WPT LA Poker Classic Won by Dietrich Fast for $1 Million

Posted by Kathleen Girvan on Mar 07, 2016 Posted in Poker News | No Comments »

a0f444b63cThe World Poker Tour LA Classic Main Event was won by German poker professional Dietrich Fast, who walked away with a massive prize of $1,000,800 last Friday. He overcame a competitive field of over 500 other players to claim the first place cash out, the biggest win of his career so far. His impressive prize also comes with a $15,000 seat into the WPT Tournament of Champions later this year.

Fast has also recently won a gold bracelet in the €550 Oktoberfest event at World Series of Poker Europe, which added to his recent WPT success will put him in the running for poker’s highly coveted triple crown accolade if he can scoop a title during this year’s ongoing European Poker Tour.

The LA Classic Poker event took place at the Commerce Hotel and Casino and its Main Event saw a fairly drawn out head to head with Mike Shariati, who has been trying to claim his second World Poker Tour title within a single year after triumphing at the Legends of Poker Main Event last August for a prize of $675,942.

Sixty three competitors took part in the LA Classic Main Event, including some well known names in the poker world like former WPT champs Matthew Lapossie (who came in 19th) and Dylan Wilkerson (who placed at 22nd). There were some former World Series of Poker winners, like last year’s champion Joe McKeehan, taking part in the event too.

The top six finishers were Anthony Spinella in sixth place with $191,250 for his efforts, then followed by Farid Jattin in fifth ($238,070) and Sam Soverel just above him in fourth place with a decent cash out of $316,440. The third place prize went to Californian player Alex Keating with $423,890, then Shariati scooping the runner up prize. Fast’s $1 million far surpassed any other cash prize on the table however.

The top six players were undoubtedly evenly matched when it came down to the final stages of the game. Spinella opened early to 90,000chips, then Fast decided to three-bet him to 265,000 in the cutoff seat, grabbing a huge chip lead. Spinella couldn’t recover from this and kept sliding until he was forced to exit the poker game. Fast confidently claimed another sizeable pot of chips and quickly knocked out Soverel while doing so. Alex Keating then managed to cut down Farid Jattin, but got knocked out himself by Fast.

At this point, Fast was left head to head with Shariati with 120 big blinds against the American’s 35. In the end, the final two battled it out for quite a while, going strong for over fifty hands of poker. For a while, it looked like Shariati might have been able to close the gap between the pair, but his German opponent was just too strong for him. Fast pulled away and increased his chip lead considerably. Fast ended the game decisively, his winning two pair being a nine kicker.

Despite not emerging triumphant from the LA Poker Classic last week, there is still some good news for Shariati since he’s still the outright leader in the race for overall WPT Player of the Year. There are four more events left in the WPT season this year, so four more chances for the American poker star to claim a victory.



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