The Legend of the "Bass Master": Chris Greaves
Chris "Bass Master" Greaves hails from Zionsville, Indiana, which is a suburb of Indianapolis. The devoted father of three is a 1996 grad of Purdue University, and upon graduating he took an IT job with a dot-com in Manahatten; however, he became a victim of the dot-com bubble and was forced to return to the Indianapolis area.
That is where the 39-year-old Greaves, who currently works as an IT professional, honed his poker skills after Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event back in 2003. In his free time, Greaves grinds the cash games in the greater Indianapolis area at casinos, country clubs, and private games.
"The 'Bass Master' name is born back to the day when Greaves would show up to the game wearing his standard fishing hat," explained Chris Underwood, a friend of Greaves. "The nickname was given to him by a fellow player based on a hat he bought while on vacation in upstate New York despite no interest or experience fishing, We know he has no fear of any opponent at his tables. His dream is to moving west to California and playing poker for a living."
Greaves, who has eaten a Burger King Croissan'wich most mornings during the Main Event, satellited into the "Big One" on two previous occasions, but this year he forked over the $10,000 buy-in. As such, he has most of his action. In fact, after a few swaps he has precisely 88% of himself.
"There is a funny story. My friend is going to kill me. The three guys that I'm tight with and we play together every week, I said let's all swap five percent of each other," Greaves explained. "Two of the guys bought on it, and one of the guys was going to do it, but he backed out because in one of the daily deepstacks he cashed for $26,000 and he decided he was too good to swap with me. As I told him this morning when we were texting, 'Epic Fail.'"
Greaves, who is divorced, has three children — daughter Athena, 13, and two boys Harrison and Truman, 10 and 7. He'll be using a good portion of his winnings to making them happy. "My kids' mother ganged up on me with the kids and they made me promise to get them a hot tub," Greaves said with a laugh, "and I'm thinking of taking my kids on a trip to Europe."
Greaves' only tournament cash of $2,200 came way back in 2005 when he finished runner-up in a $230 no-limit hold'em tournament. Needless to say, his run in the 2014 WSOP Main Event was going to up his lifetime earnings considerably.
Speaking of his Main Event run, Greaves' began on Day 1c where he finished the advancing 2,571 players 719th in chips with 55,025. On Day 2, Greaves managed to work that up to 207,400, which put him 184 of 1,864 players. Likewise, the upward trend continued on Day 3 as he chipped up to 458,000 and finished the 746 advancing players 107th in chips.
On Day 4, Greaves nearly tripled his stack and finished with 1.205 million, which put him 34 of 291. He finished a little better on Day 5 as he was 31 of 79 with a stack of 2.8 million. Day 6 was a little rough on Greaves, but he managed to make the top 27 19th in chips with 3.935, a stack he’s worked up here on Day 7.
For more on Greaves, check out his interview with PokerNews' Sarah Grant: