One idiosyncrasy of the Big Game is its $100,000 cap. The games are structured so that nobody can lose more than $100,000 in a single hand. That rule was put into effect so that a billionaire with more money than card sense can’t get lucky during a round of no-limit and win countless sums, put in pre-flop, from a better player who happens to catch wired Aces. Patrik Antonius – who favours shorthanded games and clearly loves action – is no fan of the $100,000 cap.

"It takes the skill away and makes the game more dangerous,’ he says. ‘On the flop, we often put our money in there and see who gets lucky. [Without the cap] you’d have decisions to make on the river, rather than just putting in chips [during earlier rounds of betting]. If I could change one thing, I’d take the cap up to $200,000. But if my bankroll was five times bigger, I’d like to see it at $500,000."

And taking it off too,

There’s a very good reason for the cap… On at least one occasion, in honour of enormously highrolling players who wanted to get frisky in Bobby’s Room, the cap was dispensed with. Sammy Farha was in action, and here is how he remembers it: ‘There was a rich guy from Paris who was visiting, plus a couple of wild players – including me. We all agreed to play pot-limit Omaha without the cap. It was so crazy that people were losing half-amillion dollars in a single hand.

Money was flying all over the place.’ Farha doesn’t say who won and lost, but he does point out: ‘After that session nobody would play without the cap.’