Las Vegas poker pro Daniel Alaei on Saturday won the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic–and $1,428,430.

The event, officially a stop on the World Poker Tour (WPT), was a no-limit Texas hold ‘em tourament with a $15,000 buy-in and a prize pool of almost $5 million.

The action took place at the Bellagio Casino poker room in Vegas.

Amazingly, Alaei did not even attend the first day of the five-day tournament, a strategy often used by poker champ Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr.

Blinds were nevertheless subtracted from his chip stack in front of Alaei’s empty seat, and when he showed up on Day 2, he began play with a highly-diminished stack.

It didn’t stop him.

“I signed up to play and some guys were starting up a big cash game,” Alaei told reporters after the win. “So I played in that over the tournament for the rest of the day.

“I’m more used to the swings and dealing with big money changing hands,” he added. “That makes me more comfortable. I think that has to be an advantage.”

Atlanta poker pro Josh Arieh was the runnerup in the Brunson Classic, snagging $952,290.

The final hand of heads-up play between Alaei and Arieh–the hand that won the tourney–saw Alaei’s pair of tens knock off Arieh’s pair of sevens.

Taking third in the tournament was Faraz Jaka, who earned $571,374.

In fourth was Shawn Buchanan, taking home $333,302.

Fifth was noted top pro Scotty Nguyen, who picked up $249,976.

In sixth was Steve O’Dwyer, who pocketed $202,362.

The victory was Alaei’s first win at a WPT event.

He has previously won two World Series of Poker championship gold bracelets, and his career tourament earnings from live tournaments is now almost $4 million.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)