Just six or seven years ago, when I was living in Las Vegas, the World Series of Poker was a very different animal. It was held downtown in Binion’s Horsehose casino, which gets away with being dark, reasonably dirty and cramped, by being ‘full of poker history’.

It was crowded, frantic, unpleasant, and, well, everything I’d dreamed it would be. Back then poker was still a little raw – it still felt slightly dangerous and underground.

A large percentage of players in the room were professionals and several of them were instantly recognisable. There was a lot less money in the poker economy back then.