James Akenhead Triumphant at the Full Tilt Poker Million VIII

James Akenhead has accomplished a whole lot this year including making the final table at the World Series of Poker as a November Niner. Now, the young poker prodigy has another major victory with the winning of the Full Tilt Poker Million VIII earning him a $500,000 payday in the process.

The Full Tilt Poker Million is a prestigious tournament by invitation only and included some of the most well known online and live game players from around the globe. In all, 72 players competed in the event for the half million dollar grand prize.

Earlier this year, the preliminary and semi-final events were filmed in London and aired on the Sky Sports, a European channel.

In the beginning of the day the final table chip leader was Luke “Full Flush” Schwartz with a dominating chip stack of 397,000. Akenhead began the final table battle armed with 338,000 as the runner up on the leaderboard.

The final table was made up of Akenhead, Schwartz, Craig Wakeham, CardRunners instructor Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby, Juha Helppi, Dag Martin Mikkelsen and online qualifier Peter Vasiliou. To qualify for the Poker Million, Vasiliou had to defeat a number of top notch pros.

Caby was unfortunately the first to be eliminated from the final table after moving all-in with pocket sevens on the button. Mikkelsen called out of the blinds with K-4 and the flop turned up a king sending Caby home with a $50,000 prize for seventh place. The Piece of Taylor promo going on at CardRunners will still receive $500 for participating in the event.

Mikkelsen also managed to knock out another player from the competition and gain the chip lead as Vasiliou busted in sixth place. At that point, the blinds were so high that players were either going all-in, or folding right off the bat.

Schwartz moved all his chips in with a pair of eights against Akenhead’s As-7s. Schwartz though he had been outdone and even began to get up from the table when the flop fell 10-9-8. This gave Schwartz three of a kind but a chance for Akenhead to get a straight or flush. And the turn completed a flush for Akenhead sending him flying to the top of the leader board with a good size chip lead over his opponents.

Schwartz was next to fall followed shortly by Mikkelsen for fourth and third place. This left Helppi with a chip lead against Akenhead for the championship of the Poker Million. After only four hours, the final table came to a conclusion. Helppi held pocket sixes and Akenhead tens. The tens remained strong as the board was laid out.

 Helppi was eliminated in second place with $250,000 and Akenhead took home his first major tournament win of 2009. It looks like Akenhead may be the next up and coming poker pro to watch out for as the New Year brings another round of poker tours to compete in.

Here’s a look at the Full Tilt Poker Millions Final Table Results:

First place: James Akenhead-$500,000

Second place: Juha Helppi-$250,000

Third place: Dag Martin Mikkelsen- $200,000

Fourth place: Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz- $150,000

Fifth place: Craig Wakeham- $100,000

Sixth place: Peter Vasiliou- $75,000

Seventh place: Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby- $50,000