October 23, 2018 (Hammond, Ind.) Zachery Schneider came into the day second in chips of the final 23 players, but for him, there were no big hurdles on his way to a victory in the Horseshoe Hammond Main Event. Schneider was consistently at the top, or near the top of the chip counts and he never dropped. For him, he felt like he was just running pure. Things fell his way today.
"I feel blessed," Schneider said. "I ran real well today. I didn't really have any hurdles to get over. Things just kind of flowed naturally. It came to me today."
This was pretty evident as Schneider was the eliminator of four of the final nine players. Even as the final table began, Schneider sat second in chips and had over a third of chips in play midway through the day. Things just went his way and at multiple points throughout the day, he said that he could feel the cards coming.
"I was like half serious," Schneider said. "But you know, sometimes you do get a feeling. It was just more like things falling my way all day. I was getting lucky."
And he was. It wasn't that Schneider was getting it in bad often, but when he did, he would find his way onto the right side of things. Just before the final table, Schneider got a larger portion of his stack in with kings against the aces of Porfirio Mendez. Schneider spiked a king to take down the pot and the chip lead. Later he would get it in with nine-ten suited against the ace-king suited of George Pappas. Pappas even flopped a king, but Schneider went running two pair to take down the pot.
That doesn't mean that Schneider was getting it bad always. He was also picking up cards at the right times. He would eliminate Aaron Massey when Massey shoved all in with king-jack. Schneider woke up with aces to send him to the rail. This was moments after Scheinder took most of Massey chips with a full house against trips.
Not only that, Schneider won the important flips when it mattered as well. When Young Hoon Koh got it in with queens against Schneider's ace-king, Schneider would turn a king to send another player to the rail. He came into heads up play as the chip leader after sending home both David McDermott in fourth and Sami Shurbaji in third. And with his 2-1 advantage, he wouldn't let off the gas. He quickly wiped away more than half of Nick Pupillo's stack with top pair top kicker, and though Pupillo would double up, his quest for a second Circuit Main Event title would be short lived.
Despite joking about having never played heads-up before, Schneider actually has experience playing for a major title, after winning the Horseshoe Hammond High Roller three years ago. Schneider did say that it wasn't until day three that he really started to feel like he could win the event.
"Honestly, I know I'm pretty good poker player and I've done this for a living for ten plus years," he explained. "I know that I have an edge on the field for the most part so I always feel confident. But really it didn't really hit me till today when everything just kind of got out of my way. So it wasn't really until today that I was confident that big things were happening."
On the final hand, Pupillo bluffed all in with a missed gutshot straight draw, holding only four high, Schneider would call him down with two pair. That would be good enough and from there he was able to take down his first World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event Title and his second World Series of Poker ring. The victory and first place prize of $302,492 also represents Schneider's largest live reported cash ever.
Full Final Table Results:
1st - Zachery Schneider - $302,492
2nd - Nick Pupillo - $186,823
3rd - Sami Shurbaji - $138,825
4th - David McDermott - $104,417
5th - Young Hoon Koh - $79,506
6th - Giuliano Lentini - $61,258
7th - Mark Wahba - $47,750
8th - Jake Baumgartner - $37,640
9th - Royce Matheson - $29,999
10th - Sam Miller - $24,182
A full list of results can be found in the results tab.