A 24-year-old former pool pro who traded in his cue stick for a deck of cards and became a poker pro has won big at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Nick Schulman of New York City, New York, USA, has won WSOP Event #23, a 2-7 draw lowball tournament that had a buy-in of $10,000, a prize pool of about $900,000, a total of 96 entrants and 14 payouts.

The victory earns Schulman $279,742 and his first career WSOP championship gold bracelet.

The runnerup was Ville Wahlbeck of Helsinki, Finland, who won $172,864.

Taking third was Steve Sung of Torrance, California, USA, earning $112,042.

Well-known poker pro John Juanda finished fourth.

Schulman, at a post-tourney press conference, talked about how it felt to win a bracelet and how he came to abandon the green felt of a pool table for the green felt of a poker table.

“The prestige of the bracelet is a little overwhelming,” Schulman said. “This is the term when it comes to winning in poker. They say these tournaments are not about the money and I never used to think like that. But I know what they mean now. The bracelet is a little sweeter than the cash.

“When I was about 14 or 15, I started going to a local pool hall with my dad. I started playing and found I was pretty good at it. I stopped going to school, which I have since regretted, even though it has worked out. In my late teens and when I was 20 I was playing pool professionally. That included some pool tournaments. While I was playing pool, I discovered poker. It was played in many of the back rooms of the pool halls, so I got involved in that.

“I think poker is easier than pool. But it’s close. The games are very different. There is a type of pressure in pool that is not quite the same in poker, although no-limit deuce kind of matches that pressure because there are so many stare-downs and reads and whatnot. But in pool you really have to execute athletic motion, which is different. Of course, both games involve a lot of sleepless nights.” ? (E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)