Starting the final table as chipleader, Emmanuel McKenzie did not give up that lead for one single hand across the six hours of play. 

"I used controlled aggression, and I pulled off some big bluffs at the right times," he said a few minutes after collecting the $87,510 first-place prize in the $500,000 Guarantee PokerAtlas Tour $600 Title Event at TCH Social Austin.

In town from Houston for this tournament, McKenzie fired twice in the same flight before finding his Day2Bag, coming into Day 2 with 343,000. He doubled that stack in the first two hours, doubling the stack again over the next two hours.

By the time the field was down to 18 - playing across two tables - it was McKenzie as chipleader - a fact that never changed.

"I have been working so hard on my game the last three years," McKenzie said as he walked off the livestream stage with the Atlas trophy in his hands. "I have been grinding away."

He plans to head off to Las Vegas tomorrow night after taking family out to dinner in Houston, playing some $1k's currently running at a variety of rooms there.