261 players turned up at the spectacular Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, Nevada for the World Poker Challenge. They paid $7,500 to buy in and this generated a total pool prize of $1,873,275. Held over 4 days from March 25, 2008 to March 28, 2008, there were 27 payouts in all during this leg of the World Poker Tour - Season 6.

The final table was one of the most sensational and exciting this season. The seating arrangements for the final day were as follows:

• Seat 1 - Zach Hyman
• Seat 2 - Jeff DeWitt
• Seat 3 – David “The Dragon” Pham
• Seat 4 – Jason Potter
• Seat 5 - Bryan Devonshire
• Seat 6 – Lee Markholt

Each player started with the following number of chips at the beginning of final game play:

Hyman - 285,000
DeWitt - 249,000
Pham - 406,000
Potter - 1,156,000
Devonshire - 674,000
Markholt - 1,137,000

Jeff DeWitt was the first to go on the final day, taking home winnings of $84,297. A surprising turn of events occurred when David “The Dragon” Pham was forced to bow out soon after and collected prize winnings of $93,664. Following him to the exit door was Jason Potter who had won $103,030. The fourth player to leave the table on the Friday night was Zachary Hyman whose winnings totalled $149,862.

That left Lee Markholt and Bryan Devonshire at the start of heads up play. Having already bagged a total of 17 cashes, Markholt was looking for his first WPT win. He succeeded this time with a winning hand of Jack Hearts and 4 Diamonds.

Devonshire, who made headlines when he lost his ‘Aussie Millions’ winnings in a daring robbery the night of the win in Melbourne, Australia, conceded defeat and was a gracious runner-up with a respectable $271,625 in prize money. Markholt took the lion’s share of $493,815. Markholt was born on May 24, 1963 in Tacoma, Washington. Now aged 45, he was a meat cutter in the family business before deciding to play poker professionally. Unlike other poker pros, Markholt didn’t move to Las Vegas, and instead spends his time at his hometown in Eatonville, Washington with his wife.

This happily married man has two grandchildren and has played poker professionally for more than 13 years. Markholt’s total live tournament winnings at the end of 2008 were more than $2.1 million. Markholt is now the 86th millionaire who made his money through poker.

-- Reinu C.