The big story heading into the 2011 LA Poker Classic was that Carlos Mortensen was looking for a record fourth World Poker Tour title after already having won the WPT Doyle Brunson NAPC, WPT Championship, and the WPT Hollywood Poker Open. The story coming out of the LAPC Main Event was that Greg Brooks survived a brutal final table to take the title and a $1.6 million prize.
Besides Mortensen, some of Brooks’ opponents included Vivek Rajkumar ($2.8 million in live earnings, 2008 WPT Borgata winner), Steve “gboro780″ Gross (online sensation), Amir Lehavot ($150k in live earnings), and Darryl Fish ($520k in live earnings, may have changed his last name to throw opponents off….not sure though).
After Fish, Gross, and Levahot busted out, the table was three-handed with Brooks, Mortensen, and Rajkumar all battling for the win. Unfortunately for Mortensen, his dreams of a fourth title went out the window when Brooks rivered a flush to crack Mortensen’s two pair. Even after busting out, Mortensen is still first on the all-time WPT money list with $6.3 million, and tied with Gus Hansen for first with 3 WPT titles.
Brooks talked about playing against Mortensen as he said, “Carlos and I actually have a lot of interesting history because we played with each other for three days this tournament. We developed a little bit of a banter back and forth from all the hands we played. One of the consequences of my strategy against him initially was that I didn’t fold to him. So, he tried to bluff me a lot and I called and was correct in most of those situations.”
With Mortensen eliminated, it came down to Brooks and Rajikumar in heads-up play. After 34 hands, Brooks finished Rajikumar off with a pair of aces vs. a pair of queens. Here is how the final table finishes and payouts looked.
1. Greg Brooks ($1,654,120)
2. Vivek Rajkumar ($908,730)
3. Carlos Mortensen ($640,680)
4. Amir Lehavot ($421,680)
5. Steve Gross ($304,000)
6. Darryll Fish ($235,350)
