Maurice Hawkins Enjoys Record Breaking Year

As well as being one of poker’s larger-than-life characters, Florida pro Maurice Hawkins has now entered the game’s history books after an incredible 2016 in which he has notched up three WSOP Circuit main event titles. Previous to this year, the feat had only ever been accomplished by Blair Hinkle and Chris Ferguson, although it took the 2000 WSOP Main Event champion two and a half years to do.
Maurice Hawkins now boasts a total of eight WSOPC gold rings, placing him tied in second place alongside Chris Reslock, Valentin Vornicu, and Ari Engel, and just behind Alex Masek currently with nine rings. As a result of the most successful year of his professional tournament career, Hawkins has now earned $2,352,578 playing live events, of which $567,335 has been won this year alone.
The seat of Hawkins’s latest victory was in his home state of Florida, and was held at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach. Its $1,675 WSOPC main event subsequently attracted 261 entrants to create a prize pool worth $391,500, and four days later Hawkins managed to beat back his opponents, including Khoan Ho heads-up, to capture the title, as well as its first place prize of $95,921.
Hawkins’s win comes despite being the tournament’s short stack when just ten players remained. He then managed to gain ground before eliminating Tim Seidensticker in 10th, to enter the final table of nine in 3rd place. Following his famous victory, Hawkins said “I set a goal and I accomplished it. I feel very happy,” before then speaking about himself in the third person, and stating: “We don’t need to explain who won. We all know when he got to the final table he was going to take it down.”
Final Table Results:
1: Maurice Hawkins – $95,921
2: Khoan Ho – $59,265
3: Joshua Hillock – $42,818
4: Lacy Wills – $31,512
5: Filipp Khavin – $23,607
6: Ryan Chase – $17,989
7: T.J.Shulman – $13,937
8: Jason Bullock – $10,974
9: Bryan Rosen – $8,777