$3m on cards for three Irish amateur aces
And all that is required? Plenty of stamina, lots of luck, but, most importantly, one hell of a good poker face.
Belfast native Barry Craig will today begin his bid for the biggest individual purse in sport after winning the opportunity to do so courtesy of a small wager on the internet.
Joining him at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas will be Andy Adair from Dublin and Patrick O'Connor from Sligo.
Each won an all-expenses-paid trip to the annual tournament after beating hundreds of online poker players in separate qualifiers on the internet gaming site, Ladbrokespoker.com.
Ladbrokes is also covering their entrance fees each seat at the table costs a cool $10,000.
By contrast, the fees the three paid to enter the online qualifiers were extremely small just $64 in Barry's case. All three are amateurs, and will be pitting their wits against the very best professional players including fellow Irishman Donncha O'Dea when the cards are dealt this afternoon for the No Limit Hold 'Em World Championship at Binion's Horseshoe Casino.
The championship is the highlight of a five-week poker festival that has been taking place each year at the Horseshoe since 1970.
With more than 1,200 competitors this year, and the stakes so high, the grueling tournament will take until next Friday to complete, when the winner will walk away with at least $3 million.
Speaking last night from Las Vegas, accountant Andy acknowledged it would be hard going: "I only started playing poker online a year ago. However, if the luck is with me, then I have a chance of winning the first prize. But there are a lot of good players out there, so it will be tough."
The three have reason for optimism, however: an American amateur, the aptly named Chris Moneymaker, stunned the game's elite when he walked off with last year's $2.5 million pot.
According to a recent report from Ladbrokes, the amount gambled on poker websites rocketed from €8.5 million a day in January 2003 to €53.9 million by December. There are thought to be about 150 poker rooms operating on the internet.
The websites make their money by taking a percentage of each stake.
But the popularity of online gambling has raised concern among addiction counsellors.
"We see people now who have been hooked by the lure of internet gambling," said the director of the Rutland addiction-treatment centre Stephen Rowen.
DONNACHA O'Dea inherited a love of poker from his father, Denis, who convened a card school twice a week in Dublin hotels and which featured some of Ireland's most influential people, including Taoiseach Sean Lemass.
As a youngster, Donnacha, who swam for Ireland at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, would stand behind his father at the card table and observe closely.
He dropped out of university to embark on a card-playing and gambling career, quickly shone at it, and has been doing it ever since.
He first entered the World Series of Poker in 1982, when he finished 30th of 80 players in the No Limit Hold 'Em World Championship.
O'Dea has coughed up $10,000 of his own money to play in today's competition.
In 1998, he won one of the supporting card games in the festival, but has never won the main event.
At least, not yet...
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