Maurice Hawkins won his eighteenth WSOPC gold ring, matching Ari Engel's record. While Ari has won several of his rings in small-entry online tournaments, Maurice has played every possible live WSOPC series edition across the US.
And he also won his most recent gold ring during the WSOPC live series in Baltimore, where he dominated the Main Event with a $1,700 buy-in, 468 entries and a prize pool of $709,020. The first-place prize added $140,752 to his eighteenth ring.
New controversy on the scene
Just hours after the news of his win made the rounds of the world's poker websites, a controversy surfaced over the last three hands of play. Namely, there was American player Divyam Satyarthi in the all-in after the flop, holding Q c - T h just against Maurice Hawkins, who held A h - 3 s.
After laying out a full board of T c 2 s K c 4 c 5 c, Hawkins hit a straight and the dealer immediately moved the entire pot to him. However, there was a problem here. A keen eye must have noticed that Divyam Satyarthi hit a flush, and thus won this hand. However, neither he, the dealer, Maurice Hawkins, nor Dan Chalifour noticed that he had hit a flush, and the WSOPC Baltimore Main Event moved into heads-up play.
Divyam Satyarthi thus officially finished in third place with a prize of $64,458. However, had he seen the hand won, his stack would have gotten to over 2 million, with Hawkins and Chalifour holding around 8 million. Divyam Satyarthi would thus still have a stack worth almost 30 bb.
When the reporter realized the mistake that had been made, he immediately alerted the floorman and also showed him the video capturing the entire hand. However, by that time it was too late and Divyam Satyarthi was officially in third place. Maurice Hawkins then battled for 5 hours in the final heads-up against Dan Chalifour, whom he eventually defeated.
What do you think, would Maurice Hawkins have finished as the winner even if this mistake hadn't happened? Is it possible for professional Maurice Hawkins not to notice that he lost the hand? Should Divyam Satyarthi get some compensation or was he just unlucky not to notice his win? Let us know in the comments on our social media.
Source - Poker.org, Pokernews, WSOP, Twitter/X
