A total of 22 players remain in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) L.A. Poker Classic, which is playing out at the Commerce Casino. Carlos Mortensen, who won the 2001 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, paces the field with a stack of 1.67 million, one of five players to boast a seven-figure tally. Owning the seventh spot on the leaderboard is Dan Wretchy Martin (pictured at right), who will come armed to Day 5 on Tuesday with a stack of 684,000. Let’s recap the day that was on Monday in the WPT tournament.
Play began with 72 players, all of whom had made the money. By the end of the day, 50 had fallen by the wayside. Taylor taypaur Paur (pictured at left), the Day 2 chip leader in Los Angeles, exited in 37th place and took home $33,000. Paur ran pocket queens into the pocket kings of Jim jimbo1420069 Casement in his final hand and neither player improved. Casement held just 10,000 chips more than Paur to send the PocketFives.com member to the rails. It was Paur’s first WPT cash.
WSOP bracelet winner Peter Belabacsi Traply (pictured at right) was sent packing in 46th place for $29,000. Traply came out on the short end of a race with A-K against Greg Mudd’s pocket tens. The flop came five cards eight or lower and that was all she wrote for the Hungarian poker player. Traply became the first bracelet winner ever from the European nation after taking down a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout last year. In April 2009, Traply finished eighth in the European Poker Tour’s (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final for €170,000.
Jeff JaffaCake Kimber was bumped in 54th place from the L.A. Poker Classic. Kimber had doubled up John Cautela with A-Q against A-K to cut his stack to just 8,500. Then, he made a full house on the river against UB.com pro Annie Duke (pictured at left) before ultimately being eliminated. Kimber is a sponsored pro of the popular online poker room Ladbrokes and finished as the runner-up in a $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha tournament during the 2009 WSOP for $145,000.
Lauren locoenlacabeza Kling (pictured at right) finished in 63rd for her first WPT cash. Kling was all-in for six big blinds with 8-4 and received a call from Martin, who flipped up Q-J. Kling flopped a pair of eights, but Martin spiked a queen on the river to win the hand. She’ll deposit $23,000 into her checking account as a result of the deep run in the $10,000 buy-in tournament.Martin, Casement, Duke, and Dylan ImaLucSac Linde will help comprise a talented final 22 today beginning at Noon PT. The tournament will crown a champion on Thursday:
1. Carlos Mortensen - 1,669,000
2. Mark Newhouse - 1,308,000
3. Raymond Dolan - 1,229,000
4. Masa Kagawa - 1,129,000
5. Andras Koroknai - 1,002,000
6. Tri Huynh - 942,000
7. Dan Wretchy Martin - 684,000
8. Jean-Claude Moussa - 672,000
9. Steve Sung - 671,000
10. Jim jimbo1420069 Casement - 609,000
11. Tim Begley - 603,000
12. Gevork Kasabyan - 594,000
13. Jamie Brown - 552,000
14. Mari Lou Morelli - 456,000
15. Dylan ImaLucSac Linde - 447,000
16. Bob Kairnes - 421,000
17. Johnny Chan - 406,000
18. Danny Fuhs - 379,000
19. Michael Kamran - 327,000
20. Connor Allisen - 324,000
21. Annie Duke - 241,000
22. John Cautela - 219,000
Play ended for the day with blinds at 6,000-12,000 and an ante of 2,000. PocketFivers who finished in the money in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic included:
32nd Place: Vivek Psyduck Rajkumar - $39,340
34th Place: Craig craigthedeac Boyd - 39,340
37th Place: Taylor taypaur Paur - $33,610
46th Place: Peter Belabacsi Traply - $28,610
54th Place: Jeff JaffaCake Kimber - $28,610
63rd Place: Lauren locoenlacabeza Kling - $23,600
67th Place: Jon PearlJammer Turner - $19,310
68th Place: Matthew mlagoo LaGarde - $19,310
72nd Place: David Bakes Baker - $19,310
The $25,000 L.A. Poker Classic High-Roller event is down to its six-handed final table, with a top payday of $425,000 up for grabs. PokerStars pro Jason treysfull21 Mercier (pictured at right) sits in third place with a stack of 225,000, with the field trailing Scott Seiver’s 645,500. Every player remaining is assured a payday of at least $50,000. Others in the hunt for the title include Daniel Alaei, Victory Poker pro Lee Markholt, Tommy Vedes, and Will Molson.Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest WPT coverage of online poker players.
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