James Akenhead Wins Poker Million

James Akenhead finished off a superb year by winning the Full Tilt Poker Million. James has had what can only be described as a fairytale year in 2009 as he has final tabled both the WSOPE & WSOP main events.

The Poker Million, now in it’s 8th year, is still an major event in the poker calendar and winning it looks good on any poker CV. It especially means a lot to UK pros who have grown up with it but it also attracts top class overseas players. Strange then it seemed slightly muted without the parallel friends, family & supporters event. Even the Poker Million title now falls short of it’s billing, only getting there on technicalities. Some of this could be attributable to Full Tilt being its new sponsor, they having taken over from Ladbrokes. However, it is their first year so perhaps they are feeling their way and certainly it provided a talent showcase for some of their top sponsored pros.

Despite this though the live nature of it provides an extra edginess, as did the addition of Luke Schwartz. You could sense the anxiousness of the producers with a live broadcast especially partly before the watershed. Commentary was provided by the ever present Jesse ‘the voice of poker’ May in tandem with Roy ‘the boy’ Brindley & Neil ‘bad beat’ Channing. Channing especially provided some acutely observed descriptions of table dynamics. Predictably, though, May early on had to his extend his apologies on behalf of the broadcasters for some of Schwartz’s more colourful language [for which to his credit Luke himself later apologised].

The chips counts going into the final had Luke Schwartz the slight chip leader with 397k over James Akenhead’s 338k. The early action would normally be expected to be created by the shorter stacks. However, one of the short stacks Craig Wakenham looked nervous and twitchy, which is perhaps understandable given this was a major televised event and his route to the final was direct via Full Tilt’s online satellite qualification. Juha Helppi provided another shorter stack and was certain to maintain his early solid game, as did Peter Vasiliou. The other players making the final seven were Dag Martin Mikkelsen & Taylor Caby, who are well known for their online tuition videos, but proved to be less predictable quantities.

The focal point of the table was undoubtedly Schwartz, not least because of his demeanour, and he clearly set out to take advantage of the tighter players to his left. Balancing this was Akenhead’s large stack to his right with Wakenham in the middle. Wakenham – at least in the opening exchanges – was suffering from poor starting hands and his body language was obvious in reflecting this. Being sandwiched between the two big stacks also severley limited his options. One by one they fell, with Caby exiting with pocket 7s after Mikkelsen called with K4 a play which was viewed as suspect by many.

Much of Schwartz’s stack was taken when Akenhead raised with KQ, Schwartz re-raised with K7 and Vasiliou made a good read of the situation and went all-in with pocket 8s, Akenhead folded and Schwartz after a short while realised he was pretty much committed to call off the further 60k. Later Schwartz bounced back when his pocket 9s held in an all-in preflop hand against Akenheads AJ but ultimately he succumbed to finish 4th, paying for his increasingly erratic play. Akenhead showed his composure to recover from losing the AJ coin flip to make the final two along with Helppi who prevailed having nursed his short stack, and rapidly began to accumulate chips with a series of more aggressive plays and a little luck. At one point he got caught with T8 by Mikkelsen’s A7 but was helped by a flop of T8x and Mikkelsen later finished 3rd.

Heads up against Helppi Akenhead started significantly behind but he managed to get the lead after early aggression from Helppi, who moved all-in with a pocket 3s making Akenhead lay down pocket 4s. In the final hand Akenhead’s pocket tens prevailed against Helppi’s sixes though not without the sweat of a suck out due to the open ended straight draw heavy flop of 345.

You could tell from the James Akenhead post-game interview that it meant a lot, especially against the backdrop of his achievements of reaching dual WSOP main event final table & WSOPE, which were ultimately tinged with the disappointment of not making the top spots. With the Poker Million falling at the end of the year it provided a fitting companion to the close of the 2009 poker season, reflecting some of its themes and rising star players.

The full result of the Full Tilt Poker Million was:

#	Name	Prize
1	James Akenhead	$500,000
2	Juha Helppi	$250,000
3	Dag Martin Mikkelsen	$200,000
4	Luke Schwartz	$150,000
5	Craig Wakeham	$100,000
6	Pete Vasiliou	$75,000
7	Taylor Caby	$50,000