Michael Graves, a poker player from Dallas, Texas, is a medical student from the University of Texas-Southwestern. Initially, he was playing Limit Hold'em and cashed in one of the PartyPoker.com $200 tournaments for about $1,000 or $2,000. Then he heard of sit-and-goes online and played those for a long time before switching over to cash games, where he learnt a good deal about hand-reading.
In Event 7 No-Limit Hold'em of the Reindeer Games Poker Tournament held on December 3, 2006, Michael Graves made his first cash finish. A total of 91 players participated in the event that took place at the Cherokee Casino in Tulsa, in which he finished in ninth place and claimed a sum of $528. His next cash finish was on April 20, 2007, in the No-Limit Hold'em of the 2nd Annual Ozark Poker Championship, in which he earned $4,195 by finishing in second-place.
A historic moment in the poker life of Michael Graves came on July 2, 2007 when he won Event 52, No-Limit Hold'em w/Re-Buys at the 2007 WSOP. The event generated an enormous prize pool of $3,226,609, and he made his maiden first-place finish by outlasting a field of 1048 players. The game was played in an aggressive fashion from the start, and the final table unfolded in five hours. When the heads-up match began, Michael Graves had an authoritative lead with 4.2 million chips against Theo Tran's, who had 2.5 million chips in front of him.
Theo Tran, an experienced player from Las Vegas, Nevada, recovered from initial setbacks and came very close to doubling up in a key pot towards the end. On the final hand, with 6h 5s Michael Graves raised on the button to $200,000, and Theo Tran made a call with 9h 8s. The flop came 7h 5d 4c and Michael Graves bet out $375,000. When Tran quickly moved all in with his remaining chips, he was immediately called by Michael Graves. Tran was unhappy when he turned up his cards while Michael Graves could hardly contain his excitement. The Kd on the turn, followed by the 10d on the river won the title for Michael Graves, pushing Tran to second-place finish. Michael Graves bagged the first-place and prize money of $742,121 along with the highly sought-after gold bracelet.
Michael Graves was bowled over by his victory at the WSOP tournament, and for some time, did not know what to do with the money, although he hinted at spending a portion of his earning for a medical school.