Carlos “The Matador” Mortensen, the 2001 World Series of Poker main event champion and the second highest earning player on the World Poker Tour with two major titles to his credit, has made it to yet another WPT final table- less than a month after a deep ninth place finish at the WPT LA Poker Classic.

Mortensen, after four days of intense tournament play, is one of only six players left of the 144 that entered this first ever WPT Hollywood Poker Open event in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and even better still, he is the chip leader heading into tomorrow’s final with 1,127,000 in tournament checks.

With a good showing tomorrow, Mortensen could very well become the number one all-time money earner of the WPT, surpassing Daniel Negreanu, who currently holds the record at $5,574,530- however this is by no means a lock.  Given the small field size of this particular WPT stop- and therefore the relatively small overall prize pool- Mortensen will have to take first or second place tomorrow to earn the $214,042 required to catch Negreanu, but if he can, it will no longer be Negreanu, Phil Ivey (most final tables) and Gus Hansen (most titles), that folks see featured when they visit the WPT Stats page, it will be Ivey, Hansen and “El Matador.”

Some of the other known players still in the hunt to stop Mortensen include Frank Calo and Chris Bell, who is arguably now his most experienced competition, given the final elimination of Todd Terry in the unfortunate seventhbok spot.  Terry secured a $72,349 payout for his seventh place finish, after being knocked out by Calo at the end of the night’s play.

The seating positions and chip counts for the 2010 WPT Hollywood Poker Open final table are as follows:

Seat 1.  Mike Mustafa- 990,000


Seat 2.  Jerry Payne- 268,000


Seat 3.  Carlos Mortensen- 1,127,000


Seat 4.  Ravi Raghavan- 488,000


Seat 5.  Chris Bell- 372,000


Seat 6.  Frank Calo- 1,075,000

Carlos Mortensen, has won some of the biggest WPT stops there are during his impressive tournament poker career, yet it could be that tomorrow’s final table- at a WPT event so small few seem to have even noticed it was going on- may do more to cement his WPT legacy than any other.  To see if that happens, check out live tournament updates, photos, videos and chip counts from www.worldpokertour.com, when the final table kicks off tomorrow at 4:00PM ET.