Bodog Beat

Carlos Mortensen has a few chips at the WSOP.

Poker pro Carlos Mortensen has been building his stack all day long here in Day 2B and is currently sitting with the fourth most chips with 190,000.

Mortensen moved from Spain to the U.S. in the 90’s to play poker. A good plan considering in 2001 he won the WSOP Main Event, $1,500,000 and his first WSOP bracelet. He also won the Season Five World Poker Tour Championship for $3,970,415 making him the first person to ever win the championship titles for both the WSOP and the WPT.

He won a second WSOP bracelet in 2003 when he took down the $5,000 Limit Holdem event for $2,51,680.

Also out in front is David Benefield with 160,00. Steve Billirakis has 160,000 and author of the classic book Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker, James McManus, is out there with 140,000.

McManus is best known for making a big splash in both the poker and the writing worlds when in 2000 he was hired to cover the progress of women at the WSOP. Positively 5^th Street tells the story of how he took the money he was advanced to play in a WSOP satellite and win a seat. He then went on to go all the way to the final table where he ultimately finished in 5^th place. Chris Ferguson went on to win it that year. The book is awesome and if you haven’t read it yet you should run (don’t walk) to your nearest book store.

Stay tuned to the Beat for more WSOP news served up hot and fresh live from the WSOP tournament floor in Las Vegas.