Like most pros, Patrik Antonius makes the game seem easy. ‘You don’t need to be Einstein, you just need passion for it,’ he says.

But the ice-cold Finn is not immune to the downswings that affect us all. In the recent Million Dollar Cash Game in London, he lost a $700,000 pot to Phil Ivey and he’s been having an even more torrid time in the Big Game.

‘I’ve lost over a million this year,’ he says. Still, even in a bad year Antonius does better than most, and that’s because he’s constantly refining his game.

In tournaments he is way past the $600,000-mark and rather ominously for everyone else, he’s barely out of first gear.