Player of the Year

The World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event once again attracted a strong field to Commerce Casino in late February. There were 681 players who entered the tournament, and that created a large prize pool and a multitude of Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) points.

Most of those points went to the champion of the event, Gregory Brooks. He beat out a tough final table that included former WPT winners Carlos Mortensen and Vivek Rajkumar to take home the top prize of $1,654,120 and 2,400 POY points, which puts him in a tie for fourth place in the standings with Aussie Millions main-event winner David Gorr. Brooks and Gorr are now just 600 points behind PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion and current POY leader Galen Hall.

For his runner-up finish at the L.A. Poker Classic, Rajkumar won $908,730 and 2,000 points, and he is now in a three-way tie for sixth place in the standings with Anton Ionel and James Keys.

Five of the six players at the final table earned at least 1,000 POY points, and they all now reside in the top 50 in the standings. Included among them were third-place finisher Carlos Mortensen (1,600 points, tied for 14th place), fourth-place finisher Amir Lehavot (1,200 points, 23rd place), and fifth-place finisher and 2009 Card Player Online Player of the Year Steve Gross (1,000 points, tied for 45th place). You can read more about the WPT L.A. Poker Classic main event in this issue.

Prize money and POY points awarded at the L.A. Poker Classic final table were as follows: