A 22-year-old student and professional poker player, Pius Heinz, has won the World Series of Poker Main Event inside the Penn & Teller Theater at Rio Las Vegas.

German Pius Heinz wins the World Series of Poker Main Event at Rio Vegas. Like that earlier paragraph said.

Heinz, of Cologne, is the first resident of Germany to win the prestigious poker tournament.

This Las Vegas blog was there to capture every minute of the action. Well, not every minute, because there were a whole lot of them. The Final Table ran about six-and-a-half hours.

The World Series of Poker is a pretty big deal.

A memorable moment from the Final Table was the elimination of one of the three finalists, Ben Lamb, a mere (wait for it) four hands into Final Table play. Hey, in Vegas, you go big or go home. Or in some cases, you go big AND go home. Still, Lamb walked away with $4 million as a consolation prize.

If you blinked, you quite possibly missed poker pro Ben Lamb's bold strategy.

Then there were two.

Pius Heinz would play Martin Staszko, the first player ever from the Czech Republic to make a WSOP Final Table, head-to-head for six more hours, with the chip lead switching from one player to another nine times.

The new WSOP champ was crowned at 12:15 a.m. (Nov. 9, 2011).

A few million in cash on the table? No pressure.

International groups of supporters kept things lively, thankfully, since Heinz and Staszko rarely showed emotion or spoke (if at all) during long stretches of the Final Table.

The stoic Martin Staszko, who lists chess and "long periods of glaring" among his hobbies.

There’s a reason it’s called a “poker face,” folks.

There was a lot of this.

The crowd at the Penn & Teller Theater was on its feet for the dramatic final hand.

A suspenseful moment as Heinz waits for the "river" card.

The final hand of the 2011 Final Table? Heinz had an ace of spades and king of clubs, and those cards held up against Staszko’s 10 of clubs and seven of clubs.

With that, Heinz nabbed a highly-prized World Series of Poker bracelet, as well as some pocket change. To be exact, $8,715,638 in pocket change. Did we mention this bubble-gum chewing player is just 22 years old?

We weren't making up the bubble gum-chewing thing.

Interestingly, the last four WSOP world champions were 23, 21, 21 and 22 at the time of their wins.

Staszko (below right) got $5.4 million for second-place. Not a bad pay day!

Two words: Cha. Ching.

A memorable moment from the WSOP Final Table event? Once Heinz was announced the winner, his group of supporters began doing a chant his opponent’s friends had done throughout the evening, a sign of great sportsmanship. Staszko’s supporters did the same, honoring Heinz for his historic win.

Warning: It's probably best to wait before accepting proposals made after you just won $8.7 million.

The Final Table was the culmination of a Main Event that began in July, with a field of 6,865 players from 85 different countries. The WSOP Final Table was televised on ESPN with a 15-minute delay.

In other notable poker news: Earlier in the evening, Barry Greenstein and Linda Johnson were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. Read more.

Get all the details of the World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table at the official WSOP site.

To the victor go some serious tax implications.

Now, please enjoy our exclusive photo gallery from the WSOP Final Table that we risked being Tasered by security to bring you.

Related posts:

1. Two Players Standing at the WSOP Final Table
2. WSOP Final Table in Full Swing at Rio
3. Down to the Wire: WSOP Final Table
4. World Series of Poker at Rio Vegas: It’s Down to Three
5. WSOP Hosts $1 Million Buy-In Tourney for Charity

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Gaming, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Casinos, Poker, Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino, World Series of Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. To leave a comment you must be 21 years of age or older.