The Poker Million is known as the biggest and toughest poker tournament on TV. This is the 8th year it has been running and for many years now it has been an invite only event, unless you manage to win one of the few seats given away online.
To get an invitation for this is not the easiest task but harder than that is the entry fee which is $20,000.
I went to the live final last year and from that night till about 1 week ago I made it my job to get an invite to this event. I know I am good enough I know the format and I know I can win. Only thing I didn’t know was how I was going to pay for it......Let’s be honest $20,000, not the easiest thing to find especially for a single table tourney.
So about 2 weeks ago I got the call from Matchroom, I had a seat and my heat was on the 16th July. Great I said I’m in. Not a care in the world about how I was going to buy in I just knew that I had done the hard part which was getting in, surely finding 20K would be easy :)
I called my sponsors BETFRED to let them know as I decided not to go to Las Vegas this year and use the money for the Poker Million if I got the call. This is where the roller coaster ride started for me.
The call came and with 10 days to get the entry fee the pressure was on.
Betfred were aware that I wanted to play this event and that I had chosen this over the WSOP also so that their money spent on me gets the best marketing for them.
They decided that they were not going to put me into this event so now I was stuck and needed to find $20k.
I had a plan.................
Every time after I play on TV I get a lot of friend requests on facebook and people asking me if they can buy a small share in me so I decided to sell shares in me for this event to the public.
I know this is done a lot and normally on forums but this opens up so many negative things I wanted to keep it between people I knew. I was not desperate nor did I need to sell myself to the average Joe blogs but I did need to raise a lot of money.
$20,000 divided by $100 made 200 shares, each share was worth 0.4% of my winnings, (This means that I would play for a 20% free roll) this made it look easy................
I created a group on FB and sent it to all the people I knew. 1 thing I hate doing is asking people for money. Though I believed in my game and knew I could win I still find it hard to do. $100 is not a lot to ask for but I needed 200 investors.
The group was filling up daily with people investing bits every day. I spoke to a few friends who also bought bigger shares and before I knew it I had raised $10,000. This was amazing and I was sure I would be able to get $10,000 from my sponsors or a company to wear a logo.
How wrong I was. With all the big investors still out in Vegas it didn’t look like I would raise the money in time.
I would have 2 choices.
Pay the balance myself or let me seat go and watch the opportunity of a lifetime go by. With doing the second I would also be in a situation that I may not get anymore invites to this event and possibly other TV events too. The choice was made. I would buy in the rest myself though not happy about it I knew this was the only way.
As I was coming to terms with the fact that my sponsors had let me down in a huge way and that I was having to invest $10,000 to a shootout that at this point in my life I did not have to spare my phone rang. It was Roland de Wolfe. I had tried to call him on his UK number but knowing he was in Vegas I just thought he would call me when he got back. He was in fact interested to buy a share of me as he knows a good thing when he sees it LOL. He became my biggest single share holder and after that call was finished 2 more friends I could not get hold of also called and bought big shares. It was like I was being tested, over and over again.
Things were looking up the money was coming and destiny was all I kept thinking about.
Surely now my sponsors would give me 25% of the buy in to get guaranteed TV exposure and the chance to back the winner of the POKER MILLION VIII.
Again I was wrong and I couldn’t be bothered to argue. There was a lot of red tape bulls**t and company crap that needed to be signed off for this to happen and everyone was away that needed to sign it off so I was now in limbo as what I should do.
Why not try to get a company to pay me to wear their logo. It was clear that my sponsors were not interested and since I was not on a new contract with them I was free to work with anyone.
I did send an email to my contact and let them know that one of their competitors had offered me money to wear their logo and they replied to me giving me the ok.
Dilemma.....Should I just wear my usual logo since I am going to be signing a big contract with them in a few weeks??? Why should I, I thought to myself. I have done all I can and even gone as low as I can to make this good for both parties. I even explained that if I wear another logo and when I win the event in December it will look really stupid if we do a press release in 1 or 2 months that I am now your sponsored player and win the POKER MILLION wearing a different logo; still they said nothing we can do. LMAO.
The day came to go and play and I agreed to wear a Paddy Power Irish Open logo. They did send me a top but to be fair bright green isn’t my colourJ I was happy to wear the sticky logo.
My heat changes a little since my good friend Roberto Romanello played in the morning heat he was replaced by none other than the Greek fish himself.
I played with Greekfish in my 888 world Open heat and I remember the banter we had. It was fun and great TV but he repeatedly said he should have one and I was happy for him to have another go.
Seat 1 Andy Greek Fish
Seat 2 Adam Carey (online Qualifier)
Seat 3 Lee Watkinson
Seat 4 Marco Traniello
Seat 5 Paul Zimbler
Seat 6 Liam Flood
What a great line up I was ready, focused and so up for wining.
We were walking into the studio to start when Beiju from Mtchroom turned to me and said, Paul we put you and Andy together again so let’s see some great banter!
I turned to him with a straight face and said, Beiju: This is the Poker Million with a 20K buy in, I’m not here to make banter or for TV, I’m here to Win. I think I left him speechless which is not easy to do.

I sat at the table did some meditation and created a zone that I was in control of. I was ready to play and play my heart out. I wanted to win more than anything and I wanted to show a different Paul Zimbler to the one in the past few TV shows I have done. This was not going to be easy but I knew it could be done.
To see how the heat was played and hand for hand updates go to
http://www.matchroompoker.com/ and click on the forum or go straight to heat 4 by clicking
http://www.matchroompokerforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=797I managed to control this heat and myself for near enough the whole thing. I went low once and lost a vital race with AJ v Liam’s 88 3 handed which put Liam

right back in it. I did get lucky in 1 hand which I was surprised that I had to show after Liam snap called my all in with AT. I of course had 2 5 suited and decided not to play the stop and go but to just get it all in as I was sure he was folding. It was the only time in the whole tournament I was making any real move and the only time I was in danger and could have gone out. I would have been really pissed if I went out there but Destiny was on my side and I got to the heads up exactly level.
Adam had been getting great cards all day and knocked out every player at the table. I was playing great and did tell him that I wished him every success in the turbo heat as I would love to have seen him in the semi finals with me. I gave him a lot of respect and decided to play small pot poker with him heads up since this would/should give me an edge. I was folding a lot to his bets until I decided that he should not be running over me but surely it should have been visa versa. I made a small re-raise once and he folded. That’s the Paul Zimbler we all miss I said out loud but didn’t show my cards.
I think looking back I played 1 hand badly when we were 3 handed. Adam raised I called KcQc flop was K high with 2 clubs. Since I didn’t want to give him a chance here as Liam was still in I decided to fast play and if he had a hand he called if not he wouldn’t. I think if I took a bit more time ther

e to think I could have won a few chips from him there and gone into the heads up with a big chip lead but maybe then the heads up would have been played differently.
I slow played a lot and finally I got him to make a big mistake. I called his raise pre flop with KQ and the flop was K high I checked and he moved all in I called and he had 22. The turn and river didn’t help him and I was through to the semi finals as promised of the POKER MILLION VIII.
A big thank you goes to all the people who backed me. You are now all free rolling as I offered them 100% of the investment back on the first $20,000 I won.
The semi Final is on the 9th October and the line up is just beautiful. Annette Obrestad, Luke Schwartz, Tony Bloom, Nam Le, Juha Helppi, on line qualifier and turbo heat winner Peter Vasiliou and me. This will be a serious semi final and one I am sure I will come out of with a lot of chips. The final is then Live on the 6th December.