Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, Software Engineer Simon Watt arrived at the 2010 World Series of Poker with nothing but winning a bracelet on his mind. Despite playing poker only part time, the 27 year-old Kiwi had an impressive run in late 2009 when he won the Asia Pacific Poker Tour event in his hometown of Auckland for $155K.
In Event #11: $1500 No Limit Hold’em at the 2010 WSOP, Watt found himself at the final table with none other than Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan. If competing with Dwan for a bracelet wasn’t nerve-wracking enough, the fact that Tom had millions in prop bets on the line made the festivities that much more intense. As fate would have it, Simon Watt found himself heads-up with Dwan – the only obstacle standing between durrrr and a rumored $10 million. Throughout the duration of the match, the crowd was decidedly in favor of seeing Dwan win his side bets save, or course, for those who stood to lose millions.
On the final hand of play, durrrr shoved his remaining stack of 1.6 million with Qd-6c and was immediately called by Watt, who held 9d-9c. When the board ran 8c-Ac-As-Ad-Kh, Dwan had to settle for second place while Watt took $614K and the gold bracelet.
In the wake of the stunning action, Mike Matusow echoed the sentiments of his prop-betting buddies, telling Watt: “Thank you for saving us all millions of dollars! How does it feel to be every high-stakes gamblers hero? They’re gonna, like, put you on the wall in Bobby’s Room or some shit.”
As for Watt himself, he was just happy to be there: “It was amazing; it was pretty strange having durrrr at the final table. It would have been enough playing for a bracelet, but playing durrrr heads-up? It can’t get much better than that.”
