A 25-year-old college dropout originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, has won two-thirds of a million dollars at the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Matt Graham, who was studying pre-med before dropping out five years ago to become a professional poker player, has won 2009 WSOP Event #40, a pot-limit Omaha tournament that had a $10,000 buy-in and a total prize pool of about $2.7 million.

The event had 295 entrants and paid out cash prizes to the top 27 finishers.

For the big win, Graham, who now resides in Las Vegas, earns a tidy $679,402 and his second career WSOP championship gold bracelet (he won a bracelet at last year’s WSOP in a limit Texas hold ‘em tourney).

Finishing second in ‘09 WSOP Event #40 was Vitaliy Lunkin of Moscow, Russia, copping $419,832.

Taking third spot was Van Marcus of Mill Park, Australia, snagging $278,409.

In the most international of finishes so far at this year’s WSOP, the top five finishers in Event #40 were all from different countries (Robin Keston of London, England came in fourth and Ferit Gabriellson of Stockholm, Sweden came in fifth).

Known names finishing in the money in the event include Josh Arieh in seventh place, Barry Greenstein in ninth, Howard “The Professor” Lederer in 12th, Padraig Parkinson in 14th, David Williams in 16th and Erick Lindgren in 27th.

When the event got down to the final two players, so-called heads-up play between Graham and Lunkin, Lunkin had nine times as many chips as Graham.

Nevertheless, Graham was able to come back from that huge deficit and defeat the Russian in the WSOP’s version of a Poker Cold War.

At his post-tournament press conference, Graham said: “It was both fun and stressful. It was very exciting and a dream at the same time.

“I was never too far behind before heads-up play started. I was not really in a rush. I am perfectly okay with someone else throwing in a few raises and busting a few people. I’m just going to sit there and wait. Wait until we get short-handed and then pick up the pace a little.

“I wasn’t worried about being short on chips. I was thinking I was just going to continue playing my best. No matter how good you play, it was a long shot in that situation. So you just have to do all that you can to come back and hope the cards cooperate.”

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)