Haydon trades in spikes for bracelet

Will Haydon won the $2,500 buy-in Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em championship at the World Series of Poker early on Thursday morning and $630,031. The 23-year-old professional poker player from San Francisco, Calif., earned his first WSOP bracelet.

Haydon graduated from Palo Alto High School and was offered a full college scholarship to play golf. He attended UC-Davis for a year, but dropped out of school to play poker. Haydon has been playing professionally for about four years.

Haydon has several big wins and high-finishes in online poker tournaments. He once won an online poker tournament that paid $500,000. He won another major online tournament that paid $160,000.

According to official records, Haydon now has one win, one final table appearance, and one in-the-money finish at the WSOP. His career WSOP earnings are now $630,031.

"This is pretty much the Holy Grail," he said. If it was between this versus winning a million dollars but no bracelet -- I would rather have this."

Haydon said his experience as a serious golfer has helped him in poker.

"I would say the biggest thing in golf for me is the mental game," he said. "It carried over pretty naturally to poker – especially in terms of discipline and patience. You have to pick out situations and know what to do in those situations."

The final table consisted of just one former WSOP gold bracelet winner – Eddy Scharf, from Cologne, Germany. Scharf is a two-time champion. His last win took place in 2003.

Three different nations were represented at the final table: Germany, South Africa, and the United States. This was the first final table this year that included a citizen of South Africa.

The final table began six-handed.

Final table participants ranged in age from 23 to 56.

The runner up was Jeffrey Papola, from New York, NY. He is a law student and poker pro. Papola has cashed three straight years at the WSOP. He earned a very respectable consolation prize totaling $391,031.

The third-place finisher was Joe Baldwin, from University Place, WA. He is a business owner who was making his fifth WSOP career cash. Third place paid $248,265.

The fourth-place finisher was former Lufthansa Airlines pilot Eddy Scharf. He won WSOP gold bracelets in 2001 (Limit Omaha High-Low Split) and 2003 (Limit Omaha High-Low Split). This marked Scharf's fifth WSOP final table appearance and was his best showing since a fifth-place showing in 2004. Scharf collected a cool $163,649.

The fifth-place finisher was Jarred Solomon, from Johannesburg, South Africa. He previously won an event at the 2008 Aussie Millions. Solomon noted that he is an avid soccer fan, but chose to miss his host nation's World Cup spectacle in order to come and play at this year's WSOP. The devotion to poker paid off nicely, to the tune of $110,903.

The sixth-place finisher was Steve Crowley, from Midlothian, VA. He is a former civil engineer-turned poker pro. Crowley cashed for the 11th time, and now has more than $300,000 in career earnings after pocketing $77,228 for this fine performance.

The final table officially began at 7:00 pm and ended at 3:20 am. The final table clocked in at 8 hours and 20 minutes.

The top 126 finishers collected prize money. Former WSOP gold bracelet finishers who cashed in this event included Steve Billirakis, Matthew Graham, David Kitai, Daniel Negreanu, Eddy Scharf, and Jerry Yang.

This year marked Yang's first time to cash at the WSOP since his 2007 Main Event victory. He has now finished in-the-money three times at this year's WSOP.

With his 16th-place finish in this tournament, Daniel Negreanu now has 46 career cashes, which moves him up into a 13th-place tie with Brent Carter and Thor Hansen on the all-time in-the-money rankings.

The defending champion was Brock Parker, from Silver Spring, MD. He did not enter this year's tournament.

Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em made its WSOP debut in 2005. Three six-handed events were included on the 2006 schedule. Last year, there was only one six-handed event. Former champions from these events include Isaac "The General" Galazan, Dutch Boyd, Bill Chen, Jeff Madsen, Jason Warner, Ralph E. Porter, Ken Aldridge, and Matt Hawrilenko.

There were 1,068 players in this event last year. This year's attendance increased to 1,245 players.

The tournament was played over three consecutive days, from June 14-16, 2010.

Haydon came into the final table (six-handed) with the shortest stack.

The final hand of the tournament came when Haydon's Ac Jh bested Jeff Papola's As 6h. The board cards could not have come much better for Haydon as the five community cards showed Ks Qs 4h 9c Td. The river card gave Haydon a straight and his first WSOP victory.

Modified from notes provided by Nolan Dalla for www.wsop.com.