In 2007, Tom Schneider won the World Series of Poker Player of the Year (POY) award. He was a relative unknown at the time; there were likely many utterances of the phrase “Tom who?” when people looked at the POY leader board that year. It was easy to like they guy – he had that “every man” look a la Darvin Moon or Chris Moneymaker. He only had three cashes at that WSOP, but he made them count, winning two bracelets and finishing fourth in another event.
In the years that followed his rise to prominence in the poker world, Schneider did not win any more WSOP bracelets. That didn’t mean he had bad runs in the Series, though. After all, he did cash 18 more times from 2008 through 2012. The closest he came to another victory was the year after his POY title, when he placed fifth in the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce to Seven Draw event.
Finally, after years of trying to nab that third bracelet, Tom Schneider did it, winning Event #15: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. over the weekend.
Schneider entered final table play with a fairly dominant chip lead, holding 880,000 discs, 300,000 more than the next closest player. The key hand came late in the tournament, though the fact that it was near the end of the night was very much a factor of the result of the hand itself.
With just three players remaining in a Stud Eight or Better level, Schneider was showing the 5♠ and completed the bet. Owais Ahmed followed with a call behind his 5♦. Schneider was dealt T♠ on fourth street and bet, while Ahmed again called after receiving the Q♦. The action reversed on fifth street, with Ahmed starting the betting after getting the 6♠, followed by a Schneider call with the 4♣. Schneider resumed the aggression, taking command of the betting on the final two streets before showing T-A-3 / 5♠- T♠-4♣-6♥, which meant he had just a pair of tens for the high, though a strong 6-low for the low hand. That was good enough to scoop the pot, though, and virtually clinch the tournament right there. At that point, he had more than four-fifths of the chips on the table and it appeared that it would just be a matter of time before it was all over.
Side note: One of the odder medical issues in recent WSOP memory occurred just before that hand as Ahmed was cut on his hand by one of the playing cards. The bleeding did not stop quickly, so play was paused while he received medical attention.
It was essentially all academic from there. Schneider eliminated Viatcheslav Ortynskiy right after that and took less than half an hour to take out Ahmed to win his third career World Series of Poker bracelet and over a quarter million dollars.
2013 World Series of Poker Event #15: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. – Final Table Results
1. Tom Schneider – $258,960
2. Owais Ahmed – $159,950
3. Viatcheslav Ortynskiy – $108,701
4. Rep Porter – $75,652
5. Frankie O’Dell- $53,739
6. Scott Bohlman – $38,949
7. Eddie Blumenthal – $28,778
8. Mark Klecan – $21,679
*Accompanying photo courtesy WSOP.com
