While the overall result may have been disappointing, the 2024 PGT PLO Series Championship Event proved exciting. Seth Davies held off Event #8 champion Eelis Parssinen to win the $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship event. The tournament’s runner-up, Samuli Sipila, didn’t win the Event #9 title, but he used his second place finish to secure the Player of the Series title and the special awards that come with every PGT player in the series accompany victory.
Davies earns his first PLO cash at Big One
Event #9, the $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship event, attracted an impressive 72 entries and the $1.8 million prize pool established was shared only by the final eleven men. On Thursday, Lou Garza, Ronald Keljzer, Dylan Weisman and Ian Matakis failed to make the final table, with Matakis receiving $72,000 for his efforts and the other three men receiving $54,000 from the prize pool. On Friday the final seven came back to determine the champion, led by Bruno Furth.
Furth’s lead was by no means huge. With 3.49 million chips, Furth had Davies (2.955 million) and Samuli Sipila (2.515 million) behind him, with Sipila in particular having something to offer (more on that in a moment). In fact, Sipila would take the lead in the tournament an hour into play when he knocked Sean Winter off the final table in sixth place.
Sipila and Furth often exchanged the lead early on, with Sipila taking a firmer grip on the proceedings as he edged out Allan Le for fifth place. Le never stood a chance on this hand, as his AK-9-4 looked good on an A-7-3 flop – until Sipila showed his AA-9-6 for the flopped set. Furth was not to be turned away, however, as he would defeat Stefan Christopher in fourth place when he caught two pairs, queens over jacks, against Christopher’s jacks over tens.
Where was Davies during all this? He’s biding his time. He was the short stack with three players remaining and had just 2.615 million chips against Furth (5.08 million) and Sipila (6.7 million). Davies fought through for a long period of time and eventually fought his way past Furth until he was able to eliminate Furth in third place.
In heads-up play, Davies had an early disadvantage (6.225 million versus 8.17 million for Sipila), but reversed his fortunes within twenty minutes. On this crucial hand, Davies was able to flop a set and turn a boat with his QQ-6-5 on a QJ-4-4-10 board. From then on, Davies was consistently in the lead until he put away the Finn and beat Sipila’s AQ-7-4 with his KKQ-6 after the board went 7-6-5-2-5 to earn his first PLO to secure cash.
1. Seth Davies (USA), $522,000 (313 points)
2. Samuli Sipila (Finland), $342,000 (205)
3. Bruno Furth (USA), $243,000 (146)
4. Stefan Christopher (USA), $171,000 (103)
5. Allan Le (USA), $126,000 (76)
6. Sean Winter (USA), $90,000 (54)
7. Joao Simao (Brazil), $72,000 (43)
Sipila receives consolation prize as Player of the Series
While he had to be a little disappointed that he couldn’t stop Davies from winning the Championship Event, Sipila had to dig deep at this final table. Before the championship event, Sipila was in second place in the overall standings and was looking ahead to Eelis Parssinen, who won two tournaments on the 2024 PGT PLO Series schedule. By making it to the final table, Sipila was able to overtake Parssinen for the overall championship, with second place in the championship event making the win crucial.
1. Samuli Sipila (Finland), 749 points
2. Eelis Parssinen (Finland), 565
3. Seth Davies (USA), 313
4. Dylan Weisman (USA), 309
5. Stefan Christopher (USA), 302
6. Ronald Keljzer (Netherlands), 278
7. Allan Le (USA), 259
8. Bruno Furth (USA), 258
9. Lautaro Guerra (Spain), 226
10. Alex Foxen (USA), 224
During the ten-tournament festival, Sipila won two tournaments and secured four prize pools, for an official total winnings of $776,140. The reason we say “official” is because one of Sipila’s victories came in a progressive bounty tournament where he scored another quarter of a million dollars, making his total winnings for the ten days of poker more than a million dollars. For winning the 2024 PGT PLO Series Overall Championship, Sipila will receive “only” the Gold Cup, which signifies the overall winner of a PGT sanctioned tournament, and will also receive a $10,000 PGT Pass for each PGT tournament in the next year.
There won’t be much of a break for the high rollers. Beginning April 5th, satellite tournaments for the 2024 US Poker Open begin, with Event #1 of this schedule beginning April 8th. This series will culminate in a $25,000 Main Event on April 16th.
(Photo courtesy of PokerGO.com)
