London is the place to be this month for serious poker players, with the EPT, WPT, WSOPE and British Poker Festival all visiting the city throughout the course of September. The World Poker Tour London Event has just come to a close, and while it was a fantastic tournament enjoyed by all, there can be no doubt that the man left with the biggest smile is Jake Cody, who walked away with the first place title and accompanying prize money.
The World Poker Tour has become a very established name over the past few years, and is easily recognized in the poker community. The series of tournaments are held mostly inside the United States, but there are also stops in other parts of the world such as this event in London. There’s always an awesome amount of money up for grabs which attracts a large array of players, including top pros, and a great time can be expected to be had by all. This year’s London event was certainly no exception, and it was taken down by a local player.
Jake Cody is, like many players we hear about these days, very proficient in online poker. The young British pro has, however, also proven himself on the felt in live tournaments with a number of cashes before his excellent performance this week. Most noteworthy is his play earlier in the year which resulted in him winning the European Poker Tour Deauville Stop, netting him just over a million dollars. Currently he boasts live tournament winnings of over $1.6 Million, not to mention several hundred thousand dollars amassed via online play at Bovada and Party Poker.
The WPT London comes amidst a flurry of poker excitement in London, but it nevertheless drew a great crowd and the tournament was a big success. 171 players turned up to the event, either buying into it outright or qualifying through the vast array of online satellites up for grabs. The £5,000 + £300 buy-in netted a prize pool of £820,800 (just over $1.25 Million USD) with only the top sixteen places being paid.
Jake Cody began the final day roughly in the middle of the field in terms of chips, but turned on a show to earn the win. A large amount of preflop aggression applied at the right times helped him out, and he was able to accumulate more and more chips throughout the day. As he eventually eliminated the shortstacked third place getter Bruce Atkinson, he went into heads-up play with a formidable 4:1 chip lead.
His opponent was runner-up Nichlas Mattson, who did a fine job of trying to hang on and regain some play despite his large chip deficit, but it proved to be a case of too little too late. As the chips went in the middle and the cards were flipped, it was clear that Mattson’s Ace Queen suited was going to need some help from the board to overcome Cody’s pocket Queens. That help never came, and Mattson was knocked out in second, leaving Cody standing victorious basking in the glory of his second major win this year, and the $422,000 in first-place prize money that he received for this event.
London has become poker city this month, and it’s great to see that the World Poker Tour is doing its bit and providing a great experience for tournament players to enjoy. Jake Cody seems set for great things over the years to come if his play so far in 2010 is anything to go by, so make sure you stay tuned to hear more from him and from the other poker events taking place this September.
The official final table results are as follows:
1st: Jake Cody – £273,783
2nd: Nichlas Mattsson – £176,979
3rd: Bruce Atkinson – £93,316
4th: Kristoffer Thorsson – £56,311
5th: Giovanni Safina – £42,233
6th: Sandiep Khosa – £34,189
7th: Fabian Quoss – £26,144
8th: Gareth Teatum – £18,100