The World Poker Tour (WPT) 500 Los Angeles hosted at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angels featured the $1 million guaranteed prizepool. A total of 2,509 entrants joined in the action in the span of 16 starting flights and took the total prizepool to a whopping $1,254,500. Outlasting this huge field was Michael Copeland to win the first-place prize of $181,950 along with a beautiful WPT trophy.
Copeland put up a dominant performance over the final two days, holding chip lead from Day 2 till the end. The player scored 3 eliminations on Day 2 to move into the final day as the chip lead. He started the final table as the massive chip lead with 19,000,000 (95 bb). He was far ahead of the second largest stack, Jorge Pineda, who held 7,200,000 (36 bb) to move into the coveted final table.
Firing during the early stage of the final table play was Jorge Pineda. First, he busted Alexander Beleson with his pocket aces versus ace-queen to pick up a dozen big blinds and then he knocked out Travis Tachibana when his pocket queens bested the ace-four offsuit of Tachibana.
During the early stage of final table play, Copeland handed out a couple of double-ups and came down to 50 big blinds. However, he came back when Sanjay Mayekar shoved for 15 big blinds and Copeland called with kings. Mayekar had ace-queen but a king-high flop ended his journey.
Later, Copeland added to his advantage by taking a big pot from Luke Nguyen. The latter’s pocket sixes couldn’t hold against king-jack, giving Copeland about half of the chips in play five-handed.
The journey to heads-up was quick. Both Copeland and Pineda kept chipping up and soon it was heads-up between the two. Erik Nason fell to Aaron Messmer to go out in 5th place. Then, Messmer eliminated Jose Torres in 4th place to get enough chips into the three-handed play.
Three-handed play saw a big hand happening between Messmer and Copeland. Messmer holding 7h-4h moved all-in for around 6.9 million from the button. Copeland holding Ad-8d in the big blind made the call. An ace appeared on the board and Messmer got eliminated in the 3rd place.
Heads-Up
Copeland started the heads-up play as the chip leader with 71 BB against Pineda. The battle did not last long ending soon with Pineda moving all-in for 20 bigs with 10c-9h and Copeland calling with Ac-Jc. Both players flopped pairs but Aces bested Tens. Copeland won the coveted WPT title.
Final Table Payouts:
1st place: Michael Copeland – $181,950
2nd place: Jorge Pineda – $120,610
3rd place: Aaron Messmer – $87,565
4th place: Jose Torres – $65,330
5th place: Erik Nason – $49,270
6th place: Luke Nguyen – $37,565
7th place: Sanjay Mayekar – $28,960
8th place: Travis Tachibana – $22,570
9th place: Alexander Beleson – $17,790