My journey to the WSOP begins at home in north London, playing a $5 satellite tournament against 150 other starry-eyed hopefuls on PokerRoom.com. A winning streak rewards me with a $40 ticket to the next level, from which I progress to the $300 qualifying final.

It’s 11 o’clock on a Saturday night: there are just five tickets for 265 players with sufficient skill (or luck) to get near the end of the rainbow. By 3am, I’m on the final table: only half of us will fly to Las Vegas for a ten-day jaunt with the possibility of snagging $7.5 million in prize money, so the play is incredibly tight.