UK's Matt Ashton Wins WSOP $50k Poker Players Championship For $1.77m

English pro Matt Ashton has won WSOP $50,000 The Poker Players Championship (Event #55), after defeating a field of 132 players over five days on his way to capturing a gold bracelet, and collecting the $1,774,089 first place prize.
The Brit has been on a tear at this year’s WSOP and has now made four final tables for a combined payout of $2,043,492. Following his victory at the highly respected mixed-game event, the good humoured 25 year-old laughed when someone suggested he was now the best player in the world, and replied:
“Of course [I’m the best in the world]”, before adding; “It’s one tournament and anyone can win one tournament. This is harder to win because it’s a tougher field than the others, but it’s just one tournament and it doesn’t say as much.”
Attracted to the $50k buy-in tournament was a small but accomplished field of pros, who then created a prize pool worth $6,336,000. Amongst the notable names cashing in at the event was Kevin Song in 14th ($128,620), Bryn Kenney in 12th ($147,882) and Huck Seed in 11th ($147,882). Matt Ashton was then able to overcome a tough final table of eight, which included the likes of Jonathan Duhamel, David Benyamine and John Hennigan, to take down the prestigious high-rolling event.
When later asked how he managed to perfect his mixed-game skills, Matt Ashton explained: “I played a lot online and found myself talking to friends like Christopher George and Eric Rodawig and learning stud games with them. I got bored of hold’em for a while and when I wanted to play something else or was on tilt, I would just play low stakes HORSE games and just learned the games. The mixed games became more popular and I just kept playing them and playing them.”
The final table payouts were as follows:
1. Matt Ashton — $1,774,089
2. Don Nguyen — $1,096,254
3. John Hennigan — $686,568
4. David Benyamine — $497,122
5. George Danzer — $388,523
6. Minh Ly — $309,830
7. Mike Wattel — $251,602
8. Jonathan Duhamel — $207,630