James Akenhead, 27 has been playing poker professionally for five years and earnt well over $2,700,000 from live poker tournaments. He is the most recent winner of the prestigious Poker Million tournament which is held annualy on Sky Sports.

James is a huge pool/snooker enthusiast and was ranked in the top 20 UK 9-ball pool players in 2003. He found poker in 2004 around the same time as he was travelling the pool circuit. Along with his friend Chaz Chattha he began travelling around London playing small buy in tournaments at snooker/pool halls and poker clubs such as Equal chance and The Gutshot. He was a National Rail Train conductor at the time but he soon found out that playing poker and controlling a train with hundreds of passengers did not go well together. After winning $35,000 online in one day in 2006 he quit his job and became a poker pro.

In 2007 he had some success winning a $1000 buy in tournament at The Bellagio Cup Festival in Las Vegas for over $41,000. 2008 was the year where James really came out of his shell and made his first ever GUKPT final table apperance (Newcastle) finishing 3rd for $46,000. This spurred on his hunger and a few weeks later he travelled to the WSOP 2008 and finished 2nd in the first event of the series for over $520,000. If it was not for a bad beat he suffered heads up, he surely would have captured his first ever title and a much coverted WSOP gold bracelet. He ended a very successful 2008 with a 4th place finished in the televised 888.com UK open for a $40,000 payday.

2009 has seen James carry out one of the most impressive runs in poker history. Not only did he make the final table of the £10,000 WSOPE main event in London, he also ousted over 6400 runners in the $10,000 WSOP main event in Las Vegas to make the ''November nine'' These two incredible feats saw him bag over $1,350,000 but he was'nt finished there. He ended 2009 with 2 major victories. On his first ever apperance of ''Poker After Dark'' in Las Vegas he defeated 5 very well known players to win $120,000. A few weeks later he had more success on a televised event, this time in the UK. James defeated one of the toughest fields ever assembled to capture the Full Tilt Poker Million crown along with $500,000 and cement his place in poker history.

James is sponsored by Full Tilt Poker

View James results database here

Contact James at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Follow James on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/James_Akenhead