It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to wish that for your birthday you’d win a major poker tournament. It is, after all, a common gift, often made to oneself; that ticket into a tournament you wouldn’t normally stretch to. But poker professionals wish for it too, and certainly those as dedicated to the grind as 888poker ambassador Dominik Nitsche.

When the German woke up on his birthday, the main difference was that he was already on Day 2, though he had a lot of hard work to do to make the day not one that could have been spent unwrapping presents instead. Coming into the day, which would eventually last eight hours and earn the four-time WSOP bracelet winner over $121,000 on his 30th birthday, Nitsche had just seven big blinds.

With a million-dollar guarantee, the 888Millions SuperStorm Main Event included 3,196 entries and only 567 of those players returned to stacks on Sunday afternoon. Only 300 of those players would make the money and earn a profit, and Nitsche wasn’t the only 888poker ambaasador in the mix, with Martin Jacobson and Ana Marquez both chasing the top prize too.

It wasn’t long before that bubble burst, just over an hour into the action, and while Marquez and Nitsche both survived it, Jacobson fell by the wayside without making the cut. For Marquez, it was stay of execution as she fell in 219th place for a cash of $700. Nitsche, of course, would run all the way to the final table of nine, though others such as Ben Warrington and Tom Hall would miss out despite running deep.