WSOP Circuit Tunica Won by Paul Wasicka

Paul Wasicka has won the World Series of Poker Circuit $5,000 NLHE championship event in Tunica, Mississippi after defeating a field of 96 players to take the title and the $139,422 first place prize.
Paul Wasicka is best known for his runner-up finish to Jamie Gold at the 2006 WSOP Main Event, where he won an incredible $6,102,499 for his efforts. He then went on to take down the 2007 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship for $455,615, defeating an all star line-up including  Eli Elezra, Joe Hachem, T.J. Cloutier, Nam Le, Shannon Elizabeth, and finally Chad Brown along the way.
Despite tournament winnings in excess of $7,600,000, Wasicka’s Tunica victory is only his second live tournament title and appears to have given his career a much needed confidence boost. Following his win, Paul Wasicka commented:
“It’s weird experiencing that much success that young in your career. It toys with you a bit; you lose motivation and question why you’re playing…This is something that I’ve been searching for, for a very long time. This is just awesome, it was always about the money, but now it was about just taking one down.”
As the last nine players took their seats, the biggest poker names at the final table included Carter Phillips, Dwyte Pilgrim and Matt “Allinat420″ Stout. Jerry Saucier was first to exit in ninth ($12,368) after bluffing into Carter Phillips’ set of Kings. Robert Thornhill’s pocket 8’s came up against pocket K’s and he had to settle for an eighth place finish ($14,616), while seventh spot ($17,990) went to Matt Stout.
Dwyte Pilgrim’s sixth place finish earned him $26,985 after being sent to the rail by Richard Robb’s quad aces, while Carter Phillips took home $35,980 in fifth after running his pocket 6’s into Gurney’s pocket Jacks.
Shane Zell fell in fourth ($44,975) then Richard Robb in third ($62,965) after his AJ was defeated by Gurney’s ace-nine.
Heads-up the stacks were even until Gurney lost a 270,000 pot and never recovered. Before long he was a  5-1 chip underdog and finished the runner-up ($94,448) after pushing his remaining chips in with pocket fours on a 9h 8s 6c flop. Wasicka made the call with his two pair to claim $139,422 in prize money as well as his first tournament win since his 2007.
An obviously buoyed Paul Wasicka was already looking forward to his next engagement and said,”It’s not going to stop for the next month. Heading to L.A. now and then I’m going to hit the Circuits.”