Scott Seiver Wins LA Poker Classic High Roller Event

Scott Seiver talked with Matt Savage after his LAPC High Roller win

Poker pro Scott Seiver made waves in last week’s NAPT Venetian High Roller Shootout when he claimed the bounties of eight different opponents to win the $100,000 prize for knocking out the most opponents, but the young poker pro fell short of winning the title in Vegas. It looks like all he needed to correct that was a week and a few hundred miles.

Seiver won the LA Poker Classic’s inaugural $25,000 High Roller Event last night after coming in with the chip lead against a talented final table of former WPT and WSOP winner Daniel Alaei, 2009 Bluff Magazine Player of the Year Jason Mercier, former WPT winner Lee Markholt, former WPT winner Tommy Vedes and two-time PCA High Roller runner-up Will Molson. Despite being extremely deep stacked – Seiver had 645,500 in chips with blinds at 2,000/4,000 with a 500 ante – it wasn’t an easy ride to the finish. 

In fact, Seiver’s journey to the win was much the opposite of his exit at the Venetian event. Where he did all the headhunting there and finished further back in the pack, in LA he let some else – namely Daniel Alaei – do all the heavy lifting before taking him on heads-up. Alaei eliminated Molson (6th, $50,640) in the early going and then took out the short-stacked Vedes (5th, $70,890) to narrow the field to four.

The action see-sawed for a bit and Seiver nearly took Alaei out of the tournament, but Alaei rebounded and jumped back into the lead. From there he got back to work with the eliminations, taking out Markholt (4th, $101,720). That was Seiver’s moment and he seized it, knocking out Mercier (3rd, $141,778) to set up the final battle with Alaei.

The battle didn’t last long. Just a few minutes into the match Alaei opened on the button with Q-J of diamonds and when Seiver responded with a three-bet, Alaei shoved all-in. Seiver made the call with A-J of spades, which held up through the river to give him the win, an LA Poker Classic winner’s trophy and $425,334. Alaei settled for $222,794 and the knowledge that he’ll always be a contender for the big prize as long as there are high roller poker tournaments.