Interestingly it was the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure that first brought Haxton to our attention, and it’s the PCA that put him on our radar today.
The first entry on Haxton’s tournament record is an $861,789 runner-up finish in the 2007 PCA main event.
Since then he’s earned roughly $2.7 million playing live poker tournaments and he’s looking to build on that big-time today in the Bahamas as he leads the final 16 in the $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller event.
The Backstory
When you find players excelling in poker at a young age more often than not they excelled at other mental athletics as well. Such was the case for young Isaac Haxton.
Born in New York and raised in Syracuse, Haxton was the son of an English professor and started playing chess at four years of age.
Like some sort of Tenenbaum replicant Haxton skipped the fifth grade and was absorbed by Magic: The Gathering by age ten. Swept up in the wave of MTG players making the switch to poker, Haxton was making trips to the Turning Stone Casino in New York as a high-school senior. It wasn't long after that he found online poker.
Haxton started winning and, using the knack for gaming excellence he had acquired early on, applied himself to poker in a big way.
The Evidence
Isaax Haxton has been providing evidence that he might be good at poker for years, starting chiefly with the aforementioned $861k PCA score five years ago.
As we reported all those years ago, Haxton ran extremely bad to have transferred his winnings from his PokerStars account to Neteller. That’s because the day after the funds hit his Neteller account, the online payment processor’s funds were seized by the Department of Justice and its owners arrested.
It took many months for Haxton to recoup the money, but luckily for him he went on to earn another $214,000 before the end of 2007. That mini-heater included a final table at the WSOP, and extended straight into 2008 with four more World Series cashes and a six-figure payday at the EPT London High Roller event.
Haxton’s biggest score to date came at the 2009 WSOP when he finished second to Vitaly Lunkin in the $40,000 40th Anniversary event. Haxton earned $1,168,568.
In 2010 Haxton fared well with two more six-figure finishes, winning a $2,500 Venetian Deep Stack event and finishing ninth in the $25k WSOP Six-Max Championship.
His most recent windfall before today’s PCA Super High Roller came in the way of a third-place finish in the $100,000 buy-in event at the Bellagio’s Five Diamond series in Las Vegas. That result earned him $581,806.
Keep an eye on our Poker News section for ongoing updates on the 2012 PCA Super High Roller event.
And now we treat you to the photo reel of Isaax Haxton we’ve compiled over the years.
Read More Posts About People Who Might Be Good at Poker:
Praz Banzi Erik Seidel Vanessa Selbst Liv Boeree Arnaud Mattern Tobias Reinkemeier Andrew Lichtenberger Ludovic LacayVisit www.pokerlistings.com