When the 4,000 or so players sit down on Monday to play Day 1C of the 2017 World Series of Poker Main Event there’s one guy who can claim he has nothing to lose.

41-year-old Ky Maciejewski is playing the event having invested exactly zero dollars in his qualification process. Maciejewski, who works as a builder in Bicester, England, won his Main Event package on 888poker through a freeroll sponsored by The Sun newspaper.

Maciejewski, who regularly plays micro and small stakes online, saw an article on TheSun.co.uk one day at work and made plans to register for the event after he got home that night.

“I got the details, logged on and then my daughter phoned up. I could see my chips disappearing, but you’ve got to talk to the daughter, haven’t you?,” said Maciejewski. ”Started playing about 20 minutes, half an hour after the game started. I stayed on, stayed on, got in position for the next day with 45 in it.”

Once he was in the second stage of the tournament, he still wasn’t sure he believed that the prize was an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas to play in the Main Event. So he called some of his poker-playing friends to confirm it for him. Once he knew he could find himself rubbing elbows with some of his poker heroes, Maciejewski amped up the aggression.

“Got down to the last table and smashed it. I lost one hand I thought I should I have had but I lost to a lucky river for that chap. The next hand I just annihilated him, the cards fell for what I required,” said Maciejewski. “I thought it would be a good two or three hours of play and it was a 20 minutes, I took them all out. “

As part of the package, Maciejewski was chosen to represent Team UK in the 888poker “8-Team” promotion pitting teams from the UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil and Sweden against each other. Maciejewski is joined by Chris Moorman and William Kassouf representing the Union Jack.

The 8-Team event awards a 2018 Main Event seat to the qualifier on the team that performs the best this year. Just getting the chance to meet Moorman and Kassouf and learn a little bit from them is a reward Maciejewski can’t put a price on.

“Lovely people. I was sat there just watching and listening to how they talk and correspond,” said Maciejewski. “You’re still learning, even though you’re not playing the game, you’re watching and seeing what everyone else does, because I might be playing one of them in the tournament.”

While most in his situation might find themselves dealing with nerves, Maciejewski is simply ready to embrace the experience for what it is – a vacation with a chance at $10 million score.

“I’ve done scuba diving and skydiving, and I was like, ‘What do you do next?’ Then I won the tournament and I was like ‘Good job. That’s the next’.,” said Maciejewski. “You jump out of a plane at 15,000, 16,000 foot, and you’re not attached to anyone, they’re holding onto you by little hooks on your shoulders. What can beat that? Only poker.”

With that in mind, Maciejewski knows there’s only one thing that can add an exclamation point to this whole experience.

“Something shiny on right hand, isn’t it? That’s the only way you can top it,” said Maciejewski.