turn for glory. O’Dea won $300,000 after outlasting Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott and uber-posh lad Zac Goldsmith. So last year, was it a pro player or celebrity sportsman that took the $1m first prize? Neither. It was a complete unknown. Former forklift truck driver Tony Jones of Essex, who’d initially qualified through a Ladbrokes freeroll, took the Poker Million title and enough money to retire on.

‘My ambition was to get in the Poker Million, and I fulfilled that ambition. Winning it was just a dream come true,’ says Jones. The 43-year-old watched O’Dea lift the trophy in the live final the year before as one of thousands of poker converts who’d been caught in the backdraft of the poker explosion, so it really couldn’t have been more fitting that one year on Jones found himself sitting at the same table as the Irishman. But this time it was Jones who scooped the first prize (and beat Soccer AM presenter Helen Chamberlain in the heads-up finale).

While the success of celebrity players such as Chamberlain and Jimmy White has helped to attract new audiences, it was Jones’ victory that breathed new life into the tournament. Just as Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP win in 2003 sent shockwaves through the game in the United States, Jones’ win showed that the man at home on his couch could compete with some of the best players in the game. In fact, you could win a million dollars for free with absolutely no catch – except for the fact that you’d have your mug plastered on television screens around the world.

Since then Sky has signed a four-year deal, so Poker Million looks set to get bigger and better. ‘We’ve got a big TV audience with an international following,’ says Hearn. ‘Last year we had around five million viewers worldwide. Events only get more influential the longer they last and credit comes with age just like politicians and good wine.’

So if you didn’t get a chance to win your way onto the telly this year there’s at least another three to do a Tony Jones. Rest assured, if you make it, the PokerPlayer team will be in the audience cheering you on and raising its own glass of wine to you.