Thursday, August 11, 2016 10:18 PM Local Time
Chris Churchwell Wins First Ring After Second Place Last April
Event #8
No-Limit Hold'em Monster Stack
Buy-In: $300 (+$65)
Total Entries: 715
Prize Pool: $134,500
Chris Churchwell Wins First Ring After Second Place Last April in $580 Ring Event Here at Cherokee
Cherokee, North Carolina (August 11, 2016) – Chris Churchwell is a family man through and through. Not only did his grandma introduce him to poker by taking him to his first casino when he turned 21, both of his grandmothers came here to watch him win this ring today. Faith Bazemore and Shirley Sands are Seven Star members here at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, and Chruchwell insisted that they both be present in his winner photo. As soon as he was given the ring, he handed it right over to hi grandma Faith, and she shrieked in excitement.
“I can’t even describe how I feel. I have been trying to win this ring, it’s been my only goal this year. I came so close in second place earlier this year, and I had my whole family up there for it. I came here this past weekend with my Grandma Faith and played the series, and then she went home and I came back by myself. And I always told her I wanted to win a ring and give it to her, and that was my goal,” Churchwell said. He went on to explain that when they bagged up last night, his grandma wanted to come back to watch him, but he encouraged her to wait until they were down to 20 players. As soon as they were close to the 20 player mark, and Churchwell still had chips, Faith hit the road and headed right here to watch her grandson play it down. His other grandma Shirley was also here all day watching him play, and providing support and encouragement. “Having both of my grandmas here just gave me the motivation I needed to push through,” Chruchwell said not even trying to hide his emotions.
Churchwell was a Mortgage Examiner for the state government for many years, and played poker online for fun. In the last year he decided to quit his job and focus solely on poker. According to him, he “eats, sleeps, and breaths poker” now. Since quitting his job in November, he took second in the $580 No-Limit Hold’em WSOP event here in Cherokee last April, coming in runner up to Salvatore DiCarlo. Ever since that second place finish, Churchwell has spent eight to ten hour a day studying poker, and focusing on his health. He practices yoga and meditation, and says that it has really helped him with his poker game.
When they were down to six players today, Churchwell won a key hand that resulted in the elimination of two players, Allen Bennett in 6th place ($8,544), and Adam Oleszkowicz in 5th place ($11,186).
Interestingly, the final hand he played today was heavily influenced by a key hand Churchwell played against Salvatore DiCarlo when he took second place back in April.
Churchwell raised to 150,000 on the button at 25,000/50,000 blinds with , and his opponent Kyle Hovis defended. The flop came , giving Churchwell two pair. Hovis checked, Churchwell bet, and Hovis raised. At that moment, Churchwell decided to just call the raise. “When he raised, I immediately thought of a hand I played against Sal. I had aces preflop and I had bet, Sal three bet, and I four bet, and Sal folded. I thought exactly about that hand against Sal when I flopped two pair today, and I told myself that I can’t raise, that I have to keep him in with his whole range here,” he explained. When the came on the turn today, Hovis shoved all in and Churchwell quickly called. “I feel like if I would have raised again on the flop, he would have been out of there, and I feel like I learned that lesson in my heads up match against Sal,” Churchwell concluded.
Churchwell’s only regret about today was that his girlfriend Kathryn Laprade was not able to make it to see him win. She had taken off work for a whole week in April, and saw his second place finish then, but was unable to get off of work today to make it in time. “She’s been a great support to me. Every break I would call her and she would keep me in the good spirits and try to keep me level headed and keep me from getting upset, I wish that she could have been here for it but that’s my only regret of the day,” Churchwell said with a huge smile.
Full results from this event are available in the Results tab above.
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Kevin Davis (winner of Event #3) is now in the lead of Harrah's Cherokee Casino Champion race with 60 points. Davis won Event #3, and then cashed 13th in Event #6 ($365 PLO), propelling him to the top of the leaderboard. John Bailey (winner Event #1), Austin Reilly (winner Event #2), Christopher Fisher (winner of Event #4), Justin Warf (winner of Event #5), Mike Leah (winner of Event #6), Robert Stephens (winner of Event #7), and Chris Churchwell (winner of this event) are now tied for 50 points each in the 2016/2017 Casino Champion race. The player who accumulates the most overall points in the twelve gold ring tournaments at Harrah’s Cherokee earns the title of Casino Champion and receives an automatic entry into the $1 million 2017 WSOP Global Casino Championship. The winner of the Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event earns an automatic entry to the Global Casino Championship as well. All players who cash in ring events will receive points that apply to both the Casino Champion race and the season-long race to claim one of the 50 at-large Global Casino Championship bids awarded to the top point earners throughout the season. More information on the points system is available on WSOP.com.