Charette, a 24-year-old poker pro and aspiring screenwriter from Toronto, outlasted 924 players to take down the biggest prize of his career. But it was the bracelet that was most important to him.
“I broke down crying when I came second last year and they weren’t tears of joy. They were tears of knowing I had come so close and couldn’t get there,” Charette told PokerListings.com after receiving his bracelet.
“Mathematically speaking you’re just so unlikely to get there again so I had to say to myself, ‘Okay, you got to come second and you had the chance to play heads-up for WSOP bracelet,’ but the hunger was still there,” said Charette.
“So to come here and finally get it done is the best feeling in the world. It’s the greatest moment of my life,” he said.
Luckily for Charette he wasn’t put through much of an ordeal during the final stage of the tournament, wondering if he’d be leaving with another runner-up finish.
His match against Ukrainian Artem Metalidi lasted just one hand.
Metalidi six-bet shoved A-2 and was snapped off by a very confident Charette with pocket sixes.
“The heads-up match was literally one hand. I picked up a tell on him immediately and I knew the guy really liked to get it in preflop,” said Charette.
Breakthrough Win for an Emerging Star
Despite this being Charette’s most visible win, he’s been cleaning up on the poker tournament scene for a number of years.
Now with more than $1.5 million in live earnings, Charette has 11 cashes at the WSOP and a win on the Canadian Poker Tour from 2010.
“People don’t really know but I play a lot of live tournaments and I make a lot of final tables,” said Charette.
“People don’t know because I haven’t had that one big win and that’s what the bracelet means to me. It finally says that I’m one of the guys out there that’s really good at this,” he added.
Charette outlasted a very tough final three tables that included Eugene Katchalov (18th), Freddy Deeb (10th), Andrew Lichtenberger (8th), Scott Montgomery (7th) and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (6th).
Charette also made a name for himself playing online MTTs under the names “pokerbrat13” on PokerStars and “tedlogan19” on Full Tilt.
To date Charette has earned in excess of $2.3 million playing poker tournaments on the internet.
Screenwriting is Charette’s True Passion
Charette attended York University in Toronto, studying screenwriting, before his success in poker superseded his academic career.
“Screenwriting is more my passion than poker but poker sort of took me when I was halfway through school. And when you’re doing well in poker it’s really hard to go back,” said Charette.
“So now that I’ve built up a really nice roll for myself I want to focus more on creative projects.
“I’m pretty big into documentaries and independent dramas. I’d really like to work on a small project and get it out to a small audience that would really enjoy it,” he said.
“Five years ago I would never have been able to tell you where I’d be today. I’m looking at the next five years as the time to figure what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life,” added Charette.
For all the action from the WSOP in Las Vegas click through to our 2012 World Series of Poker Live Coverage section, brought to you by 888poker.com.
Visit www.pokerlistings.com