David Coleman has had an excellent start to the 2024 tournament poker season, but David Peters is trying to keep up with him. Peters, the winner of Event #1 of the 2024 PokerGO Cup, claimed his second title of the series by winning ARIA Event #6 on Friday night. By winning this tournament, Peters has now overtaken Coleman and is at the top of the battle for the PokerGO Cup.
Even fighting from the start
The 70-man field had been whittled down to the final six players on Friday, with the field tightly packed and no real advantage for any player. At the start was Daniel Smiljkovic, sitting behind a stack of 1.96 million chips, with Peters close behind with his own 1.88 million chips. Brock Wilson appeared at the PokerGO Cup 2024 celebrations, slipping into third place (1.575 million) at the start of the day, while Morten Klein (1.315 million), Seth Davies (1.115 million) and Kristen Foxen (905K) round out the final table .
The fact that the first elimination lasted only a few moments and it was not the loser at the table is typical of the tightness of the rankings. Wilson and Klein hit a header on the flop and turn with AK-3-Q, with all the chips going into the middle. Klein had flopped top pair with his AJ, but Wilson had turned a set of queens with his pocket queens. Klein needed a ten on the river to get Broadway and a better Wilson, but instead he saw an average four and was in sixth place.
Next came Foxen to the Double Up Express. She chose to go after Davies with a QJ-9-5 flop and turn, causing Davies to abandon her all-in bet. Foxen had outwitted Davies; Their QJ had Queens flopped, while Davies was left draw dead with his Q-10. The double-up pushed Foxen into second place and left Davies beside himself. he would depart moments later, with Smiljkovic doing the dirty deed.
It takes two to defeat Wilson
Wilson maintained the lead by ousting Smiljkovic in fourth place, his pocket fours kept Smiljkovic's AQ at a nine-high board, and all remaining competitors were close in chip count. Foxen briefly took the lead, but Peters was able to score a double through her and secure the top rung of the leaderboard. It took both Foxen and Peters to take Wilson out, Foxen doubling him through and Peters delivering the “fatal blow” to the duo to send heads-up play.
Peters had a lead of about 2-1 (5.825 million to 2.925 million) over Foxen at the start of heads-up play, and the very first hand would decide fate. Foxen, the only woman on the PGT leaderboard at this point, moved all-in from the button and Peters immediately called her bet. Foxen's J-10 was fine for a heads-up hand, but Peters was able to cover it with his A-4. Things got even worse for Foxen when Peters flopped an ace on the A-2-2 intro, and when a three-of-a-kind came on the turn, she was tied. A particularly cruel jack on the river gave Foxen a worse two pair, while Peters secured the win and the overall lead in the PokerGO Cup.
1. David Peters, $315,000 (315 points)
2. Kristen Foxen, $204,750 (205)
3. Brock Wilson, $141,750 (142)
4. Daniel Smiljkovic, $105,000 (105)
5. Seth Davies, $78,750 (79)
6. Morten Klein, $57,750 (58)
With their performances, several players at the final table of Event #7 made it into the race for the 2024 PokerGO Cup. Peters took the lead in the race with 457 points, while Smiljkovic fell back to 5th place in the race. Foxen, Wilson and Davies are also in the top ten and are preparing well for a run in the main event.
1. David Peters, 457 points
2. David Coleman, 347
3. Jonathan Little, 277
4. Daniel Smiljkovic, 261
5. Cary Katz, 252*
6. Dylan Weisman, 240
7. Kristen Foxen, 237
8. Justin Zaki, 232
9. Brock Wilson, 217
10. Seth Davies, 211
(* – defending champion)
The Main Event has passed its first day and advanced to the final table, with several players having a chance to overtake Peters for the title. Davies, Zaki, Little and Saliba are all chasing John Riordan (Shanell Stokes is also at the final table, but along with Riordan has no chance of the overall championship), but these four all have a chance to pass Peters wants to win the entire PokerGO Cup. The biggest problem is that they need to win the $25,000 Main Event and its 272 points to take the overall title away from Peters.
Action at the 2024 PokerGO Cup Main Event will resume at 2:00 p.m. (Pacific Time) and the “live stream” (delayed per Nevada law) will appear on PokerGO an hour later.
(Photo courtesy of PokerGO.com)
