2001 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champ Carlos Mortensen will enter the final table of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Hollywood Poker Open today as its chip leader. Mortensen holds two bracelets and two WPT titles.
Play began on Tuesday at the Hollywood Casino outside of Cincinnati with 15 runners. Due to a small field of just 144 players, only the top 12 finished in the money. The title of WPT Hollywood Poker Open Bubble Boy went to Gevork Kasabyan, who called all-in with J-9 of hearts and was up against Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo’s wired pair of tens. The board came 4-2-2-4-9 and Calo scooped the pot, bursting the money bubble. Calo will hold the second largest stack entering the final table at 1.08 million, trailing Mortensen’s arsenal of 1.13 million.
Shortly after the bubble burst, Tyler “puffinmypurp” Reiman eliminated three players in one hand. Reiman held pocket kings and was up against Eric “Rizen” Lynch’s A-Q, Mike Miller’s 9-8, and Craig Smith’s A-8 of clubs. The flop of 7-6-2 with two hearts gave Miller an open-ended straight draw, but a king on the turn improved Reiman to a set. The river was a four and Reiman ballooned his stack to 1.25 million after the rare triple knockout. Smith, Miller, and Lynch each took home $23,000 for their efforts in the $10,000 buy-in tournament.
Calo climbed the leaderboard after committing his stack with 10-7 of diamonds. Todd Terry made the call with A-K and the flop came 9-5-2 with two diamonds, giving Calo a flush draw. The turn was a jack, leaving Calo calling for a ten, eight, seven, or diamond on the river to stave off elimination. Sure enough, the deuce of diamonds fell. Calo actually tripled up in the hand to 16 big blinds.
Calo crippled Reiman after getting it all-in with pocket jacks against Reiman’s A-8. The flop came ace-high to give Reiman a brief lead, but running hearts gave Calo a higher flush and Reiman sank to four big blinds. Then, Reiman once again woke up with A-8 and moved all-in before the flop. Mike Mustafa held A-Q of hearts and flopped a queen, dashing Reiman’s title hopes. Reiman was the runner-up to Harrison Gimbel in the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, where he earned $1.75 million.
Here is how the final table will look in the inaugural WPT Hollywood Poker Open:
1. Carlos Mortensen – 1,127,000
2. Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo – 1,075,000
3. Mike Mustafa – 990,000
4. Ravi “govshark2” Raghavan – 488,000
5. Chris Bell – 372,000
6. Jerry Payne – 268,000
The following players finished in the money on Tuesday:
7th Place: Todd Terry – $72,349
8th Place: Tyler “puffinmypurp” Reiman – $55,907
9th Place: Len Ashby – $39,464
10th Place: Eric “Rizen” Lynch – $23,019
11th Place: Mike Miller – $23,019
12th Place: Craig Smith – $23,019
Chris Bell has made two WPT final tables, taking third in the Season 3 Mirage Poker Showdown for $289,000 and finishing fifth in the Season 5 Borgata Poker Open for $314,000. Not to be outdone, Calo is a WSOP Circuit Event gold ring winner. Mortensen, however, is the only player left in the field to win a bracelet or WPT title. The Hollywood Poker Open marks his first WPT final table in three years.
When play halted yesterday, the blinds were at 10,000-20,000 with an ante of 2,000. The cards will hit the air at the riverboat casino at 4:00pm ET on Wednesday for the final table. The festivities will be filmed for television and air as part of Season 8 of the WPT on Fox Sports Net.
