WPT In LA
Introduction
Poker fans will be relieved to hear that all’s well on the World Poker Tour at present with the latest tournament, the WPT Classic, taking place at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. 72 players started out and on day 5 we’re down to 6, battling it out for the $1.8 million 1st prize – not bad for so early in the year?
Who’ll be in the final?
I was looking for a picture of Annie Duke celebrating her winnings - but I guess this’ll do!
Going in to day 5 Carlos Mortensen held the big stack of nearly 1.7 million chips, having tripled it late on in the session with some big hitting poker plays. Most of the 22 staring the day were males but it was good to see Mari Lou Morelli mid-stacked with 456,000 chips and old favourite Annie Duke hanging in at 21st with 241,000 chips; whilst the short stack was John Cautela on just 219,000. But for me the poker player to watch at the start of play was Tri Huynh with just short of a million chips. In the end Annie Duke just failed to make it to the final two tables going out in 19th place with $45,773 in prize money. In the small blind she had to go all-in with her by then 80,000 chips holding Ah and 8c, the river showed a J, 7, 2 and two 3s giving Tim Begley the hand having a pair of 4s in the hole. Tim was then denied a place on the last poker table of the day, when his pair of Queens were topped by a pair of aces and tens from Tri. Three more players left before the end of the days play, leaving a final day’s table of 6.
At the final table
So, who might emerge champion at the end of that final table? Well despite being in the lead at the end of day 4 not Carlos, who went out in 9th place with prize money of just over $100,000. Short stack is Michael Kamran on 680,000, but the leading poker player is way out in front with 4,995,000 chips – Andras Koroknai, who’s 1.5 million chips up on second place Raymond Dolan. However, don’t give up yet on WPT newcomer Tri, who is in third place albeit with about half the poker chips that Andras has.