There is winning a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet and then there is winning a World Series of Poker bracelet. Minnesotan Chris Wallace won his first in style Tuesday as he triumphed over a very strong field in 2014 WSOP Event #21: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E.
This was the fifth $10,000 event of this year’s thirteen at the WSOP and Day 3 began with 21 very skilled players. They pretty much had to be to compete in this mixed game format. In fact, every single player of the remaining 21 had been to a World Series of Poker final table. All, that is, except for Wallace. Eleven of the players, led by Daniel Negreanu, had won bracelets. Bill Chen, “Miami” John Cernuto, Max Pescatori, and David Benyamine made this look like a tournament from 2006, and then there were the likes of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Nick Schulman, and Randy Ohel with whom Wallace had to deal.
The win was far and away Wallace’s largest of his career, tripling his lifetime earnings. Most of his live tournament cashes have been small, in local and regional tourneys. He did have three WSOP cashes and World Poker Tour (WPT) cash before this, so he was not a total stranger to the pressure of big-time poker tournaments. “When I would go on break and relax my heart would be racing,” Wallace told WSOP.com’s Jessica Welman about his time at the final table. “When I would get back to the table I would be calm and focused.”
When the field was narrowed to the “unofficial” final table of nine players, Wallace was actually not in the best of shape with just 430,000 chips. For perspective, Richard Sklar was the chip leader with 1,690,000, Richard Ashby was second with 1,310,000, and Randy Ohel was in third with 859,000. While Wallace was way behind those three, he may have been helped by the fact that the rest of the players were in about his situation or worse.
By the time the final table was five-handed, though, Wallace was in second with 1,320,000 chips and the overall chip spread was narrow, spanning 1,500,000 to 900,000. From that point, Wallace took off, quickly eclipsing the 2,000,000 chip mark, then getting up to almost 3,000,000 before falling back a bit and going into heads-up play against Randy Ohel at a 3,400,000 to 2,600,000 chip disadvantage.
He soon took the lead and then won the key hand of the tournament. In a Stud level, he made the bring in showing an 8, Ohel completed with an Ace, and Wallace called. On both fourth and fifth streets, Ohel bet and Wallace called. Then things got interesting. On sixth street, Ohel bet, but this time Wallace raised. Ohel called to get to the face-down river card. With Wallace showing x-x / 8-6-K-T / x, Ohel checked with x-x / A-5-3-8 / x. Wallace bet, Ohel raised, and then Wallace re-raised. Ohel knew he could be in trouble, but made the call. Wallace turned over 6-6-T for a full house and Ohel mucked. It was a significant hand, taking Wallace up to 4,900,000 and sending Ohel’s stack down to 1,100,000.
Shortly thereafter, it was over. Ohel was all-in on fifth street with A-A / 3-T-2, against Wallace’s 2-3 / 5-2-2. Ohel got another Ace on sixth street to give him three Aces, but Wallace spiked a 3 on the river to make a boat, knocking out Ohel and clinching his first WSOP bracelet.
2014 World Series of Poker Event #21: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. – Final Table Results
1. Christopher Wallace – $507,614
2. Randy Ohel – $313,715
3. Richard Sklar – $206,499
4. Richard Ashby – $150,625
5. Max Pescatori – $112,066
6. Lee Goldman – $84,844
7. Bill Chen – $65,273
8. Calvin Anderson – $50,966
* Tournament information and image courtesy WSOP.com.