Nicolas Burnett made a lot of firsts on Monday at the Peppermill. It was his first time at Run It Up Reno and his first time playing five-card pot-limit Omaha. He also left the tournament area with his first RIU title.

Burnett took down the $125 six-max five-card pot-limit Omaha event, having never played a hand before he sat in the tournament. He defeated 82 entries and Pete Mall heads-up to earn $2,140 along with a sizable trophy to take home.

“I’m just happy I squeezed that out in a game that I’ve never played before,” said Burnett. “And happy to take down the event. I was hoping to get into the [Platinum Pass] qualifiers event, but I didn’t realize that it was before this event.”

When you don’t have any experience in the game, it sure helps to have some rungood on your side. Burnett ran up a huge stack at the final table and started heads-up play with a nearly 10-to-1 chip advantage against Mall.

Burnett credits lady luck for most of those chips, but also had built a baseline strategy to get the best of certain opponents.

“I was pretty much hitting everything the entire tournament,” said Burnett. “And once we got down to the final two tables, it was pretty easy to sort of exploit certain players and take advantage of spots.”

Not everything wen this way though. There were a few minor bumps in the road along the way.

“I ran a couple bad bluffs that ended up getting called,” he said. “I got called by ace-king high in five-card PLO. That was absurd. I couldn’t believe that.”

Like yesterday’s winner in the $125 three-card super no-limit hold’em, Jesper Olsen, Burnett just recently moved to Reno. He took a job at the new Tesla plant about six months ago and has been waiting for the next RIU Reno series to come to town.

“I was super stoked that Run It Up Reno was coming in the next few months… I wanted to come to it the past two events,” said the Southern California native. “I tried to qualify online, but didn’t make it. I just couldn’t make it between that and my work commitments. I was just ready and waiting.”

The 82-entry field paid out the top 15 spots. Other notable cashes include shootout winner Jason Burruss, Jon Turner and ‘Boston Rob’ Mariano. Here are the full results:

1st: Nicolas Burnett – $2,140
2nd: Pete Mall – $1,400
3rd: Stanley Wang – $934
4th: Ryan Leonis – $640
5th: Mikail Osipov – $460
6th: Justin Granata – $350
7th: Jason Burruss – $280
8th: Gail Sarett – $280
9th: Rob Mariano – $240
10th: Kevin Barrett – $240
11th: Jon Turner – $210
12th: Rebecca Hardisty – $210
13th: John Miner – $190
14th: Sarah Sherman – $190
15th: Jeff Chapman – $190