The winner of Event #52, the $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em (with re-buys) championship was Michael Graves. He is a 23-year-old college student from Dallas, TX. This was his first victory at the World Series of Poker.

Prior to winning three quarters of a million dollars at the World Series, Graves had two previous tournament cashes on his record. One was at the Reindeer Games Poker Tournament. The other was at the Ozark Poker Championship. Those two cashes were worth a combined $4,621. This payday was a bit higher as first place paid $742,121.