WSOP National Championship Taken Down by Hilton

The third annual WSOP National Championship held at Harrah's New Orleans saw Jonathan Hilton claim the first World Series of Poker winner's bracelet awarded in the U.S. away from Las Vegas. On his way to the triumph, he had to outplay a field of 127 entrants into the nationals which included 20 WSOP Circuit Main Event winners, 18 Casino Champions, 62 at-large qualifiers and 27 WSOP Payer of the Year $10,000 buy-ins. The final table of the event saw a number of highly experienced professionals, such as Max Steinberg, Robert Panitch, Brock Parker, Tim Bowman, Joe Tehan, Nicolas Vaca-Rondon and Jeremy Ausmus. The heads-up was down to Hilton and Max Steinberg, who presented some fierce opposition to Hilton's lead, but this wasn't enough to claim the victory. Therefore, he left the tourney with a runner up prize of $219,799, leaving Hilton with the main prize of $355,599 and the winner's bracelet.