Sorry for the suspense folks, it wasn’t intentional.
Carlos Mortensen made history on Friday when he took down the World Poker Tour World Championship. He became just the ninth player to win multiple open-invitation WPTs, the third to win the Championship along with another WPT and the first to with both the WPT and WSOP World Championships.
Mortensen was born in Equador to Spanish and Equadorian parents, moving to Spain in his teens and learning poker there. In 2001, largely unknown, he won the World Series of Poker main Event, triumphing over a final table that included Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow and Phil Gordon.
This time around, the Matador took down an entertaining contest that saw him triumph through a ninety-four hand heads-up battle with New Zealand native Kirk Morrison. Morrison was in the process of cashing in his fourth consecutive WPT, tying the record of friend and benefactor Daniel Negreanu.
The match was a see saw affair that saw Morrison take a 5:1 chip lead on two separate occasions. Mortensen, who lives by the credo “Always look forward”, refused to give up. Playing the more aggressive poker of the two, he managed to turn his fortunes around, taking a slight lead before finishing his man off for good.
With the blinds at an amazing T800,000/T1,600,000 and Carlos ahead T18,800,000 to T13,400,000, Carlos raised for the three times the big blind. With little choice but to raise or fold, Kirk decided his hand was the better of the two and moved all-in. Carlos called instantly, flipping over Kh-Jh. Kirk was right; his As-4d gave him the slight lead.
The flop came 7c-4h-3c, giving Kirk a reason to exhale, but as soon as he’d done so, Jc came on the turn. 3d on the river the end to an excruciating see saw battle.
In the aftermath, I asked Kirk if there were any splits going on, but he insisted there were. “We were coin-flipping for $2 million” he revealed. When I asked if it was the ultimate adrenal rush, he answered “Not really. I was actually remarkably calm.” It was a remarkable match between two remarkable players, both of whom claimed a little bit of poker history this week.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
