One in a Million

We signed in at Sky's studios by Heathrow (where they film Soccer AM) and were plonked into what we thought was the green room. Whilst the players went into make-up we chatted to a few of the Matchroom team before being ushered into the proper green room. It has a massive screen and about 35 incredibly comfortable chairs, basically a home cinema room.

We settled down to watch the live action and were spellbound from the moment the first hand was dealt. The unique feature is you are sat with all the friends and family of Marty's opponents who included friend of mine John Duthie and the mercurial Mike the Mouth Matusow. Matusow had just won a bracelet and has amassed over $7 million in winnings (though how much he has partied away of that is anyone's guess).

To be honest the whole thing was a bit of a blur but I remember texting Karen everytime Marty was in a hand and I didn't have to be the messenger of gloom, Marty coasted to heads up and there he dismantled his brave amateur opponent.

To me the very next heat was the toughest of the entire tournament; Tony G, Ram Vaswani, John Magill, Stuart Fox, Annette Obrestad and Eoghan O'Dea. I was really looking forward to watching Annette play but Tony G dogged her almost immediately and with Ram smashing up the table as well, we decided to get a couple of jars before flying home. I admit I was startled to hear that not only had Eoghan won he had apparently destroyed Tony G in the heads up.

Months later Marty invited me to watch his semi final in the green room again as Karen never goes, she hates it, her nerves get the better of her and she prefers receiving a text or two to inform her of Marty's progress.

I took a couple of day's holiday, persuaded the powers that be to book an extra table at the Poker Million party just in case and made my way to London on Wednesday night. I went for dinner with the greatest enthusiast in poker, Jesse May, who informed me that that days semi final had lasted a mere 65 hands and that two Irish players, Liam Flood and Ciaran O'Leary had made the final, Ciaran with the chip lead.

Afterwards I met up with Marty, was introduced to his mother and father, and as Padraig mentions in his latest blog, it's easy to see why Marty is the person he is when you meet them.

Marty makes no secret of the fact that he doesn't mind a pint or two before a tournament like this but as we were meant to be leaving for the studio at 8.30 am it seemed unlikely we would be able to take part in this traditional pre match ritual. Being the champion he is, he decided if he could get the measurements right he could play his heat as if he had had a couple of jars just beforehand.

In all matters Marty I see myself as the fat bloke who points at monitors and pretends to know what's going on whilst Lewis Hamilton does the business around the track. We sank a few with his father and at around 2 am thought we had hit the perfect level; I went to bed tired and excited.

The next morning we met at the breakfast buffet to prepare for the forthcoming semi final. Currently there is a meat scare in Ireland and many areas have withdrawn all pork and beef products. Pork sausages, beef sausages, black and white pudding and lashings of bacon accompanied beans, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, potato cakes and scrambled eggs were greedily consumed. As normal we talked about anything and everything except poker. At 8.20 I suggested we make our way to the bus. I needn't have worried as at exactly the moment I mentioned this, the Fish and his lady friend sat down for brekkie, the bus was unlikely to leave without Marty and the Fish.

At about 8.50 we sat on the bus on our way to the studio and as poker players only ever see this time of the morning if they have been up all night, the mood was naturally subdued. That was until the Fish told a joke about his uncle the ventriloquist which though in incredibly bad taste, considering some of the people who were there, had Marty and I laughing hard for about 15 minutes; it relaxed us both.

At the studio I met up with my old flatmate and dear friend BadBeat Channing who informed us he had had virtually zero sleep and had done his conkers in the Vic the night before. This must have been a fair chunk of money and it's to his credit he not only turned up for what must seem like a pittance of a wage but one coffee later was totally in his stride and firing on all cylinders. The semi final line up was as tough as they come.

Dave Ulliott, Tony G, Roy Brindley, Sammy George, Anthony Hardy, Marty Smyth and once again Eoghan O'Dea all sat down with 100,000 chips and began fighting it out for the final three places.

Marty started uncharacteristically by playing a small pair, losing the minimum and it was no fun texting Karen informing her that after about 10 minutes Marty was lowest in chips (I mean he was still in it, it wasn't as if he had one and a half big blinds or something like that).

The table was cagey, all the players knew Sammy George was the loosest chips but early on he was a card rack and no one could get going, well no one except Eoghan who seemed happy enough picking up a few chips and taking the chip lead.

Marty got the aces against the Fish; the two of them played a great hand covering themselves in glory. Its easy playing aces but its not easy getting the maximum out of them, Marty would have against most players but the Fish isn't most players, lowish on chips he passed top pair and Marty was back in the pack, a nice text to send to Karen who was having coffee with Marty's parents.

What seemed like just a few hands later he played an even bigger pot against Tony G, knocking Tony out when his hand failed to improve against Marty's and I knew he was in the final regardless, he's too good a player to lose it from here. After sending the text I went back to enjoying the company I was sitting with, Donnacha O'Dea, his wife Patricia and Liam Flood who had come to do a recce.

Marty tightened up and as the bubble approached, Eoghan continued building his chips. I began to worry he might pull away but he suffered a couple of small setbacks and soon enough it was bubble time.

Ryan Fronda is someone we have become very fond off here at Boylepoker.com and after having been speaking to Ryan since his heat I could imagine his disappointment, there can't be a worse place to finish especially in this tournament. Roy Brindley suffered that particular horrific fate in the heat and as soon as he was out I changed my habit of texting and phoned Karen with the good news.

Remarkably Eoghan had exactly the same chips as Ciaran, four of the final six players were Irish and our sponsored pro had made his 3rd Poker Million final. It was Liam Flood who led the chorus of you'll never beat the Irish on the coach home and we arrived back at the Metropole exhausted and elated.

Marty went out with his friends from home that had arrived in town along with his parents. I went for dinner in the Vic with BadBeat and Jeff Duvall, later joined by original Poker Million winner John Duthie. After dinner I sat first with the Fish (he left as soon as he had been knocked out of the highlights show) and then the O'Dea's who like Marty seem to take any success they enjoy in their stride.

I went for one last jar with Eoghan at the hotel then went to bed a happy camper. I had swerved the party forming in the other bar where later I was informed not only had Marty qualified for the Poker Million final for the third year on the trot but even more startling was now the owner of a world record. He had managed to eat four Ferrero Rocher in under a minute, something that had apparently never been done by a human being on our planet before. Luckily I don't think he found out the actual record was five until after the final.