Maurice Hawkins finishes second or worse in poker tournaments more often than not. We all do. But he is also the person on this planet who, when he walks into a World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit event, knows that he has a better chance than anybody to win the thing. One can argue how good a poker player is and where they rank among their peers, but it is difficult to argue that Hawkins isn’t the best WSOP Circuit player in the world. On Monday, Hawkins won his 14th career WSOP Circuit ring, extending his existing all-time lead in that category.
“Feels good. Feel like I got my mojo back,” Hawkins told WSOP.com afterward. “Feels good to know that the beginning of the year is going to end like it should, which means that when you start the year off winning, it only can get better. It’s time to go up.”
If I had to quibble, I’d say when you start the year off winning, it can only get worse, but that’s neither here no there. The bottom line is that this was a great start to 2020 for Hawkins and it sounds like a confidence boost that he thinks will propel him forward to great things as the year goes on.
Maurice Hawkins now has two more rings than both Valentin Vornicu and Joshua Reichard, the two closest players on the all-time WSOP Circuit rankings. Nobody else is in double-digits, though several players have nine rings.
Hawkins also grew his all-time money earnings lead for the WSOP Circuit. Inching closer to $2 million, he now has $1,968,839 in total Circuit winnings, $600,000 more than the next person on the list, Chris Ferguson. Interesting (well, to me, at least), neither Vornicu nor Reichard are in the top ten in earnings and the person in tenth place has over $1 million less in winnings than Hawkins.
Hawkins’ purse from WSOP Circuit Choctaw Event #5: $400 No-Limit Hold’em was $16,898.
The one Circuit all-time stat that Maurice Hawkins does not lord over is total number of cashes. At 107, he is now in third place by himself, having broken a tie with Charles Moore. Douglas Carli is way ahead at 148 lifetime Circuit cashes and Christopher Conrad is in second place with 112.
Hawkins had a significant chip lead going into the final table, holding 1.160 million chips. Andy Robinson was next with 440,000 chips and nobody else had more than 300,000. Robinson, too, has had loads of success on the WSOP Circuit, with seven gold rings to his credit.
“We’ve been playing some pots the last two days,” Hawkins said of Robinson. “I would probably say he is one of the best players here. It’s no shock that every time I get to a final table, Andy Robinson is at the final table.”
The two players ended up heads-up for the title and while Robinson did put up a fight despite the massive chip gap, Hawkins eventually got the best of him with A-K over A-Q.
