Will Haydon earns first bracelet
July 13, 2010
Six-handed no-limit hold ‘em events have become extremely popular over the past few years. So, the World Series of Poker made sure to offer six-handed events at multiple buy-in levels in 2010, and so far it has been rewarded with large fields in each event. The $2,500 six-handed Event 26 recruited 1,245 players with Will Haydon emerging with the victory, winning the event for $630,031, one of the largest first-place prizes awarded this year.
Haydon, a 23-year-old poker pro from San Francisco, was offered a full college scholarship to play golf, but poker attracted him. After a year, he left school to pursue his latest and now extremely successful endeavor. Playing under the aliases “hAAydon” and “potstabber,” Haydon has had massive success online with numerous six-figure scores. His biggest score came for $541,650 during FTOPS IX in 2008 and with his earnings from this event, he has over $2 million in lifetime winnings.
“This is pretty much the ‘Holy Grail’,” said Haydon. “If it was between this versus winning a million dollars but no bracelet — I would rather have this.”
The short stack coming into the final table, Haydon looked to his online experience to battle back.
“My game plan was really just to try and find a good spot to double up,” he said. “So, it’s just something I’ve done a thousand times. It’s just finding that spot where you think you can do it.”
Former Lufthansa pilot and two-time WSOP champion Eddy Scharf made his fifth final table in this event and finished fourth. It was his highest result since 2004 earning $163,649. Both of Scharf’s bracelets came in limit Omaha high-low split events.
Other notable finishers from Event 26 include Justin Smith (eighth), Erik Cajelais (15th) and Daniel Negreanu (16th). It’s also notable that 2007 WSOP main event champion Jerry Yang finished 57th for his third cash of the year.
Article source www.sports.espn.go.com
Author Andrew Feldman
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