Maurice Hawkins, a professional poker player from West Palm Beach, Florida, made history last night as he became the only player to have ever won back-to-back WSOP Circuit Main Event titles. He last emerged victorious massive field of the 2015/16 WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee $1,675 Main Event for his seventh gold ring and the amount of $279,722 in prize money.
Hawkins has had quite an impressive run in the series over the past month. The player has won three gold rings, has made four final table appearances, and has earned a total of $431,561. What is more, following his latest victory, he now has seven gold rings and is fifth in the all-time WSOP Circuit gold rings list standing only two pieces behind all-time leader Alex Masek.
The $1,675 Main Event attracted as many as 1,008 entries. The accumulated a prize pool of $1,512,000 and was distributed to the top 108 finishers, with min-cashes amounting to $2,782.
Two weeks ago, Hawkins bested the field of the Horseshoe Council Bluffs Main Event after he spent the greater time of the tournament at the top of the chip counts chart. At Harrah’s Cherokee, however, the player had some hard time as he was among the short stacks on Day 2 and halfway through Day 3 of the event.
Day 3 of the tournament kicked off with 20 players returning to play down to the nine-handed final table and to a champion. At that time, Hawkins was 16th in chips. When players set the unofficial ten-handed final table, the soon-to-become winner was 8th in chips. At a certain point, he had only nine big blinds left but when the official final table play began, the player won a considerable pot and started gaining strength to finally win the whole tournament.
Hawkins faced one-time gold ring winner and one-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Leive Force from Tallahassee, Florida heads-up. Two-handed play commenced with Hawkins holding four times more chips than his opponent. It did not take much before Force left the final table as a runner-up.
On what turned out to be the final hand in play, Force bet 400,000 pre-flop and Hawkins called. The flop came [Js][4c][3h]. Hawkins checked and Force bet 400,000. His opponent called. The [Ad] came on the turn to see Hawkins check again. Force bet 650,000 and Hawkins called. The [2d] appeared on the river and Hawkins moved all in. Force needed a few seconds before calling. Hawkins turned over [As][2s] and Force showed [Qd][Qh]. Eliminated in 2nd place, Force took the amount of $172,943.
One-time gold ring winner Chip Ervin from Tuscaloosa, Alabama took 3rd place for $128,520. Former gold ring winner Karthik Ramakrishnan from Johnson City, Tennessee finished 4th for $96,617. Phillip Lowery from Atlanta, Georgia collected $73,468 for taking 5th place in the event. Brannon Cashion from Charlotte, North Carolina scooped a payout of $56,519 for his sixth-place finish.
Corey Bierria from Atlanta, Georgia took 7th place, good for $43,984. Martin Debruhi from Winston Salem, North Carolina finished 8th for $34,625. Hamid Izadi from Rsweel, Georgia was paid $27,579 for taking 9th place in the tournament.
