Houston poker player last man standing at WSOP’s ‘Colossus’

Lance Garcia has entered numerous tournaments at the World Series of Poker during his career, and his total earnings from those events wouldn’t even cover the cost of a candy bar.

But the 25-year-old professional poker player from Houston picked the right time to make his first cash in a WSOP summer event.

Garcia won the largest poker tournament in history Wednesday, topping Bradley McFarland in a brief heads-up duel to take down the WSOP’s “Colossus” No-limit Hold ’em event at the Rio Convention Center.

“I had a lot of very close spots where I could have broken through,” Garcia said. “I’m a very stubborn person. It’s hard to tell me ‘No’ if I want to do something, and I knew that poker was my calling years ago. It got hard the last couple years, but I’m a strong person, and I know that I can do what I set out to do.

“I have thrown almost everything into poker the last few years, so I do feel satisfied today.”

The “Colossus” tournament, with a $565 buy-in that was the lowest for an open WSOP bracelet event in 35 years, had 22,374 entries to easily surpass the 2006 Main Event (8,773 entrants) as the largest live tournament ever.

The “Colossus” had 14,284 unique entries from a record 98 countries for a prize pool of almost $11.2 million and needed an extra day to complete.

Garcia, who goes by “Cord” — his full name is Lance Cordell Garcia — bought into the tournament three times and collected $638,880 for first place. WSOP officials were criticized by some professional players for the payout relative to the size of the field, but Garcia had no complaints after the biggest cash of his career.

“A bunch of people got paid a lot of money,” Garcia said. “At the end of the day, it’s only a $500 investment. Yeah, I did beat 22,000 people, so it feels like I should win a lot more money, but I was OK with the structure and the way the payouts were.”

Garcia said he was playing in Houston’s underground poker scene when he was 15 and is a popular grinder on the tournament circuit with almost $400,000 in career live tournament earnings before Wednesday.

His biggest score came in August 2012 when he finished seventh in the Main Event at Winstar Casino in Thackerville, Okla., for more than $83,000. Two weeks later, he captured a WSOP circuit ring by winning the $365 buy-in No-limit event at the Horseshoe Bossier City (La.).

Garcia entered the final table sixth in chips on Wednesday and took the lead after almost five hours of play when his pocket aces eliminated Paul Lentz in fourth place and crippled Ray Henson, who was holding ace-king.

Henson, who is also from Houston and is sharing a house with Garcia this summer, went out in third place shortly after and won $308,761.

“We’ll see what tonight’s like (at the house),” Garcia said with a smile.

Garcia went into heads-up play against McFarland with a small chip advantage, but it took only 18 hands to decide the outcome. On the final hand, Garcia paired his pocket fours on the flop and made a full house on the turn. When McFarland bluffed all-in with ace high after the final community card, Garcia quickly called and showed the winning hand.

McFarland, of Whitehall, Pa., pocketed $386,253 for second place.

“I just thought that I would catch him being impatient on one of his big blinds and peel me a couple times, and he did,” Garcia said. “Fours have been the hand for my tournament. This is the fourth time I flopped a set of fours, and they were all within 50 people and under in big pots.

“I’ve been in this game for like eight years, grinding. For it to come through now feels really good.”

Contact reporter David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidSchoenLVRJ.