POSITION 5: $12,525,000

BACKGROUND

• Schwartz has cashed in 11 World Series of Poker events, including 15th place in the Limit Hold'em event this year. He has cashed in 30 live tournaments, winning almost $256,000.

• Schwartz is a former professional chess player, but realized early on he could make more money at poker. He started playing chess when he was 13. At 16, he was making a living from chess in New York's East Village. At 23, he became a chess master.

PREPARING FOR FINAL TABLE

Schwartz may have had the best attitude of any of the finalists: "I'll evaluate my play, but I think I'm just going to find a hammock, a beach and a good bottle of tequila."

SINCE QUALIFYING

Schwartz has a Web site, shipthecheese.com, where he credits two men with teaching him poker: his grandfather and "Fat Nick," whom he describes as "a 350-pound old man with one tooth in his mouth that crack was kind of enough to leave."

HAS MAKING FINAL TABLE CHANGED HIM?

"I still live in the same apartment," he told the New York Post. "I go to the pub. Nothing has changed, except that I'm getting attention from TV people."

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ESPN POKER ANALYST NORM CHAD:

"If he wins, he wants to go somewhere no one will find him, like Tim Robbins in 'Shawshank Redemption.' He's smart and strange -- you've got to fear the smart, strange ones -- and he'll wait for others to make mistakes at the table."