The second season of the PokerGO Tour was a busy one all the way to the end of the year.
There was a total of 175 tournaments on the tour throughout 2022. They included everything from Aria High Roller tournaments at various times throughout the year to high-stakes tournaments that were part of other series, like the World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour. Most of the events took place in Las Vegas, but there were series involving Triton on Cypress and other tournaments around the world.
High-stakes poker players had no shortage of tournament opportunities. And the events, in total, awarded $426M in prize pools, an amount up more than 55% from PokerGO’s first season and its $274M paid out.
The season wrapped up with exciting action, as PokerGO offered the top players on its leaderboard to compete for $500K, a winner-take-all prize.
Koon Kills It
The PokerGO finale was an invitation-only freeroll for the players atop the PGT (PokerGO Tour) leaderboard. The top 21 on that ranking received invitations to play in the December 21-22 tournament at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas.
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They started with an amount of chips corresponding to their points. For example, Stephen Chidwick had the most points with 3,412, so he started the tournament with 342K chips. The one with the least number of points was Benny Glaser, who had 1,646 points and started with 165K chips.
Jason Koon was third in chips going into the freeroll. He had momentum on his side, having recently beat Phil Hellmuth in a round of High Stakes Duel for $1.6M. And by the end of the first day of play, Koon showed that he was on a roll, having dominated as the action played down to six players.
Koon took a substantial lead into Day 2, and he never let up. He busted Chidwick in fifth place, but Sean Winter caught up to Koon by knocking out Benny Glaser and Nick Petrangelo. Koon needed a comeback and quickly got it when he doubled through Winter. He went on to win the tournament for $500K and the PGT Championship trophy.
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With that, on December 22, the PokerGO crew and high-stakes players took a well-deserved holiday break.
Start Planning for 2023
Before they all went their own ways for the holidays, PokerGO announced the first stops of the 2023 season. The third season of the PokerGO Tour would start in Las Vegas and stay there for the first few months. Of course, there may be other events added to the PGT as they appear on schedules like the European Poker Tour and WPT, but the initial focus will be on Vegas.
And in Vegas, they will kick things off with the PokerGO Cup, a series of eight tournaments. They will all be No Limit Hold’em, with buy-ins ranging from $10K to $50K.
-January 9-10: PokerGO Cup $1K satellites at Aria-January 11-14: PokerGO Cup $10K buy-in NLHE events (#1-4)-January 16: PokerGO Cup $15K NLHE event (#5)-January 17-18: PokerGO Cup $25K NLHE events (#6-7)-January 19: PokerGO Cup $50K NLHE finale event (#8)
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With a couple weeks for a break, the action will return to the PokerGO Studio for a new series, one dedicated to mixed game players. They’ve long asked for more mixed games, and this PGT Mixed Games series will provide. Buy-ins will range from $5K to $25K across eight tournaments.
-February 2: PGT Mixed Games $1,425 HORSE satellite at PokerGO Studio-February 3: PGT Mixed Games $1,425 8-Game satellite at PokerGO Studio -February 4: PGT Mixed Games $10K HORSE event (#1)-February 5: $10K 8-Game event (#2)-February 6: $10K Triple Stud Mix event (#3)-February 7: $10K Big Bet Mix event (#4)-February 8: $10K Triple Draw Mix event (#5)-February 9: $10K Dealers Choice event (#6)-February 10: $25K 10-Game Championship event (#7)-February 11: $5K NL 2-7 Single Draw event (#8)
One month after that series wraps, PGT will launch into another new series in March. This one will be the PGT PLO Series, all Pot Limit Omaha action with some minor variations along the way. That will offer nine tournaments March 11-19 with buy-ins from $2K to $25K.
According to PokerGO President Mori Eskandani, “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.”
Eskandani emphasized that the PGT’s second season did increase the money awarded by more than 50% and added that the total entries in the tournaments increased nearly 40% from the first to second seasons.
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