Shawn Busse joined the ranks of the poker elite today, securing his first gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. The young player bested a large field to emerge the victor of a $1,000 No Limit Hold’Em event, earning him over $450,000 in prize money.

The poker pro is far from a tournament rookie, but rather can be found online regularly dominating the opposition and sharpening his skills which he today put to excellent use securing his first bracelet and his biggest ever tournament win. While he already has eight major cashes and lives off his earnings as a tournament player, the $485,791 that he picked up for his performance in this event blows those other cashes well out of the water and brings his career live winnings to the princely sum of $650,108.

While the money will of course be very welcome in any young person’s life, the New York native also doesn’t underestimate the worth of picking up his first bracelet. “Winning this means so much,” he commented excitedly after his victory. “It’s the most coveted prize in all of poker.”

Busse’s tournament skills truly had a chance to shine as he outlasted the entirety of the 3,128 player field in the event, including a tough final table. It took over two levels of play for the first elimination to occur after the final table was formed, and it didn’t go at all as expected. While there were no eliminations early-on, there were certainly a number of stack-sized pots, and in a series of unfortunate hands for Adam White, who was the chip leader entering the final nine, he became the first final table knockout. Busse battled resolutely onwards and as the would-be runner-up Owen Crowe eliminated Pekka Ikonen in third place, Busse entered heads-up play at a 2:1 stack disadvantage.

A preflop battle of aggression ensued and Crowe, who has made the final table of a No Limit Hold’Em event for the last three straight years, showed no sign of being merciful. However just as things were looking grim for Busse, the chips went all in preflop and his A9 held against Crowe’s A8, leaving the players roughly equal in chips. Not long after, Busse shoved on a 8h5h5s flop, and Crowe made the call with Jh9h commenting, “I guess you got aces.” Unfortunately for Crowe his guess turned out to be entirely correct and neither the Ks turn nor the 4d river were any help, leaving Busse with a mighty stack advantage. The very next hand the chips went all-in preflop in the dark, and while the 773 flop briefly pulled Crowe’s 53 ahead of Busse’s A4, the turn and river both came out sixes, giving Busse two pair with an ace kicker, and handing him the tournament win.

With such an impressive feat as winning a bracelet so early in his career, Shawn Busse’s is sure to go on to great things, and we can look forward to hearing more of his exploits over the coming years.

The official final table results are as follows:
1: Shawn Busse — $485,791
2: Owen Crowe — $300,494
3: Pekka Ikonen — $212,660
4: Chuan Shi — $153,395
5: Wenlong Jin — $112,720
6: Ilya Andreev — $83,498
7: Jason Mann — $62,553
8: Allan Baekke — $47,379
9: Adam White — $36,287