For Mike Sexton, the dream of winning a World Poker Tour title was fulfilled when he captured the Season XV WPT Montreal Main Event win in November 2016. On Wednesday evening, Sexton reached his second WPT final table in the season, and on Thursday he’ll be under the bright lights of the televised WPT final table stage playing for his second title in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship.
Sexton will be faced with an uphill battle come Thursday, though. Out of the six remaining players — Daniel Strelitz, Simeon Naydenov, Jesse Martin, Jared Griener, and Richard Tuhrim — Sexton ranked fifth in chips at the end of Day 5, and Strelitz has a commanding lead with 6.485 million in chips of the 15.625 million in play. Although it will be a bit of a different entrance to the final table this time around for Sexton, as last time, at WPT Montreal, he entered the televised final table with the lead, Sexton has decades of poker experience to lean on.
In addition to the title and a seven-figure first prize being on the line for Sexton, a win would earn him 1,400 points in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race for Season XV. He’d then be just 100 points behind Ben Zamani, the current leader, with four events still to go in the season.
Coverage of the Season XV WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship final table will be available on WPT.com.
As for the chip lead, that belongs to the aforementioned Strelitz, who commanded 41.5 percent of the chips in play at the end of Day 5. Not only Strelitz have the majority of the chips at the final table, but he has much more than double anyone else. The closest competitor to Strelitz is the Bulgarian, Naydenov, who bagged up 2.86 million at the end of Day 5.
Such a prominent position for Strelitz has him as a big favorite to earn the largest score of his live poker career. His previous best was a cash worth $338,774 for second-place in a World Series of Poker event in 2016, and a third-place finish or better would give him a new personal best.
A first-place prize of $1.001 million will be up for grabs on Thursday, as will the Hublot King Power Unico Carbon and Red watch and a pair of Rose Gold Wireless Over-Ear Element Headphones from Monster.
Here’s how the final table stacks up:
Seat 1: Mike Sexton – 1,165,000
Seat 2: Jesse Martin – 2,540,000
Seat 3: Jared Griener – 1,895,000
Seat 4: Daniel Strelitz – 6,485,000
Seat 5: Simeon Naydenov – 2,860,000
Seat 6: Richard Tuhrim – 680,000
Simeon Naydenov will enter the final table second in chips. He is currently second on Bulgaria’s all-time money list with $1.755 million in live tournament earnings, but in search of his first WPT title. Naydenov did reach the final table of WPT National Prague in December 2014, but his run ended in sixth place. Outside of this run, Naydenov has never cashed in a WPT Main Tour event.
Jesse Martin will enter the final table third in chips, bunched up right behind Naydenov. Martin has tournament cashes dating back to 2005 in a career that has seen him win $2.4 million from live poker events outside of this WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship. Ahead of this final table, the largest score on Martin’s résumé was $289,740 from a $2,620 side event win at the WPT’s Fifth Annual Five Star World Poker Classic at Bellagio in 2007. Finishing fourth or better in this event would give Martin his largest career payday.
Jared Griener has already achieved his career-best payday with this deep run in the Season XV WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship, and he’ll now be looking to join the prestigious WPT Champions Club. Griener has just under $500,000 in live tournament earnings from before this event, but has already guaranteed himself an additional $191,490 in prize money.
Richard Tuhrim, the shortest stack to reach the televised final table, is in the midst of a truly breakout performance. He’s coming off his best year on the felt, that included a fifth-place finish in a WSOP event for $59,233, but having already locked up sixth-place money, he’s more than doubled his total lifetime earnings of $142,894. Not only could Tuhrim go from worst to first to win the event, but he would be one of the top names when discussing the breakout player of the year for 2017.
Day 5 began at the storied Commerce Casino with 18 players remaining from the 521-player field in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Championship. Some big names and attractive stories were alive to start, but several of those hit the rail before the official final table.
Rainer Kempe busted 18th, and then Visnja Luetic, the last woman standing, finished in 16th place.
Allan Le, brother of former WPT Champions Club member Nam Le, was eliminated in 13th, and William Vo, who finished in fifth place in the Season XV WPT Legends of Poker Main Event, fell in 12th.
Dzmitry Urbanovich, the Polish rising star, busted 11th, and WPT Champions Club member James Calderaro went out in ninth.
Joe Serock battled his way to the final eight players, but the former WPT Player of the Year from Season X would have to wait for his first WPT title. He went out eighth, and then Matt Berkey fell in seventh to set the televised final table of six.
With each of the final six guaranteed at least $191,490, and with more than $1 million up for grabs along with the prestigious WPT title, Thursday is going to be an amazing, thrilling day of poker.
Be sure to stay tuned right here to WPT.com for continued coverage of the event, from the first pitch of the cards until the last river card is dealt. It all starts Thursday at 4 p.m. PT, and we’ll see you then!