The 2022 PokerGO Tour (PGT) Championship kicked off today and saw the top 21 ranked players on the PGT leaderboard compete for a $500,000 winner-take-all prize. After several hours of play on Day 1, Jason Koon bagged the chip lead among the final six players.
Koon dominated throughout Day 1, including eliminating Cary Katz and Seth Davies to end the day, and wound up with more than half of the chips in play as he looks to add half a million to his $41.9 million in Hendon Mob-reported earnings.
Others who will join Koon on Day 2 in the hunt for the freeroll prize include WPT Five Diamond champ Chad Eveslage, PokerGO Studio regulars Nick Petrangelo, Stephen Chidwick and Sean Winter, and recent WPT World Championship runner-up Benny Glaser.
| SEAT | PLAYER | CHIP COUNT | BIG BLINDS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nick Petrangelo | 285,000 | 24 | |
| 2 | Benny Glaser | 283,000 | 24 | |
| 3 | Jason Koon | 1,829,000 | 153 | |
| 4 | Sean Winter | 322,000 | 27 | |
| 5 | Stephen Chidwick | 152,000 | 13 | |
| 6 | Chad Eveslage | 347,000 | 29 |
Day 1 Action
The inaugural freeroll event saw players starting with chip stacks determined by the number of points they earned during the 2022 PGT season (1,000 chips for every ten points). Chidwick came in with the biggest stack (342,000) after earning 3,083 points on the PGT trail, followed by Phil Ivey (309,000) and Koon (284,000)
Read about Jason Koon’s victory over Phil Hellmuth in High Stakes Duel III!
PGT Championship Day 1 Starting Stacks
| RANK | PLAYER | POINTS | CHIPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Stephen Chidwick | 3,412 | 342,000 | |
| 2nd | Phil Ivey | 3,083 | 309,000 | |
| 3rd | Jason Koon | 2,833 | 284,000 | |
| 4th | Michael Duek | 2,400 | 240,000 | |
| 5th | Sean Winter | 2,368 | 237,000 | |
| 6th | Alex Foxen | 2,356 | 236,000 | |
| 7th | Espen Jorstad | 2,239 | 224,000 | |
| 8th | Chad Eveslage | 2,162 | 217,000 | |
| 9th | Danny Tang | 2,139 | 214,000 | |
| 10th | Mikita Badziakouski | 2,089 | 209,000 | |
| 11th | Daniel Dvoress | 2,059 | 206,000 | |
| 12th | Seth Davies | 1,999 | 200,000 | |
| 13th | Isaac Kempton | 1,927 | 193,000 | |
| 14th | Nick Petrangelo | 1,921 | 193,000 | |
| 15th | Jeremy Ausmus | 1,901 | 191,000 | |
| 16th | Paul Phua | 1,899 | 190,000 | |
| 17th | Sam Greenwood | 1,882 | 189,000 | |
| 18th | Daniel Negreanu | 1,701 | 171,000 | |
| 19th | Adrian Attenborough | 1,700 | 170,000 | |
| 20th | Cary Katz | 1,665 | 167,000 | |
| 21st | Benny Glaser | 1,646 | 165,000 |
There were no shortage of highlights during the live-streamed Day 1 action as the world’s best battled it out in the PokerGO Studio. World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champ Espen Jorstad went out in 11th place when he three-bet jammed with ace-three only to find himself dominated against the ace-ten of Sean Winter.
Shortly after, Winter picked up pocket kings to eliminate Daniel Negreanu, who had picked up queens at the wrong time and five-bet jammed before seeing the bad news from Winter.
Just days ago, Negreanu took a much more vicious beat from an opponent with kings when he was eliminated in 17th place on Day 5 of the WPT World Championship. Negreanu had deuces full of tens against the kings and tens of Lucas Foster with just one card to come. But that card was a king and Foster made a better full house to launch “DNegs” out of his seat.
Jeremy Ausmus went out on the final table bubble when he made an ill-timed shove with ace-high into the flush of Koon. Ausmus had the ace flush blocker but it wasn’t enough to get Koon away from his nine-high flush.
After several hours of eight-handed play, Katz moved in with a flush draw against the aces of Koon with just one card to come. The PokerGO founder couldn’t hit his draw and was eliminated as the river bricked off. Shortly after, Davies got to the river with top pair only to be against the two pair of Koon, who put Davies all in before he called and saw he was beat.
Other players who fell during Day 1 include Alex Foxen, Isaac Kempton, Sam Greenwood, Paul Phua, Daniel Dvoress and Mikita Badziakouski.
First Quarter of 2023 PGT Schedule Announced
Also on Wednesday, PokerGO released the schedule for the first quarter of the 2023 PGT, which will kick off the third edition of the PokerGO Cup Jan. 11-20 inside the PokerGO Studio. The 2023 PokerGO cup will consist of eight high-roller tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.
The next month, the first-ever PGT Mixed Games festival run Feb. 4-11 and will include H.O.R.S.E, 8-Game, Triple Stud Mix and other mixed game events with buy-ins ranging from $5,300 and $25,500.
In another first, the PGT PLO Series will take place March 11-19 with pot-limit Omaha events starting a $2,200 and climbing to $25,000.
“Home to poker’s elite players and most competitive high-stakes tournaments, the PGT saw tremendous growth in the tour’s second season, with total awarded prize money increasing more than 50% and total entries increasing nearly 40%,” PokerGO President Mori Eskandani said in a press release. “Furthermore, the PGT is awarding the biggest player-of-the-year prize in poker history in 2022. The tour’s plans for the 2023 season can be summed up by, ‘Go big, or go home,’ and we are confident that we have put together an incredible offering of events that will allow the PGT to grow even more.”
For more information about 2023 PGT events, visit PGT.com/schedule.
Photos courtesy of PokerGO