Maurice Hawkins finished Day 4 of the $2,620 buy-in Marathon event at the 2017 World Series of Poker with the fourth biggest stack, 3,630,000, with Joseph Di Rosa Rojas, Tim Reilly and Andrew Jernigan ahead of him. There were just 13 players and one more scheduled day of play ahead of him. Any top three finish would be a career-best for him.

“The train fell off the tracks. Was a big ol’ wall at the end of the track and I didn’t see it coming. It wasn’t meant for me to win. It just seemed every time I had a pretty big hand somebody had a bigger hand,” said Hawkins, who made the final table but had to settle for a ninth place finish.

One of those hands were Hawkins was second-best came against Tim Reilly, late on Day 4 when Hawkins flopped top set on an Jx board before turning a full house. Reilly held and rivered a royal flush with the . It marked the beginning of some verbal sparring between the two according to Hawkins.

“He made a smart ass comment. He said ‘This is not the Circuit’ after he hit a two-percenter on me. Where he had a straight flush draw,” said Hawkins.

The next day the two were seated next to each other and it didn’t take long for fireworks to go off.

“He was just digging in to me over and over again. Finally I just got tired of it. Then he started getting disrespectful. Which, I don’t like. I don’t like when people lie about things they know nothing about, just blatantly shouting things out. It’s just ridiculous,” said Hawkins.

Reilly accused Hawkins of not paying back some backers, a story that has made its way around some of poker’s gossip circles but Hawkins denies it. He even challenged Reilly to name people that are waiting to get paid.

“When they don’t have anything to say about you, they just come up with a dumbass comment. That’s the reason when he was there I was like ‘Why don’t you tell me who I owe?’. I wanna know so I can pay that person back who I owe,” said Hawkins.

The confrontation got loud enough that the floor came over and spoke to both players. The floor was concerned enough to ask a security guard to monitor the two players until they cooled down.

“What bothered me was when he started being disrespectful,” said Hawkins.

A few hours later, Hawkins was out in ninth place while Reilly went on to finish fourth. Hawkins earned $54,356 for his efforts and then took some time off to spend time with his wife and a few friends. They hit up Jewel at Aria, then spent an afternoon at Tao. It was hardly refreshing though.

“I feel tired. I wish I could say I was refreshed. I feel tired,” said Hawkins, who still believes he’s going to do big things this summer.

“I’m gonna final table within the next week. Seven days I’ll be back to a final table. And within 15 I’ll be top three again, about to win,” said Hawkins. “Because I’m doing the same thing that I always do. Every four or five tournaments I normally make a final table. Three or four tournaments later I make another final table. And then around two to three weeks in, I just win something big.”

Hawkins plans is playing a few No Limit events this week, including the Monster Stack this upcoming weekend.

“I’m going to make a final table, man. Proof is in the pudding. This is what I do,” said Hawkins.