By
Dan |
Published
May 27 2009, 01:25 PM
Winners of World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments score bracelets. A total of 57 pieces of hardware will be dished out in this year’s festivities in Las Vegas, culminating in November with the Main Event. Similarly, winners of WSOP Circuit Events get a shiny gold ring. Recently, Chris herdgolf86 Tipper took down a $340 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament during the WSOP Circuit stop in New Orleans for his first gold ring. His victory over the 323 player field was worth $22,000 and he defeated Johnny Stephenson heads-up. PocketFives.com sat down with Tipper, who was in transit to Las Vegas for the WSOP, to talk about his Circuit Event championship.
Tipper joined PocketFives.com two years ago and already has a Triple Crown title under his belt. While many in the poker world were tuned into the Pittsburgh Steelers’ come from behind victory over the Arizona Cardinals in February's Super Bowl, Tipper was busy winning the Super Sunday on PokerStars for $102,000. On parlaying his success behind the computer to the live felts, Tipper told PocketFives.com, “It’s the goal of all the online guys. You want to break through live at some point. There is more money in live poker, so you have to break in sometime.”
The PocketFiver’s win came in the 11th event of the WSOP Circuit Event hosted by Harrah’s New Orleans. A total of 20 played out overall, with a $5,150 buy-in Championship Event serving as its finale. This time around in the feature tournament, Jean Gaspard defeated PocketFiver Billy Patrolman35 Kopp (pictured at left) to win $211,000. Kopp is fresh off wins in the Full Tilt Poker Sunday Brawl and $150 rebuy for a combined sum of $150,000. On the field that turned out in the Big Easy, Tipper commented, “There were a lot of local players taking a shot in a smaller buy-in tournament. Once it got deep, I could pick up the aggression a bit. My opponents didn’t understand calling ranges and they weren’t adjusting to my play as the blinds went up.”
Tipper went into the second day of play as the chip leader and entered the final table with the second largest stack. He was crippled while trying to isolate against an all-in player while holding A-Q, running into another player’s aces. However, he’d reclaim a bevy of chips when his K-J bested two pocket pairs four-handed. Six months before the final hands of the WSOP Circuit Event in New Orleans were dealt, Tipper won the $100 rebuy on PokerStars for a healthy $64,000. He considers the victory the defining moment in his poker career so far: “At that time, it was my biggest score. It’s a more stacked tournament than others online and I felt it was a breakthrough win.”
His ceremonial ring is somewhere in transit. In the meantime, he’s headed to Sin City for the WSOP, where he will be staying with a group of fellow PocketFivers that includes Ryan gutshtallin Welch (pictured at right), Kopp, lockdownpokah, Michael benvo123 Benvenuti, and Steven PiKappRaider Burkholder. On living, eating, sleeping, and breathing poker for seven weeks, Tipper noted, “I think it’ll be helpful. It’ll be easy to stay motivated. Overall, I feel good about the summer, especially having a live tournament victory under my belt and being surrounded by players with the same goals as me.” Burkholder sits in 19th on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and has three cashes of at least $200,000 in the last eight months.
Tipper was turned onto the “Cadillac of Poker” after playing in friendly home games with co-workers at a golf course during high school. Then, he transitioned to the online version. He recalled, “I’ve always had a gambling mentality and picked up on it pretty quickly. Poker was a really easy transition from competitive golf. In college, I played a bit on Bodog and randomly won a $50 tournament for $7,000. I eventually met Kenny Hixx Hicks, who helped me with my game and staked me in different tournaments. That’s when my game took off and I won the Triple Crown a month later.” Hicks also hails from Huntington, Tipper’s hometown. At the time of writing, the pair sits in second and third in the PocketFives.com Sliding PLB for West Virginia:
He wanted to send a shout out to Steven SteveyBallGame Merrifield, who was camped out with Tipper in the Pittsburgh airport en route to Las Vegas. In March, Merrifield took down the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed for $140,000 and, one month later, finished fifth in the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) Main Event for double that amount. He final tabled the high-stakes version of SCOOP Event #17 for $218,000 as well. Since April 1st, Merrifield has piled up well over $500,000 in tournaments that are tracked for the Rankings, making for ample seed money prior to the WSOP.
Congratulations from all of us here at PocketFives.com to Chris herdgolf86 Tipper for winning a WSOP Circuit Event.