Perrins joins friend Cody with 2-7 win

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Rochdale, England, might just be the breeding ground for poker players. Just days after Jake Cody won the $25,000 Heads-Up World Championship, one of his good friends from the same town, Matt Perrins, took care of business in Event 9, the no-limit 2-7 single draw lowball event, to win his first World Series of Poker bracelet. To make the victory even more intriguing, Perrins was on YouTube learning how to play the game just before the start of the tournament. Just how much of a video tutorial did it take? About 30 minutes. Apparently he's a quick learner and he should probably consider sending some of his $102,105 in first-place prize money to the creator of that video as a thank you.

"This is great," he said. "To have all my mates here and to come for the first time and win it. It's really amazing. I can't describe it right now."

His story of a first-time novice winning the event isn't unprecedented. Jennifer Harman followed the same path when she won the $5,000 lowball event in 2000. During the first day of play, Perrins did go through the learning curve after he was persuaded to play.

"My friends talked me into it," he said. "They said it was fun. So, I decided to give it a try. I guess that kind of went well. … During Day 1 and the first three or four hours, I was not sure what was going on. I was getting into a few hands, and I was not sure what I should do here. So, I ended up speaking to some of my mates. I started to pick it up. As the tournament got deeper, it was kind of similar to hold 'em as in where being aggressive and three-betting will get you a lot of chips. That's where I started moving toward the final table."

The final table was perhaps one of the toughest we've seen so far this WSOP. Chris Bjorin, appearing in his 25th WSOP final table, finished second and earned his 59th career WSOP cash. Meanwhile, ESPN.com's Bernard Lee made his first career WSOP final table and finished in fourth for his second cash of the 2011 WSOP.

Thomas Fuller finished in fifth and now has over $250,000 in WSOP earnings, although he has yet to secure a live major win on any tour. He's come close numerous times, including a fourth-place finish in a shootout WSOP event in 2007. Josh Brikis finished in sixth and the 31-year-old professional poker player is hoping to have a big WSOP to ensure that he can continue to play as a professional. Brikis has been on his own (not backed) and hopes to remain that way. His sixth-place payday of $14,296 is his largest of the year.

Finishing in seventh place is WSOP bracelet winner Jason Mercier, who has earned nearly $500,000 in 2011. He was the overwhelming chip leader during most of Day 2, but lost a good portion of his stack to Brikis and entered the final table as the short stack. After hanging around for a half hour, Mercier went out and headed immediately to the next event.

This lowball event required players to make a low hand with the ability to draw only once. The ideal hand in this game is 7-5-3-4-2.

Other notable finishers included Dan Kelly (11th), Greg Mueller (18th) and Eli Elezra (25th).

Below are the complete results of Event 9 at the 2011 World Series of Poker:

Event 9: No-limit 2-7 draw lowball
Buy-in: $1,500
Entries: 275
Prize pool: $371,250
Players in the money: 28

1. Matt Perrins ($102,105)
2. Chris Bjorin ($63,112)
3. Robin Rightmire ($41,643)
4. Bernard Lee ($28,422)
5. Thomas Fuller ($19,906)
6. Josh Brikis ($14,296)
7. Jason Mercier ($10,524)
8. Aaron Schaff ($7,937)
9. Travis Pearson ($6,129)
10. Avery Cardoza ($6,129)
11. Dan Kelly ($6,129)
12. Romik Vartzar ($4,844)
13. Rami Boukai ($4,844)
14. Don McNamara ($4,844)
15. Don Zewin ($3,961)
16. Sean Snyder ($3,961)
17. Donald Walsh ($3,961)
18. Greg Mueller ($3,961)
19. Nick Brancato ($3,961)
20. Dario Alioto ($3,961)
21. Daniel Smith ($3,961)
22. Tim Phan ($3,237)
23. Lance Vankooten ($3,237)
24. Stuart Rutter ($3,237)
25. Eli Elezra ($3,237)
26. Paul Volpe ($3,237)
27. Brian Brubaker ($3,237)
28. Tom Franklin ($3,237)

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Andrew Feldman

ESPN.com

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Andrew Feldman is ESPN.com's Poker Editor. He is the host of the Poker Edge Podcast and co-host of ESPN Inside Deal. Andrew has covered the poker industry for ESPN since 2004.