On October 13th, Nevada’s Steve McNallyvilleMcNally (pictured) came away with the win in the $320 buy-in PokerStars Wednesday Quarter Million. Originally from Ohio, McNally got his start in the game at an early age after playing card games with his parents, who promptly took him to Las Vegas. Since then, he’s turned in deep runs in major tournaments like the PokerStars Super Tuesday and Full Tilt Poker $40,000 Guarantee. He established his largest score to date by virtue of a runner-up showing in the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guarantee for nearly $100,000.

The final table of the Wednesday Quarter Million featured two players who reside in the top 100 of the PocketFives.com Rankings, Cliff JohnnyBaxJosephy (pictured) and Laurence rivermanlHoughton. We asked McNally for scouting reports on these two legends of the game: “I got heads-up with rivermanl earlier this year, so I’ve had experience with him before. He’s a good player, and obviously everyone knows JohnnyBax. He’s been around since the beginning of time and continues to put up amazing results. Bax is a great player, especially short-handed. Luckily, JimDarnaby35 did most of the work on him.”

Josephy finished in third place for $27,000, while Houghton was ousted in eighth for $6,200. With nearly 1,000 players entering, the Wednesday Quarter Million boasted a prize pool of close to $300,000.

Despite the win, his marquee score remains his deep run in the $750,000 Guarantee in late August. On that Sunday Major, which has one of the largest fields of any event each week, McNally told PocketFives.com, “I have done well in it recently. Before this year, I didn’t like the Sunday Majors too much. Something just clicked in the $750K for me, however, and I’ve been running well on Full Tilt in general. In that tournament, you can really exploit people.” In addition to his runner-up finish, McNally took fourth in the $750,000 Guarantee in May for $41,000.

He’s spiraling toward the top 100 in the Rankings, but admitted that it’s going to be difficult to crack the upper echelons: “I don’t put in the volume that other people do and play mainly Wednesday and Sunday only. That’s definitely not the best strategy to go by considering that other days might have softer fields. However, it’s worked for me so far and I’m not going to go away from it. Right now, I look forward to playing and that’s better than me putting in volume.”

McNally went to kindergarten with Ross zestfulyclean Myers (pictured), who can be found in the top 30 in the Rankings. Once the duo saw the iconic film “Rounders,” they began firing up low-stakes home games. McNally admitted that they didn’t know they were supposed to burn cards, but after getting their feet wet, toured the casino circuit together.

When he was 21 years old, McNally met poker author and longtime player Jon PearlJammer Turner (pictured) at the Bellagio. McNally tried to slow play a hand against Turner, who caught up on the river to take down the pot. Afterward, Turner gave McNally a few pointers. “That was probably the first time that anyone helped me in poker,” McNally recalled. “I moved in with him and hadn’t ever played tournaments before. However, I was struggling in cash games and so he asked me to start playing tournaments for him. He gave me a fundamental start on things like position and bet sizing and he’s definitely a great person to learn from.” The two remain roommates to this day.

McNally finished second in a $540 No Limit Hold’em event during the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza in early 2008 for $28,000. He also took 10th in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event during the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP), his largest live cash to date. He landed in the money in a pair of WSOP tournaments this year for $13,000 combined and explained, “This summer was brutal for me live. I bubbled the WSOP Main Event. Also, people seem to make less sense playing live. Online, you don’t see too many left field moves. Live poker is more of a psychological battle; it’s a little bit trickier.”

Sign up for PokerStars to play in this week’s running of the Wednesday Quarter Million.