Will Jaffe defeats 3,221 in Event 54

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It was only fitting that, in a tournament whose play was extended an extra day to July 4, Event 54 ($1,000 no-limit hold 'em) was won by American Will Jaffe.

Jaffe, a 26-year-old professional from Bridgehampton, New York, has been playing poker professionally for four years, since discovering the game in college, but he's never had a tournament like this one. Jaffe's largest live cash prior to Event 54 was for $45,338. He multiplied that by more than 11 times when he won the event, taking home the bracelet and $500,075 as he defeated the field of 3,221.

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WSOP.comWill Jaffe, 26, earned $500,075 for his Event 54 victory.

"Well this is my goal," said Jaffe of winning the WSOP bracelet. "I wanted to win at least one bracelet, and I wanted to make a deep run in the main event. Those were the two goals that I really wanted to do in poker. I don't know if I ever really believed that I would win, especially in a field of over 3,000 like that."

From the tournament's midway point, it was Jaffe's to lose. Originally scheduled to span three days, Jaffe had more than twice as many chips as any of his 14 Day 3 competitors. Jaffe didn't play much in the third day's early goings, only vying for the lead with Canadian Nghi Van Tran by the time the final table rolled around. It was Jaffe who'd eventually take the aggressive Tran out in fourth place, leaving him to compete with new chip leader Joseph Kuether for top honors. While Luis Campelo chipped away at both bog stacks, Jaffe eventually took out Kuether to draw virtually even going into-heads-up play with Campelo. After the two jockeyed for the lead early in heads-up play, Day 3 ended and they agreed to come back the next afternoon to finish what they'd started.

Day 4 was all Jaffe. Coming in close to even stacks, Jaffe immediately build up a lead, and while he'd momentarily lose it when Campelo doubled up on a preflop K-2 all-in against Jaffe's A-Q, Jaffe again took back most of the chips and this time, kept them. Finally, with his stack dwindling, Campelo moved all-in with Kd-3s only to get called by Jaffe's Ac-2s. This time, the better hand held up and awarded Jaffe the title and the biggest score of his life.

The win was just the third cash of Jaffe's WSOP career. For Campelo, a Brazilian, the cash was his fourth at WSOP and one of the biggest in his country's history. Brazil has won two bracelets as a nation.

Other notable finishers include David Baker (13th), John Eames (18th), Alex Kravchenko (33rd) and Jon Friedberg (81st).

Below are the complete results of Event 54 at the 2012 World Series of Poker:

Event 54: No-limit hold 'em
Buy-in: $1,000
Entries: 3,221
Prize pool: $2,898,900
Players in the money: 324

1. Will Jaffe ($500,075)
2. Luis Campelo ($309,429)
3. Joseph Kuether ($218,983)
4. Nghi Van Tran ($158,512)
5. Ken Fishman ($116,072)
6. Jason Tompkins ($85,981)
7. Muhamet Perati ($64,414)
8. Benjamin Grise ($48,788)
9. Jeff Fielder ($37,367)
10. Brett Schwertley ($28,931)
11. Carl Le ($28,931)
12. Benjamin Volpe ($28,931)
13. David 'Bakes' Baker ($22,640)
14. Ian Chan ($22,640)
15. Clayton Fletcher ($22,640)
16. Robert Brown ($17,915)
17. David Smart ($17,915)
18. John Eames ($17,915)
19. Gianluca Rullo ($14,321)
20. Fernando Casteneda ($14,321)
21. David Singontiko ($14,321)
22. Nick Abou Risk ($14,321)
23. Ryan Pringle ($14,321)
24. Sofia Lovgren ($14,321)
25. Brett Shaffer ($14,321)
26. Wendy Freedman ($14,321)
27. Katherine Dozier ($14,321)
28. Kyle Fleishman ($11,567)
29. David Bernstein ($11,567)
30. Ray Foley ($11,567)
31. Carlo Savinelli ($11,567)
32. John Schumacher ($11,567)
33. Alexander Kravchenko ($11,567)
34. Sergey Tikhonov ($11,567)
35. Jean-Philippe Rohr ($11,567)
36. Chae Kim ($11,567)
37. Yori Epskamp ($9,450)
38. Kenneth Shelton ($9,450)
39. Dash Dudley ($9,450)
40. Steven Sechler ($9,450)
41. Marco Oliveira ($9,450)
42. Gionni Demers ($9,450)
43. Ronnie Smith ($9,450)
44. William Connatser ($9,450)
45. Rosario Aloe ($9,450)
46. Kent Vanho ($7,798)
47. Sean Lenning ($7,798)
48. Eric Boquet ($7,798)
49. Jonas Mackoff ($7,798)
50. Antoine Maurice ($7,798)
51. Joao Simao ($7,798)
52. Daniel Thornton ($7,798)
53. Larysa Miroshnichenko ($7,798)
54. Douglas Yamashiro ($7,798)
55. Marco Maldonado ($6,494)
56. Allan Mishra ($6,494)
57. Jonathan Plens ($6,494)
58. Ricardo Suriano ($6,494)
59. Jeffrey Kornblum ($6,494)
60. Tomer Berda ($6,494)
61. Andrew Dean ($6,494)
62. Brad Libson ($6,494)
63. Karl Weber ($6,494)
64. Kingsly Shum ($5,450)
65. Aleksandr Mozhnaykov ($5,450)
66. Ronald McMillan ($5,450)
67. Jody Orgee ($5,450)
68. Sean Womack ($5,450)
69. Rolf Slotboom ($5,450)
70. Keith Charles Lehr ($5,450)
71. Felicia Johnico ($5,450)
72. Justin Zaki ($5,450)
73. Michael Fisher ($4,638)
74. Sean Rice ($4,638)
75. Prince Cassell ($4,638)
76. Uri Reichenstein ($4,638)
77. William Bowers ($4,638)
78. Jia Liu ($4,638)
79. Jacob Macari ($4,638)
80. Allen Kessler ($4,638)
81. Jon Frieberg ($4,638)
82. Joshua Ladines ($3,971)
83. Bryan Paris ($3,971)
84. Joey Weissman ($3,971)
85. Steve Cha ($3,971)
86. David Dalesandro ($3,971)
87. Jonathan Ko ($3,971)
88. Joseph Giampietro ($3,971)
89. Yarslav Chepan ($3,971)
90. Torsten Karock ($3,971)
91. Steven Polimeni ($3,450)
92. Gianluca Escobar ($3,450)
93. Alex Moore ($3,450)
94. Matas Dilpsas ($3,450)
95. Gary Lopez ($3,450)
96. Adam Kaplan ($3,450)
97. Joshua Pender ($3,450)
98. Kyle Cartwright ($3,450)
99. Nicholas Getzen ($3,450)
100. Paul Henkel ($3,015)
101. Matthew Stone ($3,015)
102. Justin Schwartz ($3,015)
103. Rodolphe Rey ($3,015)
104. Steven Firestone ($3,015)
105. Ajay Gnasambanthan ($3,015)
106. Alan Brodsky ($3,015)
107. Celso Adami ($3,015)
108. Manig Loeser ($3,015)
109. Michael Corson ($3,015)
110. Richard Surmick ($3,015)
111. Edward Lang ($3,015)
112. Praytush Buddiga ($3,015)
113. Reginal Caymol ($3,015)
114. Michael Kennedy ($3,015)
115. Danny Mizrachi ($3,015)
116. Steven Mccartney ($3,015)
117. Michael Craig ($3,015)
118. Scott Zakheim ($3,015)
119. Rodrigo Caprioli ($3,015)
120. Mark Miller ($3,015)
121. Jens Hansen ($3,015)
122. Debra Terryah ($3,015)
123. Chadwick Wise ($3,015)
124. Jeff Schachter ($3,015)
125. Kazuya Ogino ($3,015)
126. Adam Nattress ($3,015)
127. Seth Davies ($3,015)
128. Mark Heishman ($3,015)
129. Brian Benhamou ($3,015)
130. Zoran Andic ($3,015)
131. Wendy Rubin ($3,015)
132. Alex Outhred ($3,015)
133. Owen Crowe ($3,015)
134. Yann Brosolo ($3,015)
135. Todd Barrett ($3,015)
136. Attila Kovesi ($3,015)
137. Eugene Du Plassis ($3,015)
138. Fernando Del Valle ($3,015)
139. Robert Hwang ($3,015)
140. Jose Perez ($3,015)
141. Hayden Fortini ($3,015)
142. Chris Moorman ($3,015)
143. Toros Toujian ($3,015)
144. Wai Cheng ($3,015)
145. Cory Bowen ($2,667)
146. Gary Bain ($2,667)
147. Patrick Chan ($2,667)
148. Christos Arvanitis ($2,667)
149. Rod Fani ($2,667)
150. Richard Lee ($2,667)
151. Dutch Boyd ($2,667)
152. Jeffrey Hoffman ($2,667)
153. David Paredes ($2,667)
154. Lawrence Danter ($2,667)
155. Raffaele Bertolucci ($2,667)
156. Matt Stout ($2,667)
157. Sunnt Chattha ($2,667)
158. Sid Rezzoug ($2,667)
159. Duc Phuong Nguyen ($2,667)
160. Liya Gerasimova ($2,667)
161. Kevin Boudreau ($2,667)
162. Kevin Vandersmissen ($2,667)
163. Arthur Morris ($2,667)
164. Van Den Bosc Nicolaas ($2,667)
165. Nelson Robinson ($2,667)
166. Matthew Linvingston ($2,667)
167. Martin Finger ($2,667)
168. Nicholas Biddle ($2,667)
169. Shouan Dabiri ($2,667)
170. Lars Flod ($2,667)
171. Edward Antonacci ($2,667)
172. Fu Wong ($2,667)
173. Ferdinado Locascio ($2,667)
174. Daniel Spillers ($2,667)
175. Rob Lederer ($2,667)
176. Dominik Renner ($2,667)
177. Lucas Priour ($2,667)
178. Andrea Coumos ($2,667)
179. Benjamin Palmer ($2,667)
180. Maurice Hawkins ($2,667)
181. Robert Pacieb ($2,667)
182. James Bunner ($2,667)
183. Claudio Rocca ($2,667)
184. Pamela Spooner ($2,667)
185. Andreas Heissenberger ($2,667)
186. Daniel Blum ($2,667)
187. Jed Friedman ($2,667)
188. Alexis Bouchiouane ($2,667)
189. Douglas Lang ($2,667)
190. Robert Vaghefi ($2,377)
191. Vincent Wille ($2,377)
192. Robert Ward ($2,377)
193. David Roepke ($2,377)
194. Inesa Paberz ($2,377)
195. Mihai Manole ($2,377)
196. Jen-Yue Chiang ($2,377)
197. Steve Stelluti ($2,377)
198. David Dao ($2,377)
199. Christopher Kolla ($2,377)
200. Paul Magriel ($2,377)
201. Daniel Sumners ($2,377)
202. Jordan Waytiuk ($2,377)
203. David Milby ($2,377)
204. Mitch Schock ($2,377)
205. Kerry Cotterell ($2,377)
206. David Stogel ($2,377)
207. Rainer Fink ($2,377)
208. Kirk Hansen ($2,377)
209. Michael Esposito ($2,377)
210. Rebecca Keetch ($2,377)
211. Sandor Walters ($2,377)
212. Randy Burstein ($2,377)
213. Antonio Luft ($2,377)
214. Gary Benson ($2,377)
215. Vincent Jacques ($2,377)
216. Tom McCormick ($2,377)
217. Jesse Capps ($2,377)
218. Geoffrey Ross ($2,377)
219. Jeffrey Argondizzo ($2,377)
220. Huck Seed ($2,377)
221. Grant Levy ($2,377)
222. David Cohen-Taisne ($2,377)
223. Nicolas Adamakis ($2,377)
224. Haris Tahirovic ($2,377)
225. Robert Flowers ($2,377)
226. Richard Trembley ($2,377)
227. Carlos Martinez ($2,377)
228. Peter Hengsakul ($2,377)
229. Ernesto Robles ($2,377)
230. Timothy Nelson ($2,377)
231. Armando Tebano ($2,377)
232. Steven Flory ($2,377)
233. Idan Greenberg ($2,377)
234. Jerome Moon ($2,377)
235. Andres Rey ($2,145)
236. Frank Piocos ($2,145)
237. Marko Milivojevic ($2,145)
238. Douglas Moss ($2,145)
239. Cullen Hofmann ($2,145)
240. Dusty Tillotson ($2,145)
241. Adam Costello ($2,145)
242. Kasper Frohling ($2,145)
243. Jeffery Schneider ($2,145)
244. John Hertel ($2,145)
245. Samuel Choae ($2,145)
246. Dao Bac ($2,145)
247. Christopher Fraser ($2,145)
248. Robert Nemeskerikiss ($2,145)
249. Rick Podesta ($2,145)
250. Samuel McGrath ($2,145)
251. Brian Shaw ($2,145)
252. Dara Davey ($2,145)
253. Terrence Byrnes ($2,145)
254. Matthew Alexander ($2,145)
255. Jake Scwartz ($2,145)
256. Asgeir Mickelson ($2,145)
257. Todd Richardson ($2,145)
258. Samir Brages ($2,145)
259. Jason Villard ($2,145)
260. Simon Fredslundgodthaab ($2,145)
261. Joseph Alban ($2,145)
262. Ashton Tucker ($2,145)
263. Joel Nichols ($2,145)
264. Gustavo Parra ($2,145)
265. Jasaan Dabney ($2,145)
266. Sevag Kalayedijan ($2,145)
267. Mate Mecs ($2,145)
268. Morten Mortensen ($2,145)
269. John Hoang ($2,145)
270. Jacques Arama ($2,145)
271. Darryll Fish ($2,145)
272. Patrick Eskandar ($2,145)
273. Stephen Marta ($2,145)
274. Christopher Conrad ($2,145)
275. Shane Hewko ($2,145)
276. Adam Heger ($2,145)
277. Jorge Lozano ($2,145)
278. Mark Herm ($2,145)
279. Susan Strohbach ($2,145)
280. David Fung ($1,942)
281. Johnny Elmore ($1,942)
282. Jonathan Roy ($1,942)
283. James Mitchell ($1,942)
284. Shannon Shorr ($1,942)
285. Wayne Smith ($1,942)
286. Mark Shanahan ($1,942)
287. Reto Herrmann ($1,942)
288. Marc Negron ($1,942)
289. Charles Crittenden ($1,942)
290. Kyle Lodes ($1,942)
291. Mitchell Rosenberg ($1,942)
292. Nicholas Verkaik ($1,942)
293. Benjamin Beebe ($1,942)
294. Thibault Leduc ($1,942)
295. Lokesh Garg ($1,942)
296. Francisco Bojorge ($1,942)
297. John Vincent ($1,942)
298. John Magill ($1,942)
299. Richard Powell ($1,942)
300. Zaed Shamoon ($1,942)
301. Sam Holden ($1,942)
302. Steven Fink ($1,942)
303. Edmund Liu ($1,942)
304. Elizabeth Bennett Martin ($1,942)
305. Seth Kaplan ($1,942)
306. Craig Carillo ($1,942)
307. Jason Dizdul ($1,942)
308. David Crane ($1,942)
309. Rudy Blondeau ($1,942)
310. Bart Hanson ($1,942)
311. Thomas Doyle ($1,942)
312. Anthony Vidmer ($1,942)
313. Doug Hampton ($1,942)
314. John Kadlecek ($1,942)
315. John Hayes ($1,942)
316. Garrett Schiffman ($1,942)
317. James Keys ($1,942)
318. Chris Crilly ($1,942)
319. Andrew Stringer ($1,942)
320. Mohammed Khalel ($1,942)
321. Jeremy Burleson ($1,942)
322. Jamie Armstrong ($1,942)
323. Remi Subair ($1,942)
324. David Hoote ($1,942)

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Gary Wise

ESPN Poker

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Gary Wise has contributed to ESPN.com since 2007. He is well-studied in the history of poker and presents a unique tableside view of the goings-on in the poker community.