Chris McClung

Montréaler Chris McClung is a tournament specialist that is better known in the online world than the live one. Playing under the screenname ‘d0r1t0s’ on PokerStars (he is not morbidly obese despite his alias being derived from the popular potato chip), McClung has gathered in excess of $2,000,000 from tournament winnings playing at the site since 2006. His largest cash came from a fourth-place finish in the 2012 WCOOP-44 $2,100 NLH event where he picked up $188,632 for the deep run.

This success came off the back of another six-figure payday where Chris won $141,851 for his runner-up finish in a 2011 FTOPS event. Despite all of the Canadian’s success online, his career has been somewhat characterised by many ‘what could have been’ moments. The same year that he finished second in an FTOPS event, he also came third in a WCOOP tournament, fourth in the $1,050 Super Tuesday and third in a $1,575 SCOOP event.

His live career has followed a similar pattern. Although he has earned upwards of $600,000, major titles have continued to elude him in the harsh world that can be tournament poker. In 2011, McClung came third at the £10,000 Six-Max High Roller Turbo event at EPT London for $131,447 and narrowly missed out on the trophy. However, he did get past the likes of multiple-time EPT winner Dan Smith and French legend Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier at the final table, proving his ability as a player.

Impressively for a tournament specialist, Chris has battled at the online PLO cash game tables with some of the strongest players in the world – and emerged victorious over them. According to HighStakesDB, he has played as high as $50/$100 against well-known PLO crushers Jens ‘Jeans89’ Kyllonen and Sergey ‘St1ckman’ Vasiliev, making over $50,000 between 2011 and 2012.

Clearly McClung doesn’t need a major tournament trophy to validate his achievements in poker. He has earned millions over extremely tough competition and continues to compete at a high level in the game today.