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With this victory, Patterson’s poker resume catapulted to a new level.  He’s now earned more than $1.4 million overall in tournament earnigns.  Patterson has booked four wins, and a World Poker Tour final table, finishing third.  This marked his 18th cash at the WSOP.  His best previous finish at the annual summer series was fifth place in an event three years ago.  Coming close before made this victory all the sweeter.

“[Winning the gold bracelet] means so much.  I’m really a glory hog,” Patterson said in a post-tournament interview.  “I honestly can’t say it means more than the cash, because that’s what we play for, but it really means a lot.I like the attention and recognition.  I’ve been around for a while, playing cash and some tournaments.  Now that I have a gold bracelet, that’s big.”
 
Patterson initially survived the first two days of competition.  Then, he arrived at a stacked final table with about an average-sized chip stack.  There were four gold bracelet winners battling among the final nine, with a combined ten WSOP titles between them.  Among the finalists was Tom Schneider, the 2007 WSOP Player of the Year, who was playing for his fifth career gold bracelet victory, 2006 Player of the Year Jeff Madsen, who was going for his fourth win, Scott Clements, who was going for his third victory, and Derek Raymond, who was going for his second.
 
Moreover, Clements was going for what we’ve unofficially termed the Omaha Triple Crown.  Clements won his first gold two bracelets in Pot Limit Omaha and Omaha Hi-Lo.  With a win in this event, Clements would have achieved a gold bracelet in every variant of Omaha that’s spread at the WSOP.  However, Clements came up short of the third bracelet, finishing as the runner-up.  Second place paid a nice consolation prize amounting to $167,686.

“Blind aggression and the cards falling my way really helped me out.  I just started blasting right away because I had the chip lead,” Patterson said in reference to playing against Clements heads-up.  “I just kept the pressure on.  It’s not like Scott backed down.  He just paid me off when I had it and he folded when I didn’t.  That might be luck, but it worked out.”

Patterson complimented his rivals.  However, his comments on the ninth-place finisher were the most complimentary.  “It was a really tough lineup...[but] Dylan Wilkerson was probably the best player at the table,” Patterson said.

This year’s $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo event drew a record-setting 991 players, making it the largest PLO-8 tournament ever played.  The huge turnout resulted in a $1,337,850 prize pool.  The top 117 players each earned a payday. Some of the notables who cashed include Matt Waxman (84th), Chris Bell (76th), Joe Hachem (43rd), David Chiu (35th), Phil Ivey (30th), and Allan Le (20th).