Jake Cody Wins WPT London Main Event

Jake Cody locked up his second major tournament of the year in London.

One year ago Jake Cody was an up-and-coming online poker player with some extremely modest success to his credit in live poker tournaments. Today he’s two-thirds of the way to poker’s Triple Crown, now that he’s won his second major live tournament of the year at WPT London.

Cody had the most career earnings of any of the players at the final table in London, almost all thanks to his $1.2 million victory at EPT Deauville back in January, but he began the day in the middle of the pack with a little less than half the stack of chip leader Giovanni Safina. But after claiming the first two eliminations of the day, Cody seized the chip lead and made himself a force for the rest of the tournament. 

When Cody knocked Safina out in fifth place he had a solid advantage that allowed him to put lots of pressure on his remaining opponents. And from there it all looked as easy as it could be – every time Cody got an opponent all-in he won the hand, shrinking the field until he held a 5-to-2 chip lead on Nichlas Mattsson. Even the last hand seemed to be destined, with Mattsson moving all-in with A-Q only to find himself up against Cody’s pocket queens. The ladies held, sending Mattsson home in second and giving Cody the £273,783 (US $425,492) WPT London win.

Jake Cody will get the chance to complete his Triple Crown next week when WSOP Europe begins. If he can win a bracelet there, he’ll become only the third player to win the Triple Crown – and more importantly, he’ll become the first to do so in a single calendar year. Even if he can’t pull of that feat, he’s certain to go down as a major part of the enormous success that British poker players enjoyed in 2010.