Meet the Final Six Players at the WPT L.A. Poker Classic
Feb 28, 2018
The televised final table for the WPT L.A. Poker Classic begins tomorrow (Thursday) at 4:00 pm PST, with the WPT Live Stream beginning at 4:30 pm PST on a 30-minute delay with holecards and expert commentary from Dave Farra and Season IX WPT Player of the Year Andy Frankenberger.
Here are the official chip counts and seating assignments for the final six players, followed by the remaining prizepool and brief bios on all six players:
Seat 1. Peter Hengsakul – 1,065,000 (36 bb)
Seat 2. Marc Macdonnell – 1,695,000 (57 bb)
Seat 3. Dennis Blieden – 4,125,000 (138 bb)
Seat 4. Manuel Martinez – 985,000 (33 bb)
Seat 5. Toby Lewis – 5,390,000 (180 bb)
Seat 6. Derek Wolters – 1,520,000 (51 bb)
1st: $1,000,000*
2nd: $600,630
3rd: $430,210
4th: $319,310
5th: $244,430
6th: $186,235
* First-prize amount includes the winner’s $15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
Seat 1. Peter Hengsakul – 1,065,000 (36 bb)
Age: 36
Hometown: West Covina, California
Occupation: Real Estate Investor (Former Mortgage Broker)
Career Live Tournament Earnings: $1,429,049
Best Cash: $325,780 (2nd in $1,500 NLHE at the 2013 WSOP)
WPT Career: 1st cash, 1st WPT Final Table
Peter Hengsakul is the local favorite at this final table, and there were a lot of players here at the Commerce stopping by to wish him luck as he got closer and closer to the final table.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that so many local players know Hengsakul, because he has a very deep resume for somebody who doesn’t even consider himself to be a professional poker player. Hengsakul’s Hendon Mob page lists 160 cashes from the past eight years — almost exclusively from tournaments held in Los Angeles or Las Vegas.
Hengsakul is performing even better than usual lately, as this is his third final table and sixth cash of the 2018 L.A. Poker Classic, and his 10th cash overall in the first two months of 2018.
Seat 2. Marc Macdonnell – 1,695,000 (57 bb)
Twitter: @sluglife87
Age: 31
Hometown: Dublin, Ireland
Occupation: Professional Poker Player
Career Live Tournament Earnings: $1,392,368
Best Cash: $420,805 (4th in the 2017 WSOP Millionaire Maker, $1,500 NLHE)
WPT Career: 3rd cash, 1st WPT Final Table
When Marc Macdonnell entered this tournament, he was seventh on the all-time money list for the country of Ireland. Even if he finishes sixth at this final table, he’ll move up to sixth, and if he wins this WPT title, he’ll advance to fourth on Ireland’s all-time money list.
Even though he has an impressive poker resume and nearly $1.4 million in earnings, Macdonnell is still looking for his first major victory; the closest he’s come was finishing second in Event #6 ($1,000 NLHE Hyper Turbo) at the 2015 WSOP.
Seat 3. Dennis Blieden – 4,125,000 (138 bb)
Twitter: @D_Bloc
Age: 28
Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio
Occupation: Vice President of Finance for StyleHaul
Career Live Tournament Earnings: $21,980
Best Cash: $21,148 (13th in $5,000 NLHE at the 2017 WSOP)
WPT Career: 1st cash, 1st WPT Final Table
This is the first WPT event that Dennis Blieden has ever entered, but he has yet to appear even the slightest bit intimidated. It’s helped that Blieden has consistently been at or near the top of the leaderboard for several days, but he’s been playing a loose-aggressive style that has given fits to some of the professional players — including Phil Hellmuth, as witnessed in this hand.
While Blieden only has two cashes on his live poker resume, one of them is an impressive 13th-place finish in $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em at last summer’s World Series of Poker. Could Blieden’s third cash be for $1 million and a WPT title?
Seat 4. Manuel Martinez Solsona – 985,000 (33 bb)
Age: 30
Hometown: Valencia, Spain
Occupation: Professional Poker Player
Career Live Tournament Earnings: $148,744
Best Cash: $117,347 (2nd in 2015 FPS Monaco Main Event, €1,100 NLHE)
WPT Career: 1st cash, 1st WPT Final Table
Manuel Martinez is one of three European players at this WPT Final Table, and his previous best result was a second-place finish from a field of 993 entries at the 2015 FPS Main Event (France Poker Series) held in Monte Carlo.
Even a sixth-place finish here would more than double his career live tournament earnings, and a $1 million victory here would catapult Martinez all the way to 12th place on Spain’s all-time money list.
Seat 5. Toby Lewis – 5,390,000 (180 bb)
Twitter: @810ofclubs
Age: 28
Hometown: Southampton, England
Occupation: Professional Poker Player
Career Live Tournament Earnings: $4,379,236
Best Cash: $1,178,513 (1st in 2018 Aussie Millions Main Event)
WPT Career: 6th cash, 3rd WPT Final Table
Toby Lewis is the most experienced player at this final table with more than $4.3 million in live tournament earnings, and he also happens to be the chipleader. That makes him the clear favorite to win, and he’s only 28 years old.
Lewis’s career has too many highlights to list here, but he won an EPT title (EPT Vilamoura) back in 2010, finished fourth in the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and is fresh off a seven-figure victory in the 2018 Aussie Millions Poker Championship.
Lewis is currently 11th on England’s all-time money list, and even a sixth-place finish here would allow him to crack the top 10, while a victory would move him all the way up to sixth, ahead of triple-crown-winner Roland de Wolfe and 2014 WPT L.A. Poker Classic champion Chris Moorman.
Seat 6. Derek Wolters – 1,520,000 (51 bb)
Twitter: @d_wolters
Age: 28
Hometown: Chandler, Arizona
Occupation: Professional Poker Player
Career Live Tournament Earnings: $763,898
Best Cash: $136,300 (3rd in 2017 WPT Montreal)
WPT Career: 6th cash, 3rd WPT Final Table
With a third-place finish earlier this season at WPT Montreal, and now at the final table of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic, Derek Wolters has put himself in a great position to make a run in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race. Art Papazyan seemed to have a stranglehold on the race with 2,400 POY points after winning two WPT titles this season. But with a victory here, Wolters would catapult from 51st in the POY race to second, just 300 points behind Papazyan.
This is the third WPT Final Table for Wolters, who also finished sixth at the 2016 WPT Rolling Thunder main event, where he earned $54,970. Regardless of where Wolters finishes at this final table, it’ll be the biggest cash of his career, and even a second-place finish would nearly double his career live earnings.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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