Isaac Haxton Wins PCA Super High Roller for $1 million for Second Major Title in Four Days

The popular high stakes poker player Isaac Haxton is nicknamed ‘Action’ Haxton among his many respected peers.  That nickname has never looked more justified than during this past week, as the American player, who sits in 15^th on the all-time money list with over $31.5 million in live tournament earnings, is now the man who won the most money so far in 2023.

The Final Table Starts Fast

With just six players making it to the final stage of the $100,000-entry PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller tournament, the top prize of $1.5 million stretched ahead of the remaining half dozen. Top of the shop when play commenced was Mike Watson after a brilliant Day 1 and Day 2 of the event. With a total of 49 entries, just six made the last day, and with two players from Canada, Spain and the United States, there was national pride on the line along with the money.

The play got underway with some frantic action, as befit a field where the average stack was under 40 big blinds. Even the chip leader Watson had only 60 bigs when the cards went into the air, and the first elimination didn’t take long to arrive, with the short stack being Daniel Dvoress.

After losing a little to Juan Pardo, Dvoress called off his stack with king-five when Pardo raised again, but the Spaniard had ace-eight and that was good enough through the flop of 9-4-2 and the turn and river, both of which were aces. Dvoress may have come in as the short stack, but the Canadian could still be proud of a sixth-place score worth $320,900.

Canada Lose Third Player in Succession

After Timothy Adams has ended Day 2 by scraping into a min-cash position for $249,600 and Daniel Dvoress had been the first player to bust at the six-handed final table, the third consecutive Canadian player to depart was a shock – the two-night chip leader, Mike ‘Sir Watts’ Watson.

It’s a commonly used trope that it only takes two hands to turn any no limit hold’em tournament chips leader into an at-risk short stack, but it was true for Watson. A worse two pair cost Watson heaps against Pardo and in short order, another defeat to Isaac Haxton took the sole remaining Canadian below ten big blinds. Watson’s devastating plummet from tournament favorite to out on the rail in fifth was complete when his king-ten lost to Haxton’s ace-ten, giving Watson a cash of $404,100 four places short of his intended target.

Watson’s exit was followed by the bust-out of Pardo. Another who went from holding the chip lead to wondering whether the PCA Main Event registration was still open was the first of two Spanish players at the final table. All-in with ace-queen, Pardo couldn’t overtake Haxton’s pocket kings and met with the rail albeit with a $522,900 payday to collect.

Haxton Claims Trophy After Three-Way Deal

Three-handed, Isaac Haxton had a big lead, with 8.5 million chips to Seth Davies’ 3.5 million and Adrian Mateos’ 2.5 million. Holding 58% of the chips in play, the American had seven times Mateos’stack at one point, but a key hand where Mateos doubled through Haxton with pocket queens against pocket sixes rebalanced the stacks.

When Mateos won against Haxton, this time with pocket jacks prevailing, the stacks were as close to level as they had been at any point of the tournament, with Mateos on 4.22m, Haxton on 4.04m and Davies bringing up the rear on 3.99 million chips. All that meant a deal was ripe for discussion and agreeing to an ICM arrangement that gave each player over a million dollars, the players battled on solely for the trophy.

Adrian Mateos was the player who cashed for the most, but he left in third place when his king-jack lost to Haxton’s ace-queen with all the pre-flop hole cards in clubs. A ten-high board sent Mateos home with $1,095,903 and he was shortly joined by the two heads-up opponents. Davies shoved with queen-three and Haxton called it off with a suited jack-eight, a jack on the flop giving him the title and top prize of $1,082,230. Davies was more than happy to cash out for $1,078,347 in second place.

*denotes three-way ICM deal.