Event #5: $400 No-Limit Hold'em Double Stack

Daniel Lowery, of Peter Pender, Arkansas, has emerged from a loaded final table to win Event #5 at Circuit Hard Rock Tulsa, $400 No-Limit Hold'em Double Stack. The win by "Duma," as he's popularly known, gives him his seventh career Circuit ring and comes along with a $17,657 payday.

Lowery arrived at Event #5's final table with one of the stacks and quickly bounced a couple of the other players to take a commanding lead roughly halfway through the final. Lowery's last foe was Kansas City, Missouri's Andre Allen, who survived to the end before falling to the Duma juggernaut. Allen earned $10,902 for second, while Rowlett, Texas's Hoan Nguyen pocketed $7,942 for third.

This final table included three other prior Circuit ring winners, among them 11-time winner Maurice Hawkins. Hawkins was looking to move into a tie with Valentin Vornicu atop the career ring winner's list but fell short here.

The tough field was foremost on Lowery's mind after his win. "When there was 40 of us left there were probably 12 or 14 heavy hitters," he said. "I was expecting an even tougher final table but was fortunate that a couple got knocked out. I busted Kevin Eyster - a big one last night right before we bagged - and Kevin in my opinion was the best player that was here. ... There were so many good players in the final four or five tables.

"There's a lot of reasons it feels good," Lowery continued, referring to that seventh Circuit ring victory, which moves him into a tie for 10th on the all-time list. "I got second here twice before, each of the last two years. So it was a little vindication to win. This is like my home casino; we consider it home even though it's three hours from home."

Lowery wasn't even sure he'd be playing at Hard Rock Tulsa, but the heavy rains and flooding in the Midwest in recent weeks became a factor. "I wasn't going to play because of work" -- Lowery owns a sawmill in Arkansas -- "but it's been so wet, we decided I'd take a week and a half off and come up here and try to win a ring."