Trace Henderson wins World Series of Poker Circuit Stop at Horseshoe Tunica

Trace Henderson – Photo Credit: Horseshoe Tunic

Trace Henderson is the champion of World Series of Poker circuit main event at Horseshoe Tunica in Mississippi. The Gulfport resident took home the grand prize worth $132,846, along with his second gold ring. His first time came when he won a $400 eight-max no-limit hold’em event in Biloxi in 2019. His career earnings now stand at $762,324.

“I feel good. This particular tournament I’ve been in deep a couple of times, so it was kind of something I wanted to do. It feels good to do it,” Henderson told the WSOP Circuit journalists after the victory. He continued when asked about having his parents in town to prop him from the railing: “It was nice. They don’t come to the scene a lot. My mother likes it very much, she always keeps up with me, asking me how I am. But I’ve always told them maybe they’d come to something down South, like Mississippi, and it turns out they were able to, and it’s great to win.

The $1,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament drew a field of 418 entries on two initial flights to create a prize pool worth $633,270. The top 62 players took home at least $2,519 in prize money. Notables who made a deep run in the event included Golden Ring winners Will Givens (10th), Eric Sutton (14th), Kyle Cartwright (15th), Michael Esquivel (17th) and Shane Bissinger (18th).

Day 2 saw 43 survivors return to the tables and they played down to the bottom six at the end of the night. When the final day of the tournament kicked off on May 1, Henderson was comfortably the chip leader with nearly double the stack of his closest challenger. Henderson went on to take out Dale Humphrey in sixth and Dalton Fry in fifth to bolster his lead position.

Steve McCluskey came into action by picking off Andrew Groendal in fourth, and even took the lead during the three-way play. Henderson then busted Marshall White in third place to tie the chips into early heads-up play, but McCluskey quickly pulled away with a lead of more than 5:1.

Henderson retook the lead with the blinds high creating big pots in almost every hand, and that’s where the chips stopped when McCluskey pinned his tournament hopes on pocket sixes preflop against the KingQ by Henderson in their first all-in matchup. The board ran out of 10924Q, and Henderson took down the pot and the tournament on the river. McCluskey took home $82,102 in prize money as a runner-up, nearly doubling his total career earnings in the process.

Here is a look at the winnings awarded at the final table:

The next WSOP Circuit The event will take place May 4-15 at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina. The $1,700 buy-in main event begins on Thursday, May 11th. You can see the full tournament series schedule right here.