Callum Hamilton Has His Sights Set on MILLIONS Online Glory

The $5 million guaranteed MILLIONS Online Main Event shuffles up and deals on December 12 and Callum Hamilton is one partypoker player who will be in the Day 1A field. Callum is not only playing the MILLIONS Online Main Event but he is doing so for free, and with some coaching from Team partypoker’s Patrick Leonard behind him.

He won a competition on Twitter where players were invited to choose a last longer in the recent 2021 World Series of Poker Main Event. Callum went with the United Kingdom’s Jack Oliver, who went on to finish third. Nobody selected runner-up George Holmes or the eventual champion Koray Aldemir in time, meaning Callum had won a $5,300 MILLIONS Online Main Event seat plus some coaching from the legendary “Pads.”

We caught up with Callum and quizzed him about his poker life, why he chose Jack Oliver, and what his plans for MILLIONS Online are. First of all, who is Callum Hamilton?

“I’m from Scotland, and I’ve kind of been living all over the place in France and Spain, and done various freelancing jobs, mostly as a football journalist. I quit that a few years back and now I live in Glasgow and work for a tech company here.”

Loyalty to Friends Results in MILLIONS Online Seat

Callum is primarily a cash game player who has plenty of experience under his belt, but it is only recently that he decided to try take his game to the next level.

“I’ve been playing for a few years, but only remotely seriously for the past year and a bit. I used to play the odd tournament but now I play almost entirely cash at NL100 and NL200, which has gone really well this year. I mostly only play tournaments when there’s a good live one either in Scotland – which is rare – or somewhere I’d like to visit, which obviously hasn’t been possible the past couple of years. I’ll probably start playing more of them now after this but I’m looking forward to getting some trips in during 2022. Hopefully, to Vegas for the next WSOP, even if I just end up mostly playing cash.”

The 2021 WSOP Main Event drew in a 6,650-strong crowd, but Callum went completely left field and selected Jack Oliver to last the longest in the tournament. We’ll be honest, we did not know about Jack until his incredible run, so where did Callum pluck this gem from?

“Because he’s a pal; you’ve got to back your boys, and also I assumed nobody would pick him. Actually, quite a few other people did, but I was the first. The fact he won me this ticket has gone a tiny amount of the way to calm my absolute seethe at not getting a piece of his Main Event action though. He sold on Instagram instead of Discord, FFS! Who does that?!”

Callum may have missed out on a slice of Jack’s $3 million score, but he gained some invaluable insight into his tournament skills when our very own Patrick Leonard, a man with more than $16 million in earnings, critiqued an entire tournament Callum played.

“It was great. I’ve always thought he was a great player but working with him you get to see that a lot more. He’s often discussing things I’d not even consider that make so much sense. I’m pretty clueless at shorter stack depths so I need all the help I can get.”

Being able to pick Patrick’s brains is not something everyone gets to do, so Callum made the most of his free coaching session with one of the game’s elite pros. Of everything he learned, what was the biggest concept Callum took away from his time with Patrick?

“To have a bit more respect for my tournament life, I think. I’m probably one of the spewiest regs in the games I play, and having the odd wild punt is fine for cash games, but obviously dusting off your tournament when you’re never going to play the same spot against any of your opponents again isn’t a great strategy.”

Callum is now putting in hours of study away from the tables in an attempt to brush up on his tournament skillset before the biggest event of his career.

“I’ve shifted my usual study routine over to talking about tournament spots more and have got some materials in for those spots. I’ve also played quite a few tournaments in the lead-up, which was partly just to get the hands for Patrick to go through. I’ve done pretty well there, but that’s just sort of $30-$100 buy-in tournaments, the MILLIONS Online will be a lot different.”

It sure will, that is for certain. MILLIONS Online has a great mix of players from all walks of life. Obviously, the biggest names in poker flock to the event thanks to its large buy-in and $5 million guarantee, but our many satellites mean this is could be one of the softest $5,300 buy-in tournaments found anywhere.

Winning MILLIONS Online Would Be The Dream

Callum has not set himself any real goals but would love to go one better than his friend Jack.

“No goals, which is a bit of a Premier League interview answer, but just trying to play as well as I can. Pads said he’d have my table up, so if I can avoid giving him any facepalm moments then we’ll try to ride any luck we can get from there. Actually, I need to come at least second to one-up Jack, I suppose!”

Nobody remembers the second-place finisher, though, do they? Surely the goal should be to become MILLIONS Online champion?

“That would be the dream. It would need a lot of luck, but I think my biggest tournament score is £3,000, so it would be a slight upgrade on that! I have no idea when I’d do with the money, honestly, beyond probably eating out 365 days a year, and presumably getting a personal trainer as a result. It would be a nice problem to have.”

It sure would! Before Callum got back to his daily grind and studying, we asked if he had anything thoughts he would like to share with our blog’s readers. His reply?

“Mon the Rangers!”

Join Callum in the MILLIONS Online Main Event

Do not worry if $5,300 is outside the constraints of your bankroll because you have plenty of chance to win your way into the MILLIONS Online Main Event.

First, there are dozens of satellites starting from $0.01 that feed into the weekly final phase where at least 20x $5,300 seats are guaranteed. Gareth “Gaz The Hippy” Smirthwaite recently turned $0.01 into a $5,300 seat, so it is definitely possible.

We also recently launched our MILLIONS Online edition of our popular SPINS games. Buy in for $20 and win prizes ranging from $40 cash or MILLIONS Online tickets worth between $55 and $5,300.

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