Where Are They Now: Bracelet Winner Matt Hawrilenko Temporarily Comes Out of "Retirement"
Matt Hawrilenko. That's a name we hadn't heard in awhile, so imagine our surprise when we saw him at the 2015 World Series of Poker seated in Event #19: $3,000 Limit Hold'em Six-Handed. If you came to poker recently, that name may not ring a bell, but if you were a fan around 2009, then you no doubt remember "Hoss_TBF."
Hawrilenko began playing at the WSOP in 2005, at least that's the year of his first documented cash. That same year, he finished fifth in Event #36 $3,000 Limit Hold'em for $67,235, his first five-figure score. Hawrilenko had success over the next three years, but it wasn't until 2009 when he hit his stride, notching five cashes for a remarkable $1,159,287, which included just over $1 million for winning Event #56 $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Six-Handed. All told, his performance that year allowed him to finish seventh in the WSOP Player of the Year race (Jeff Lisandro won POY that year after capturing three bracelets).
Hawrilenko returned to the WSOP over the next few years, but then in 2013, after finishing 66th in Event #10: $1,500 Limit Hold'em for $2,455, he essentially disappeared. That is until today.
"This is actually my first time playing poker in like three years, so you know, trying to dust a little bit of the rust off," Hawrilenko tells PokerNews. "Three years ago I retired from poker. Retired is a funny word to use, but I guess it's accurate. I'm going back to grad school, getting the Ph.D. in clinical psychology, so just sort of a big transition. I make it out here when I can, but the summers are more and more packed these days. This is actually the one event I'm out for, so far so good. Well, I played the Turbo, but that hardly counts. So yeah, this is the only one I came out for. It's a lot of fun, and it kind of fit into the schedule, so decided to get out and have a little legroom at the table."
As it turned out, Hawrilenko opted to leave the poker world behind to pursue other opportunities.
"I loved poker," he admits. "It was great, and at the same time I was kind of thinking years down the road. I wasn't sure, for me personally, this was something I wanted to be doing in the next 10, 20, 30 years, so I was coming up on 30 years old and I started thinking about a transition. I made it pretty slowly. I started volunteering in some research labs, which is funny from going to playing poker to being some 24-year-old girl's research assistant. I started volunteering and absolutely fell in love with it, fell in love with the place that I was. It was just kind of easy from there. I kind of wanted to spend my days doing stuff that felt meaningful to me, and you can do that in poker, you can do that in a lot of places, but for me personally I kind of got what I wanted out of poker. Got some flexibility, and so the next step was to spend that flexibility."
It was refreshing to hear a former pro, one who had experienced a great deal of success, to leave poker behind with no regrets.
As Hawrilenko tells it: "I got three years left. No coursework, so I'm just doing clinical work out in Seattle, doing research. Research half time, clinical work half time. It's just fantastic. I actually thought the transition from poker would be pretty hard. Poker's awesome in a lot of ways. When things go well you make good money, real flexible schedule, some of my best friends in the world are here. Just sort of starting over at the bottom of a whole new field, I thought it'd be challenging, but it's just been absolutely natural, comfortable, exciting. I couldn’t really be happier with how I'm spending my day to day, so that's been a real pleasant surprise."
Hawrilenko currently lives in Boston, but he and his wife, who is four months pregnant, have plans to relocate to Seattle in the next month or two. That's where his better half has found a faculty job in academia. As for Hawrilenko, he's not opposed to capturing another gold bracelet while he's in town.
"I actually love the idea, it feels kind of poetic to me — starting off in poker as an amateur, working really hard, doing pretty well, being pro for awhile, taking a break off and then coming back. I'm an amateur here again. I didn't even know if I felt like I had any edge in this field. I'm back as an amateur and it's really enjoyable. There's no pressure, it's not a career, no financial pressure, so it's just fun. As long as it's just fun like that, as long as my friends are still here, I'll be coming out here hopefully for some time every year."
As of this writing, 52 of 319 players remain in Event #19: $3,000 Limit Hold'em Six-Handed. The top 36 will get paid – the winner will take home $230,799 – and Hawrilenko is in the thick of it with a top-ten stack.
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In this Series
- 1 Where Are They Now?: The 2003 WSOP Main Event Final Table
- 2 Where Are They Now?: The 1989 WSOP Main Event Final Table
- 3 Where Are They Now?: The 2002 WSOP Main Event Final Table
- 4 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Tablist, Phillip Hilm
- 5 Where Are They Now: 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Tablist, Rhett Butler
- 6 Where Are They Now: 2003 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Tomer Benvenisti
- 7 Where Are They Now: 2005 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Steve Dannenmann
- 8 Where Are They Now: 2009 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Kevin Schaffel
- 9 Where Are They Now: 2006 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Dan Nassif
- 10 Where Are They Now: 2005 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist, Aaron Kanter
- 11 Where Are They Now: 2007 PCA Champion, Ryan Daut
- 12 Where Are They Now: 2003 Aussie Millions Champion Peter Costa
- 13 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Tablist, Raymond Rahme
- 14 Where Are They Now: Eric Crain
- 15 Where Are They Now: WPT Season 1 Stars Ron Rose & Chris Bigler
- 16 Where Are They Now: WPT Season V Borgata Poker Open Champ Mark Newhouse
- 17 Where Are They Now: WPT Season II Borgata Poker Open Champ Noli Francisco
- 18 Where Are They Now: WPT Season IX Foxwoods Poker Finals Champion Jeff Forrest
- 19 Where Are They Now: Adam Friedman
- 20 Off The Felt With Nadya Magnus: Where Are They Now?
- 21 Where Are They Now: Don Zewin, the Man Who Finished Third to Hellmuth & Chan in 1989
- 22 Where Are They Now: 1981 World Series of Poker Main Event Runner-Up Perry Green
- 23 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Finalist Lee Childs
- 24 Where Are They Now: 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event Bad Beat Victim Paul Snead
- 25 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Tom Schneider
- 26 Where Are They Now? Harrah's New Orleans Poker Dealer Darrell Guillory
- 27 Where Are They Now: Former Team PokerStars Pro Pat Pezzin
- 28 Where Are They Now: 2007 WSOP Main Event Fifth-Place Finisher Jon Kalmar
- 29 Where Are They Now: The Nine Past EPT Barcelona Champions
- 30 Where Are They Now: EPT Season 1 Barcelona Champ Alexander Stevic
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- 33 Where Are They Now: EPT6 London Champ Aaron Gustavson
- 34 Where Are They Now: EPT4 Baden Champ Julian Thew
- 35 Where Are They Now: Past EPT Prague Champions
- 36 Where Are They Now: 2011 WSOP Main Event Champ Pius Heinz
- 37 Where Are They Now: 2007 World Series of Poker Runner-Up Tuan Lam
- 38 Where Are They Now: Stan Schrier Reflects on Historic 2001 WSOP Final Table
- 39 Where Are They Now: Bracelet Winner Matt Hawrilenko Temporarily Comes Out of "Retirement"
- 40 Where Are They Now: Battling Multiple Sclerosis, Paul Darden Returns to WSOP Felt
- 41 Where Are They Now? Mike Gracz Returns To Poker After Three Years To Lead Event #31
- 42 Where Are They Now: 2004 Poker Boom Breakout Gabriel Thaler
- 43 Where Are They Now: "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan Pretty Much Out of Poker
- 44 Where Are They Now: Poker's Good Guy, a Survivor, and a Rogue
- 45 Where Are They Now: 2006 WSOP Stud Dmitri Nobles
- 46 Where Are They Now: Esther Rossi’s 7-Card Stud Journey
- 47 Where Are They Now: 2007 WSOP & WPT Champ Bill Edler
- 48 Where Are They Now: Fabian Quoss Announces His Exit from Poker
- 49 Where Are They Now: Jon Aguiar Fondly Remembers Tilting Brandon Cantu
- 50 Where Are They Now: Family & Business First for Adrienne “TalonChick” Rowsome
- 51 Where Are They Now: Xuan Liu Swaps Poker Passion for eSports
- 52 Where Are They Now: Alan Boston Offended to Return to WSOP After Long Hiatus
- 53 Where Are They Now: An 'The Boss' Tran Fighting Curse from Selling Bracelet
- 54 Where Are They Now: 1996 WSOP Chinese Poker Bracelet Winner Gregg Grivas
- 55 Where Are They Now: Ali Eslami Returns to WSOP After Five-Year Hiatus
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- 57 Where Are They Now: Dustin Woolf Back in Poker But Not as Player
