WPT LA Poker Classic Main Event Down to TV Table

Raymond Dolan (pictured above) leads the LAPC main event final table

There were so many possibilities when Day 5 of the LA Poker Classic main event began at the Commerce Casino yesterday. Carlos Mortensen held the chip lead, Mark Newhouse trailed by a bit, and Steve Sung, Johnny Chan, and Annie Duke were all among the 22 players still in the running. But there’s a little known cosmic rule of tournament poker which reads, “Whatever the TV producers want, that is what will not happen” – and that rule held true to give poker fans a TV table filled with players they’ve never heard of.

Duke began the day as one of the shortest stacks and made her move early on with A-8, but she was unable to win a coin flip against Tim Begley’s pocket fours and finished in 19th place ($45,770).

Newhouse, who led the tournament early on, was the next high-profile player to go. He lost the bulk of his stack when he called Raymond Dolan and found himself drawing dead to Dolan’s trip eights, and then lost the rest of his stack in 13th place ($60,080) when his K-Q couldn’t outrun Dolan’s J-J. Johnny Chan then busted in 12th place ($67,940) when his A-Q couldn’t outflip Andras Koroknai’s pocket sixes, leaving just Steve Sung and Carlos Mortensen to  give the TV table some name recognition. 

But neither man would make it to the end of the day, not a big surprise since both were on shorter stacks once the ten-handed final table was reached. Mortensen was the first to go when he moved all-in with A-4 of clubs and was called by Jim Casement with T-T, leaving in 9th place ($100,130) when the board offered no help. 

Then Sung sank in 8th place under the weight of a cruel cold deck, getting in with pocket queens only to run into Koroknai’s K-K and finish in 8th place ($135,890). The proceedings were almost done then, but the last elimination took a long time – almost three hours, in fact. Casement went out in 7th place ($185,952) after an up-and-down day, falling when his A-4 couldn’t beat Koroknai’s A-9. 

That sets up a TV table lineup of Koroknai, chip leader Dolan, Tri Huynh, Jean-Claude Moussa, Michael Kamran, and Gevork Kasabyan. Unless you’re personal pals with one of these guys you’re probably saying to yourself, “Who?” So are the WPT’s producers – but come Friday night two of them will be the newest WPT-made millionaires.