Blue Shark Optics pro Christopher “Fox” Wallace Shines in $10,000 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. Event

I was off covering the WSOP $1,000 NLHE final table with Dominik Nitsche and Bob Bounahra last night, while our Blue Shark Optics pro Christopher “Fox” Wallace took down the $10,000 Event #22: H.O.R.S.E. I definitely wanted to cover his epic bracelet journey, but first thing––I don’t understand half the games they play in H.O.R.S.E. Second, I always feel like an intruder on the set of 24 when I cover events on the blue-lit ESPN stage. Anyhow, according to our esteemed reporters at PokerNews who feed live coverage to the WSOP site, Fox picked off greats like Daniel Negreanu, Nick Schulman, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Nick Kost, and David Benyamine on Day Three en route to victory. He credits his win to “a combination of luck, wiles, and Blue Shark Optics eyewear.” Just kidding. 

Richard Sklar made an equally impressive run, as he clawed his way up from being the shortest stack among 21 at the beginning of Day Three to the chip leader coming into the final table. He ultimately fell in third, with Fox besting Randy Ohel heads up and picking up a half million dollars first prize. On the last hand, Christopher Wallace held an––ahhhh––I can never describe Stud 8 hands––lets say he won, thanks in no small part to his state-of-the-art eyewear. 

Gold fedora and Blue Shark Optics eyewear––a deadly combination.

With the motto “Dark Sunglasses Belong in the Sun... Not at the Poker Table,” Blue Shark Optics features custom and prescription models that pay homage to poker legends such as Chris Moneymaker, Hoyt Corkins, Nancy Birnbaum, and Greg “Fossilman” Raymer (I was disappointed to learn that the Raymer Signature Edition does not feature the lizard-eye hologram patterns he famously wore taking down the 2004 WSOP Main Event). 

Blue Shark Optics eyewear can be found at a booth at the Rio throughout the WSOP, manned by my good friend (and OnTilt colleague) Nathan Dowland. He appears daily on the Mark Hoke show and hosts the Check Raise Show on OnTilt Radio every Tuesday at 7:00 pm. I had the distinct honor of being on the show last night, broadcast live from the Rio's Pavilion Stage––although I was ushered summarily off stage as Seniors WSOP event winner Dan Heimiller took his rightful spot at the microphone. 

Dominik Nitsche Dodges a Spray of Bullets, Takes Home WSOP Event #21: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em

As heads-up continued and the night wore on, Dominik Nitsche dodged more bullets against Dave D'Alesandro than Keanu Reeves in the Matrix––getting the much needed double-ups just when he was running on empty. Five times he went all in preflop with coin flip hands and five times he won. In a key late hand, Nitsche was all in A-9 with one heart and hit a heart flush on the river against D'Alesandro’s pocket fours. 

Fourth time's a charm. A heart on the river finally gives Nitsche the lead after starting heads-up short stacked.

On the penultimate hand, with D'Alesandro finally the at-risk stack, he called D'Alesandro’s Q-7  button shove with K-6. A heaven-sent K-6 flop sealed his victory, his second major WSOP bracelet taken home in the course of a single month. 

Erm... you don't want to celebrate with me? Awkward.

Nitsche hugs his buddy as D'Alesandro walks away dejected, with one last glance at an unforgiving board.

Speaking with press after the $335,659 win, a clearly elated Dominik Nitsche said that playing against some of the best cash game players in the world online (with mad Vanessa Selbst-like skillz) had given him the knowledge to make deep runs in major events. Also helping him was the fact that “on the weekend the amateurs come out.” Having received a table draw with inexperienced players who would fold to min raises, Nitsche rapidly built a sizable stack in the early stages. As for final table play, Nitsche was relieved to see Bob Bounahra finally bust out third, as he was a player who “put me in a lot of tricky spots.” Heads up, running like God, Nitsche had a moment when he chipped up past 2 million and thought “maybe I have a shot at this.” When he hit his miracle river heart flush and took the lead he thought “this is it, I’ve got it.”

"It feels nice to win tournament with friends around, gives me extra motivation.. luckily I was able to win some all-ins and take it down."

                                                Happy.. yawn... how many more posed pictures?

Dominik Nitsche and Dave D'Alesandro Battle it out for NLHE Victory and $335,000

After the $1,000 WSOP Event 21 NLHE event dinner break, Zachary Gruneberg went all in with A-J and a perilously short stack of 490,000. He was called by Dominik Nitsche, who had nearly 2 million chips behind and paired his K-Q on the flop. Gruneberg failed to hit his ace and then there were three. 

Zachary Gruneberg shakes the hand of Nitsche, who felted him in fourth. D'Alesandro looks a bit smug, despite a valiant attempt at sympathy.  

Bounahra kept up the aggression, shoving his last 500,000 with Q-2 two hands later and came up against the immovable force of Nitsche’s A-K. Putting on his backpack preemptively, Bounahra awaited his fate. A festive mood erupted, with Nitsche leveling the rail that he held Q-2 and Bounahra A-K. When a Q peeled on the turn, Antonio Esfandiari encouraged Bounahra to “take that backpack off.” With Bounahra nearly tripling up, Esfandiari gave further goofy encouragement “Holy triple up! Can you Belize it?” Throughout all this high flung action, Dave D'Alesandro remained steady and immobile, with his stack of nearly 3 million. 

Esfandiari to Bounahra: “take that backpack off.”

With three players left, play entered a two-way leveling war, punctuated by regular all-ins by short stack Bounahra. Bob’s rail had by this time branched off into new choruses every time he won a pot, including “Do you Belize In Magic” and “Do You Belize in Life After Love.” Meanwhile, Dominik Nitsche and Dave D'Alesandro started playing some real poker. An unraised 3-4-6 flop with two hearts resulted in Dave betting 120,000, Nitsche re-raised to 320,000, D'Alesandro four-bet to 540,000 and Nitsche moved all in––which brought about an insta-fold. Nobody move, nobody get hurt. 

The hand that busted Bob Bounahra shifted fortunes for all three players. Nitsche started the action by raising to 160,000, Bob shoved his remaining chips, and D'Alesandro shoved all-in behind him. After surprisingly little thought, Nitsche called both all-ins. He could afford to do so with his tens––he had both covered, barely. While he dominated Bounahra’s sevens, Nitsche was well behind D'Alesandro’s queens. The board blanked out for Bounahra & Nitsche, and D'Alesandro scooped a huge pot––making him dominating chip leader as they moved to heads up. 

                                   Bounahra all-in three-way and resigned to going out in third.

An emerging story of the summer is definitely Dominik Nitsche, a German threat who took first place in the 126-runner WSOP National Championship just before the 2014 Las Vegas WSOP began. His $352,800 victory made him the first non-American to win the prestigious $10,000 event, whose participants must achieve top WSOP results over a two year period for tournament eligibility. His convincing victory came against Matthew Ashton––the reigning Poker Players Champion––and two-time WSOP winner Athanasios Polychronopoulos.

                       Dave D'Alesandro heads up against Dominik Nitsche, a crafty, emerging star.

After 20 minutes of cautious play, Dominik Nitsche shoved his remaining 15 big blinds with 10-9 suited and was called by Dave D'Alesandro, who held A-J. The flop and turn were safe for D'Alesandro, but the river brought a 10, saving Nitsche and doubling him up to a much healthier stack. Unfortunately, he ran into D'Alesandro’s flopped boat with 9-7 on a 9-7-7 flop shortly thereafter and lost a significant stack. Like a yo-yo, he survived his next all in with A-2 against 10-9 unsuited and doubled up to 1.6 million––still short stacked but by no means out. The next all-in was also won by Nitsche, with a set of queens vs. two pair. This time he chipped up to 1.5 million, delaying the ticking time bomb just enough to give himself a shot at the win.

                                    Nitsche dodging & dodging bullets. 10 on the river, ok!

                                                                    Trip queens good!

                                                                      A-6 good!

Bruno Fitoussi Felted in 10th in $10,000 H.O.R.S.E, Tells a Funny Story

Bob Bounahra has been propelling much of the action in the $1,000 WSOP Event 21 NLHE. He lost a significant stack betting K-J on a K-5-3 flop versus Dominik Nitsche. The latter player exercised caution, checking down the winning hand, pocket aces. The next hand, down to 800,000, Bounahra survived all in scare with A-K vs. A-6 and doubled up to 1.7 million. 

Cosmic shrug. Bounahra doubles up back to where he was.

Meanwhile, in the H.O.R.S.E. event, David Benyamine took a hard fall. First he mucked on a 10-10-6-5-4 board, presumably with a 10 to Richard Sklar’s flopped set of sixes. On the next hand, he woke up with pocket aces and lost a preflop all-in versus Randy Ohel’s A-3 suited, whith his opponent flopping a club flush. Out in 11th, the $32,000 he won was a mere drop in the bucket in a total prize pool of nearly $1.9 million. The last player felted before consolidation to the unofficial final table on the ESPN stage was Nick Kost, who bested last year’s Omaha 8 event winner Calen McNeil to take down the $1,500 Omaha High-Low Split. The H.O.R.S.E event take home of $40,000 was significantly less than the $283,275 he walked away with last week, but it came against the “best of the best” in a pressure packed $10,000 buy in mixed game format. Kost has only a few live tournament cashes, including a $12,435 victory in the 2011 L.A Poker Classic/WPT fixed limit hold’em to his credit. This suggests that he put his Omaha 8 winnings to productive use in this event. I would be very surprised if we don’t hear more from Kost again before the 2014 World Series of Poker is finished.  

Mea culpa––I was not around to get a good shot of Kost, but that's him, felted in a baseball cap.

With the tables breaking, I had the opportunity to speak with Bruno Fitoussi, a veteran French player, who had been chatting it up at the table with Elky and Negreanu on Day Two. The wild-haired Fitoussi single handedly popularized poker in the early 1990s, opening France’s first poker room in 1990 and spending a year in Las Vegas in 1991. Four years later, he established the Aviation Club de France on the Paris’ Champs-Elysées, a club that is still considered France’s premier poker venue. 

Fitoussi, known as France's Ambassador of Poker. 

Anyway, Fitoussi told me that he had been watching with interest the $1,000 WSOP Event 21, as Billy Horan’s A-A was cracked by Dave D'Alesandro’s A-A on a miracle spade flush. Fitoussi is a good friend of Horan, has played him in poker and backgammon for the past thirty years. That ultimate bad beat reminded him of an incident that occurred in Paris years ago, where a guy holding aces raised a guy with queens, and ultimately went all-in pre-flop. In that situation, another player said that he had folded pocket queens, meaning that there were virtually zero outs. Unfortunately for our man with the aces, a queen peeled on the river––proving the adage that poker players simply cannot tell the truth. 

Unfortunately Fitoussi was the short stack, nursing a stack of less than 90,000, and was quickly felted on the ESPN stage, giving us our final table of eight worthy contenders––though none of the superstars one might expect, given the original lineup.

While the action in the H.O.R.S.E game is good, I cannot be in two places at once, and will return to the $1,000 NLHE where fan favorites Bounahra and Nitsche are still alive and well. Not well, actually––Bounahra just bet out a large stack of greens on a river Q with his Q-9 and was called reluctantly by Nitsche who had A-3 and had flopped an A. Now Bounahra is in full push-fold mode, holding the smallest stack at the table. With a 30 minute dinner break at hand, he consults with Antonio Esfandiari and his father in the stands before sticking a fat stogie in his mouth and walking off––planning his comeback, no doubt. 

                                                    Bounahra clearly jonesing for a stogie.