Books wins World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic
World Poker Tour
An unknown player overcame some of the biggest names on the circuit to win the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic Main Event and collect $1.65 million.
Just like something straight out of a film, the poker world was shocked when a young unknown player won the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic Main Event. The event had some big names taking part including Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, Michael Mizrachi, Faraz Jaka, Daniel Negreanu, Maria Ho and Jason Mercier. In the end Brooks defeated Vivek Rajkumar, an online poker professional and experienced tournament player, in order to take his first major title and a prize of $1.65 million.
If Rajkumar had won it would be his second WPT title. However, Brooks’ eight-seven off-suit out flopped Rajkumar’s jack-ten of hearts and Brooks won his first title. In 2008 Rajkumar won the WPT title at the Borgata Poker Open. He has also had some success in the past at the LA Poker Classic, in 2009 he won the Heads-up Championship. However, Rajkumar won’t be too disappointed; he won over $900,000 for coming second place which means his total career earnings are now over $3.5 million.
Carlos Mortensen was another victim of Brooks’ aggressive style of play. In 2001 Mortensen was the World Series of Poker Main Event Champion. He finished third at the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic Main Event and won $640,680. This means that Mortensen has made more than $10 million throughout his career and that he is the first player to earn more than $6 million on the World Poker Tour.
When play at the final table started Brooks had a slight lead on Mortensen, Brooks was holding 5.345 million and Mortensen had 5.125 million. In the end Mortensen was knocked out by Brooks when his club flush was completed by the river and Mortensen was holding a pair of jacks. Until winning this event, Brook’s largest win was at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2010, he finished second in the No Limit Hold’em Live Heads Up and took home $12,000.
When asked about his win Brooks said that his strategy going into the game was to just play aggressively no matter what the state of his chip stack was. He said that it seemed like none of the other players wanted to take control so he decided that he would. In addition to the winning the event, his aggressive style also won him the LA Poker Classic trophy which is a cowboy on a bucking bronco horse, a WPT bracelet and a $25,000 seat in the WPT Championship.
