Jason Helder Dominates Final Table To Win a Million Dollars
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"Freedom!"
Those were the first words out of Jason Helder's mouth after the final card came out to deliver him the title in the 2014 WinStar River Poker Series Main Event. A million dollars. Freedom. Helder, who plays online under the name teamwispy, started off strong at the final table and never looked back.
"It's my biggest score by five times ever," Helder told us while posing for pictures with his newly won bracelet. "Having position on Travis Rice and Kevin Eyster was huge for me. I didn't make any big mistakes and chipped up early."
When asked what he was going to do with the million dollars Helder laughed and said "I don't know yet. Winning is the hard part... spending is the easy part." Helder's off to play the World Championship of Online Poker and will do so with a comfortable bankroll.
Play started today with ten players looking to take home a seven figure payday. Well-known professional David "ODB" Baker would be the first player eliminated when he had the misfortune of running 
into the 
Khoa Nguyen. Helder would start his ascent when he eliminated Rhett Trusler in ninth place after his 
outran Trusler's 
.
Helder and Nguyen, the other chip leader at the table, would tangle in a big pot that would send Helder above the ten million chip mark. Nguyen would flop trips but couldn't chase Helder off on the flop. Nguyen checked the turn giving Helder the chance to hit a Broadway straight on the river. Nguyen couldn't let his own big hand go and Helder would never look back at that point.
Jonathan Gaviao could never get anything going and would end up being knocked out in sixth place for $90,881 when his 
was outdrawn by Rice's 
.
With five players remaining, Chris Drake would go in with the worst of it and come out on top in a massive three-way pot that saw Nguyen eliminated in fifth place for $110,663. Helder would run away with the tournament when he took out Drake in a huge flip with his pair of tens besting Drake's ace-king.
It didn't take long to get to a winner once play was three handed. World Series of Poker bracelet winner Kevin Eyster would fall to Rice when his ace-king failed to win a race against Rice's jacks. Heads-up play lasted just three hands with the final hand seeing Helder holding the dominant hand with 
against Rice's 
. Rice would not outdraw Helder and would have to settle for second place and $340,403.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jason Helder | $1,000,000 |
| 2 | Travis Rice | $340,403 |
| 3 | Kevin Eyster | $219,088 |
| 4 | Chris Drake | $134,096 |
| 5 | Khoa Nguyen | $110,663 |
| 6 | Jonathan Gaviao | $90,881 |
| 7 | Kong Li | $72,680 |
| 8 | Rodeen Talebi | $56,724 |
| 9 | Rhett Trusler | $42,891 |
There were an impressive 1,323 entrants creating a prize pool of $3,175,200. Plenty of notables made deep runs into the money including La Sengphet (130th), Seneca Easley (110th), Rep Porter (98th), Christian Harder (92nd), Grayson Ramage (87th), Andy Philachack (73rd), Scott Clements (70th), Brandon Steven (68th), Lynn Samples (41st), Austin Lewis (32nd), Bryan Campanello (21st), and Joseph Cheong (13th).
Others would fall short including WinStar poker ambassador Maria Ho, poker legend TJ Cloutier, Layne Flack, Tom Marchese, Kevin Saul, the 2012 champion of this event Aaron Massey, Kyle Bowker, and many others.
This concludes our coverage of the 2014 WinStar River Poker Series Main Event. Thank you for following along with our coverage and stay tuned to PokerNews throughout the rest of the year for exciting tournament coverage across the globe.