Friday, March 18, 2016 5:51 PM Local Time
Chris Morse Wins Event #3 ($13,203)
Chris Morse is the champion of Event #3 at Harrah’s Atlantic City, defeating a field of 163 players to win his first gold ring. He also earned the largest payout of his poker career to date, collecting the top prize of more than $13,000.
The champ is a 27-year-old product manager from Danbury, Connecticut, and he plays poker part time. He took the St. Patrick’s Day holiday off work with the intention to play another event closer to home, but a friend dragged him down the shore to Atlantic City to hunt for a ring. He remembered to pack his lucky green shirt on his way out the door.
“We wanted to get pigged at the pool party,” his friend admitted after the fact. “Well… I wanted to, at least.”
Morse obliged his friend, and 24 hours later, he’s the toast of the party.
After entering the final table third in chips, Morse was the shortest stack remaining when the field was reduced to three players. On the very first hand of three-handed play, though, he found pocket aces on the button and moved in. Both opponents called, one with king-queen of clubs and the other with king-nine of hearts. The flop come nine-high with two hearts, but the turn and river were both clean to give Morse the much-needed triple. About a half hour later, he was posing for photos with the gold ring after defeating Matthew Vascellaro in the heads-up match.
“It’s a turbo, so there isn’t really a lot of thought involved,” Morse said, modest in victory. “It’s a lot of push-fold. I had the best hand a lot and held. Pretty fortunate.”