Simon Charette Finds Gold in $3,000 NLH Six-handed 2012 WSOP Event 23

Event 23, $3,000 buy-in No Limit Holdem Six-Handed, brought 974 players to the tables. The prize pool topped out at $2,522,520 and 108 of those players would get paid with the winner taking home $567,624. That winner was Simon Charette.

Charette is no stranger to playing big poker tournaments and knows how it feels to come in second best when you play your heart out. At last year's WSOP he ended up in that spot in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em event claiming a prize of $404,235. But it left him crushed; he had made it through 2,711 players and had his final opponent all-in and in need of catching a card to survive - twice.

From the lips of Charette: “Second place last year hurt. I cried for about an hour. Now I’ve won and I’m still going to probably cry for about an hour. It’s interesting how it doesn’t change, yet it’s completely different.”

When Day 3 started with the remaining 18 players, Foster Hays sat in third place, Bertrand “ELKY” Grospellier in fifth, Freddy Deeb in seventh, Craig Bergeron in 11th, Scott Montgomery in 12th, Andrew Lichtenberger in 14th and Eugene Katchalov in 18th. Together, these seven players account for six WSOP gold bracelets. Two of these champions made the final table - Foster Hays and Bertrand "ELKY" Grospellier.

When Artem Metalidi and Simon Charette went to war on the final hand, Charette raised it to 125,000 from the button. Metalidi three-bet to 350,000. Without slowing down Charette raised to 600,000 and Metalidi went all-in. Charette called and the cards were tabled.

Charette:
Metalidi:

They watched the board run out with the and Metalidi was out with a second place prize of $350,806.

Simon Charette may still be shedding an occasional tear of joy, especially when the light reflects from his gold bracelet and he relives the memory of the moment in time when he knew was the champion. Charette also took home $567,624 for first place. Congratulations Simon!

The final table:

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The WSOP has an interview with Charette and WSOP statistics update here.