Taylor Hart entered the final table of the $1,700 Main Event at Turning Stone with nearly thirty percent of the chips in play, and after a brisk four hours of play, he had all the chips to take home the $280,770 first-place prize, his third WSOP Circuit gold ring, and a seat into the Tournament of Champions in May.
"I flew in from Portland, (Oregon) last Wednesday to come here on my way to Florida for a few weeks and figured I play the Main Event here at Turning Stone because I've seen it growing a lot, " Hart told us immediately following the win. "I will probably be back. I really like the area and playing with the people around here. The floor, the staff, and everything else were top-notch."
Final two of destiny
The day started with DJ MacKinnon getting in his short stack with pocket nines against the ace-five of Hart. An ace on the river sealed MacKinnon's fate, sending him home in tenth place, and Hart was off and running to start the final table.
In what turned out to be a bad day for pocket nines, 20-year-old Aaron Gao picked them up a few hands later and got the last of his stack into the middle against Mike Aman's pocket sixes. A six on the flop gave Aman a set, and Gao was out the door in ninth place before his day could begin.
The two eliminations gave Aman and Hart nearly sixty-five percent of the chips in play, leaving the other six players battling it out for the ladder.
Mike Aman had what is likely to be one of the longest tanks in WSOP Circuit history. "I was an interesting dynamic for sure. I kind of was not trying to play too many big pots (with Aman)," Hart said of the chip dynamics at play at the final table. "I was trying to target the three-four-five stack range and focus on them to put the pressure on."
The rest of the table shook out as planned and Aman and Hart entered heads-up play with their stacks nearly even. The pace of play, however, would soon come to a halt.
The long tank
Play slowed down considerably once the action entered heads-up play, but that was really only due to one hand. With the board reading 
, Hart moved all-in for just over 15,000,000, and Aman went into one of the longest tanks anyone at the final table had seen.
Five minutes in, a large rail started to form, with Hart refusing to move a muscle. Ten minutes in, Hart was still staring at the board like a statue. Fifteen minutes in, Aman took off his hat and sipped water. Twenty minutes after the tank began, Aman finally sent his hand into the muck.
"It was pretty smooth sailing, but there were a few tough spots and then that one long tank," Hart said of his final table performance. "I have good advice: if someone is tanking for a long time, have a very good hand. It makes the tanking experience a lot easier if you have it. I'd love to go into a different universe and not have a good hand and experience that 20-minute tank. I think that would be very hard."
After the tank, it seemed we were in for a long match between the two start-of-day chip leaders, but the deck had other plans. A three-bet pot pre saw both players head to a flop of 
, with Aman continuing for 2.2 million. Hart called as the turn 
hit the board before Aman fired for five million.
Hart called again, and the river 
completed the board, and Aman moved all in. Hart snap-called tabling 
for Broadway, leaving Aman's turned 
for a set of jacks going down in flames.
The chip stacks were close, and after the dealer confirmed both players' stacks, Hart had Aman covered, leaving him headed to the rail in second place for $187,172.
'You have to get extremely lucky'
"Making a run like this is very, very difficult, and you have to get extremely lucky," Hart said of his win. "You can play a tournament and play your absolute best and play very well, but the result might not be great. You can also play sub-par, and the results are very good, and that's the tricky part about this game."
The win marks Hart's largest career cash, and while he's headed to Florida for his next stop, he first wanted to thank his close friends, his mom and dad, his sister and brother-in-law, and his two nieces and with his attitude, nothing can faze the new champ.
"I think over the years, I have really tried my best to do what I need to do to feel comfortable almost always at the table," Hart said to close out the day. "We are playing for a lot of money. Anxiety and regulating your emotions is a tough part of the game. I'm an emotional guy. Even if my actions don't express how I'm feeling necessarily because of the context of the moment, I'm always feeling what I really feel, and that's pretty important to me."
WSOPC Turning Stone Main Event final table results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taylor Hart | $280,770 |
| 2 | Michael Aman | $187,172 |
| 3 | Charles Goelz | $132,172 |
| 4 | Thomas Couture | $94,583 |
| 5 | Anthony Runza | $68,767 |
| 6 | Allen Krouth | $50,769 |
| 7 | Yuriy Kuorynskyy | $38,069 |
| 8 | Joseph Molitor | $29,000 |
| 9 | Aaron Gao | $22,450 |
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