Noah Schwartz wins WPT Jacksonville, his first major title

Poker pro Noah Schwartz has been well-known in poker circles for quite some time, and with his fourth WPT final table appearance this week he is starting to get some recognition from mainstream poker audiences, both for his play, and for his uncanny resemblance to the “McLovin” character from the comedy hit Super Bad.

For Schwartz it was fourth time is a charm as he finally broke through and triumphed in his first major poker tournament, winning the WPT Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble, and pocketing the first-place prize of $402,972, his biggest payday to date. The win was the seventh six-figure score of his career, and his career live tournament winnings now stands at just under $3 million.

Schwartz is a high-stakes player, regularly competing in the biggest events around the world, which was evident when he entered the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop tournament at the 2012 WSOP.

The tournament saw a huge field of entrants, with 477 registered entries, including some of the biggest names in poker. Schwartz was among the chip-leaders throughout the tournament, and managed to dominate the penultimate day of play, taking a massive chip-lead into the six-handed final table:

• Seat 1: Lee Markholt – 1,720,000
• Seat 2: Byron Kaverman – 1,075,000
• Seat 3: Ryan Hartmann – 1,400,000
• Seat 4: Hans Winzeler – 1,965,000
• Seat 5: Brian Senie – 1,865,000
• Seat 6: Noah Schwartz – 6,225,000

Schwartz continued his dominance at the final table, but as usually happens he found himself nearly equal with his heads-up opponent, poker pro Byron Kaverman, with both players sitting on 7.1 million chips. Still, Schwartz took control of the heads-up duel early on and never looked back, dispatching Kaverman after steadily grinding him down.

Here is a look at the final table payouts from the WPT Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble:

1. Noah Schwartz – $402,970
2. Byron Kaverman – $236,592
3. Ryan Hartmann – $153,403
4. Hans Winzeler – $106,848
5. Brian Senie – $77,083
6. Lee Markholt – $61,819

The WPT has already moved on to Copenhagen, Denmark, and will remain abroad for some time, with scheduled stops in Montreal, Mazagan, and Prague, before the tour returns stateside for the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamonds Poker Classic in early December.