Carlos Mortensen has racked up several impressive distinctions as a player. He’s the only person ever to win the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and the World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship. He’s the WPT’s all-time money leader at $5.7 million and, on Thursday, he’ll have a chance to extend that mark. Mortensen will enter the final table of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic as its chip leader with 5.24 million.
Mortensen holds a slight lead over the 5.19 million in chips belonging to former WPT Borgata Poker Open champion Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar. Mortensen is gunning for what would be a record-setting fourth WPT title and is appearing at his fifth final table on the longstanding tour.
Mortensen told WPT hostess Kimberly Lansing, “The best incentive I have is the money. Of course, one more title is sweet.” On his current state of mind, Mortensen revealed, “Right now, all that’s in my head are the players at the table. I can’t dream about things before it’s done, so I just want to concentrate on the game and get the job done.”
Mortensen’s chip lead was fueled in part by a double elimination to trim the field to single-digits. Shannon Shorr was all-in with pocket aces and James Carroll was also committed with pocket kings. Mortensen had them both covered, but was well behind with pocket queens until the board ran out all spades. Mortensen held the only spade of the group and nearly hit a royal flush to take out his two opponents.
At the same time as Mortensen’s double knockout, Jesse Yaginuma was sent packing at the other table in action to create a unique three-way tie for tenth place. Each player took home $60,000.
David “Bakes” Baker’s elimination in seventh place set up the six-handed finale of the L.A. Poker Classic. Baker was all-in after a 4bet before the flop with pocket kings and received a taker in Rajkumar, who tabled A-10 of diamonds. The flop came A-J-8, giving Rajkumar top pair, and a 10 on the turn gave Baker a gutshot straight draw to a queen. However, he bricked on the river and was relegated to the rails with $176,000 in tow.
The L.A. Poker Classic Main Event’s final 18 players that took to the felts on Tuesday included several of the game’s greats, including Full Tilt Poker pro Allen Cunningham. He ultimately landed in eighth place and pocketed $130,000 after committing his stack before the flop with A-10. Amir Lehavot tabled Q-10 of diamonds and was behind until turning a flush. Cunningham held the nut flush draw by the river, but a black five hit to send him home.
2010 WSOP bracelet winner Jason DeWitt was the tournament’s ninth place finisher. He was in a race for his tournament life with K-10 of spades against Mortensen’s pocket sevens. The board filled out A-5-3-4-3 and that was all she wrote for DeWitt, whose victory in a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event at last year’s WSOP was worth over $800,000.
Here are the six players who will take to the felts for Thursday’s L.A. Poker Classic finale:
1. Carlos Mortensen – 5,235,000 (105 big blinds)
2. Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar – 5,185,000 (104 big blinds)
3. Amir Lehavot – 4,115,000 (82 big blinds)
4. Gregory Brooks – 2,300,000 (46 big blinds)
5. Darryll “DFish” Fish – 2,275,000 (46 big blinds)
6. Steve “gboro780” Gross – 1,320,000 (26 big blinds)
The blinds will stand at 25,00-50,000 with an ante of 5,000 when play picks back up tomorrow. In the meantime, today marks the final table of the WPT Celebrity Invitational, whose six survivors include bracelet winners Davidi Kitai and Dan Heimiller.
