The 681 player original starting field of this year’s $10,000 buy-in LA Poker Classic, is now down to only six, and it is three-time WPT champ Carlos Mortensen once again holding the most chips. 

Without question, Mortensen, the 2001 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, has to be seen as the favorite at this point to claim the largest chunk of this year’s LA Poker Classic $6,537,600 total prize pool, yet among his final 5 opponents are quite a few equally worthy pros with the tools and chips to stop him from doing so.

Vivek “FLOG” Rajkumar, the winner of the WPT Season Seven Borgata Poker Open, in particular should give Mortensen trouble, entering the final table with a chip stack so close to Mortensen’s that one walk at the current level would give him the chip lead.  Rajkumar- despite still being in his early twenties- already has over $2.7 million in live tournament cashes, meaning even a minimum sixth place cash tomorrow worth $235,350, will push his live winnings North of the $3 million mark.

Joe Sebok’s “Favorite Little Online Guy,” isn’t the only other top pro at the WPT LA Poker Classic final table prepping to upset Mortensen tomorrow, both Steve Gross and Darryll Fish also survived yesterday’s penultimate day; a day that saw the elimination of such top players as Kathy Liebert (18th- $50,340), Shannon Shorr (tied for 10th- $63,410), Allen Cunningham (8th- $130,750) and David “Bakes Baker- who “seventhboked” the final TV table for $176,520.

The six final players and their chip counts heading into Thursday’s WPT LA Poker Classic final table are as follows:

Carlos Mortensen- 5,235,000

Vivek Rajkumar- 5,185,000

Amir Lehavot- 4,115,000

Gregory Brooks- 2,300,000

Darryll Fish- 2,275,000

Steve Gross- 1,320,000


If Carlos Mortensen is able to win this year’s LA Poker Classic main event, not only will he be the first player in WPT history to claim 4 titles, but with over $11.7 million in live tournament earnings- thanks to the bolstering provided by this event’s $1,654,120 top prize- he will jump 6 spaces on the all time money list; above Phil Hellmuth, and behind only Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey and Jamie Gold.

The WPT LA Poker Classic main event final table begins Thursday, March 3rd, at 4pm LA time.  To check out updates from that table, as well as photos, chip counts and videos, visit www.worldpokertour.com.