The 22-years-old Christopher Frank managed to gain the upper hand over 1 698 players, who appeared in Event #33: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em and scoop the significant amount of $384,833, stimulating his ambitions with his first career WSOP gold bracelet.
This is the first big prize for the poker player, even though he marked some successful strikes at other live poker tournaments, raking $1 million in total. Before winning the NLHE, his biggest prize is reported to be $168,540.
Before the official final table was set, the poker “battlefield” welcomed 22 players, but the number was rapidly reduced to only 9, who made it to the final table. It took no more than 4 hours, till the top 9 players were announced. Among all the finalists, Max Pescatori was the most well-known player of all, who conquered the gold bracelet 4 times up to now. He left the final table, bringing home $39,060 for his eighth place in the list and missing the chance to add a fifth bracelet to his trophy collection.
Despite the fact that Frank was holding one of the biggest stacks of chips from the beginning of the event, it was Leng, who managed not only to catch up, but also to amass a bigger stack of chips, since he was the leader during most of the time of Day 3. He managed to eliminate some of the most notable faces on the final table and add their chips to his stack. At last, Leng was holding almost half of the chips in play.
Then, the game took an interesting turn, when Frank started to make some big scores and to instantly make calls to all-in bets. This “aggressive” play eliminated some of the players on the final table and even melted Leng’s stack of chips significantly. Frank went on a hot streak, without “suffering” any interruption. Thus, he managed to generate better chip advantage over Lang to enter the heads-up battle.
Christopher Frank and Ryan Leng were the players, who entered the intriguing heads-up battle. With 3 times bigger stack of chips, it was a piece of cake for Frank to secure his first gold bracelet. It took him only 20 hands time to derail Lang. With a small blind of 30,000, Lang raised the bet to 175,000.
Frank, on the other hand, kept on following the same “aggressive” strategy and moved all-in. Leng called by moving all his chips towards the centre of the table, holding at that time [A][d][7d] over Franks’s [5d][4d]. But [Q][h][6d][4s][Q][d][Q][c] appeared on the table, which gave Frank full house and the title. His runner-up went back home with $237,776 cash prize and the second position.
Frank’s strategy was an interesting one, having in mind that the poker player made some significant snap-calls, which put at stake a big portion of his chips. Nevertheless, the cards were well-disposed to the young player, who managed to top a field of 1 698 entrants. Shortly after the victory, Frank shared his excitement, admitting that he had a really lucky day with such good hands. Christopher Frank’s name will remain in the poker history as the first German-born bracelet winner for 2017.