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Analogies with the fall and rise of the Phoenix are perhaps inevitable when considering Ashton "theASHMAN103" Griffin's huge win this week in the Full Tilt $25 000 Heads Up World Championship, playing some of the biggest names in professional poker.
The young player was reported to be a million dollars in the red at the end of last year, having made himself a million dollars previous to that in 12 months of audacious and talented playing across the virtual tables at Full Tilt. Not the most popular player due to his habit of verbalising whatever comes into his mind, his 
determination to challenge the best players he could find occasionally made him bite off more than he could comfortably chew.
That was not the case this week as he proved victorious over a field of 63 that included live tourney and Internet household names names like Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, Andy Bloch, Erick Lindgren, Isaac Haxton, David Singer, Phil Galfond, John Juanda, Scott Seiver, Tom Dwan, Ilarii Sahamies, Brian Townsend, Scott Montgomery, David Pham, Luke Schwartz , Sami Kelopuro and Steve Jacobs.
Defending champion David Singer did not make the final four, busting out at 12th place.
The final four survivors of such an illustrious field proved to be Griffin facing off against Blair Anderson, and David Benefield opposing James Kilarjian, which eventually produced a final matching for the $551 250 winner's prize of Griffin against Benefield.
As finals go, this one was on the quick side once Benefield found himself at a 5 to 1 chip disadvantage. That was the result of a massive debit to his stack when his top pair came up against Griffin’s flopped top and bottom pair and the board failed to connect. Benefield was all in on the final hand, holding an open-ended straight draw against Griffin’s trip nines. It was a game enough fight, but Benefield had to be content with second place and a take-home of $315 000.
The six-figure money extended down to fourth place, while the money bubble on the $1 575 000 prize pool for the event embraced the final 8 players.
