A 30-year-old manual laborer from the heartland of the USA won’t have to do any more heavy lifting if he doesn’t want to.

That’s because he’s just won two-thirds of a million dollars at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

The happy blue-collar worker–a pipefitter from Troy, Missouri, USA–is Mike “The Force” Eise, and he won WSOP Event #28.

The event was a no-limit Texas hold ‘em tournament with a $1,500 buy-in, a prize pool of about $3.6 million, a total of 2,683 entrants and payouts to the top 270 finishers.

For the big win, Eise, pronounced “Ice,” ices $639,331 and his first WSOP championship gold bracelet.

Taking second was Jeff Chang of New York City, New York, USA, collecting $392,494.

Finishing third was Adolfo Ramirez of Centennial, Colorado, USA, picking up $261,963.

The only well-known poker pro finishing in the money in the event was Ivan Demidov, who finished in 248th place.

At a post-tournament press conference, Eise told reporters he will not quit his pipefitting job.

He also said: “It’s surreal. This is something I always wanted to win. I always wanted to come to Las Vegas and play in the World Series. I had one chance to get into this event and here I am. I won the bracelet. This is the only event I played. This is the only event I wanted to play. I wanted to concentrate on this. So I didn’t play any other ones. I figured one event and one win really means something.” ? (E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)