Dietrich Fast Earns Seven Figure Score at WPT L.A. Poker Classic

After six days of No Limit Hold’em, Dietrich Fast emerged atop a field of 515 of the world’s best players to take home his first WPT title by winning the WPT L.A. Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. The poker pro from Germany took home $1,000,800, by far his biggest score of his career, along with his name forever engraved on the WPT Champions Cup, Gold Monster 24K headphones, a Hublot King Power Unico watch, and an automatic seat into the WPT Tournament of Champions at the season’s end.

Fast defeated Mike Shariati heads-up en route to his victory, denying Shariati his second WPT title this season after winning WPT Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino last August. Shariati is denied the title, but he takes home $656,540 and a sizable lead in the WPT Player of the Year race. With first and second place finishes, Shariati jumps over Cate Hall and puts some distance between himself and the rest of the pack, with four events remaining before the POY is crowned. Shariati now sits with 2,400 points and Hall is his closest competitor with 1550.

Heading into the final table, Fast was near the bottom of the chip counts, sitting in fifth place of six players, but won a big pot off of Anthony Spinella, the chip leader at the start of the day by turning a set of aces against Spinella’s top two pair. Fast jumped right into the mix and never looked back from there.

While Fast’s stack was growing, it was Spinella’s stack that quickly moved in the wrong direction. about losing about 40% of his stack from the day’s start, he doubled up Alex Keating when his ace-king lost to Keating’s pocket threes. He was left with just seven big blinds and was eliminated shortly thereafter.

Farid Jattin came into the day second in chips behind Spinella, but was the second player to hit the rail, eventually exiting the final table in fifth place. Jattin’s chip stack remained fairly stagnant for most of the day, but ended up finding himself all in with 9-8 against Keating’s pocket aces. Jattin flopped an eight, but couldn’t find any more help from the dealer and Keating sent Jattin home with a fifth place finish.

Four-handed play only lasted for 22 hands and then in the blink of an eye, it was down to Fast and Shariati. On hand #70, Sam Soverel missed his straight draw and moved all in on the river with just five-high. After spending several minutes in the tank, Fast calls with pocket jacks and Soverel was eliminated in fourth place.

Fast didn’t wait long to send another player home. On the very next hand, Fast and Keating got all the chips in the middle preflop with Keating showing ace-queen and Fast tabling ace-king. There wasn’t much of a sweat as Fast flopped a king to leave Keating drawing to running cards to make trips or a straight. Keaitng found a queen on the turn, but couldn’t find a miracle on the river to leave Fast heads-up with Shariati.

Fast began heads-up play with about a 4-to-1 chip lead and he never relinquished it. Shariati cut the chip lead to just 2-to-1, but Fast finished him off the next time that all the money got in. Fast’s ace-nine held up against Shariati’s ace-eight on a board of A-J-4-8-J to secure the title for the German.

Here are a look at the final table results:

1. Dietrich Fast – $1,000,800
2. Mike Shariati – $656,540
3. Alex Keating – $423,890
4. Sam Soverel – $316,440
5. Farid Jatten – $238,070
6. Anthony Spinella – $191,250

Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive