Isaac Haxton is one of the favourites to win the 2018 Poker Masters after making three final tables, and taking down the 300-points for winning Event #4: $10,000 Short-Deck, the first time he has played the game.  

When Isaac Haxton walks down the Las Vegas Strip, heading to the ARIA to go ‘to work’ every single cock like weather vane spins on its axis. Like Steffen Sontheimer, a year ago, ‘Ike’ has turned into a 1930s Frank Baum cyclone.

Haxton was in Montenegro when the Triton Poker Series cut the ribbon that connected Short-Deck to the secret card rooms in Asia, slamming champagne bottles into the heads of the first Westerners who tried it, and bubbles are still rising.

Only Haxton didn’t play.