Martin Zamani Wins 2023 U.S. Poker Open Championship

Five players went into the final table of the 2023 U.S. Poker Open Event #10: $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em with a chance to be crowned the U.S. Poker Open champion and take home the Golden Eagle Trophy. The player at the top of the leaderboard, Ren Lin, was the only one not actually participating in the final table, so all he could do was sweat it out and hope the order of finish sorted in his favor. In the end, it did not, as Martin Zamani won the tournament and the U.S. Poker Open championship.

Zamani certainly earned it, eliminating all five of his opponents at Tuesday’s final table en route to the devilish $666,000 first prize.

Going into the final table, Lin had 465 points on the U.S. Poker Open leaderboard. There were 400 points up for grabs to the winner of the tournament, so four players at the final table had a shot: Dan Smith (353 points), Chris Brewer (305), Zamani (170), and Jeremy Ausmus (150).

If either Smith or Brewer won the tourney, they would also win the U.S. Poker Open championship. The rest of the possibilities were not quite as simple. Both of those men could also finish second and earn enough points to pass Ren Lin, but, perhaps obviously, they couldn’t finish second to the other player.

Zamani and Ausmus both needed to win the tournament to pass Lin on the leaderboard, but also needed both Smith and Brewer to finish third or lower. Fortunately for Zamani, Smith began the final table as the short stack and Brewer had the second-shortest stack, so the chip counts were on his side as far as their order of finish. And as it turned out, the chips didn’t lie, as Brewer went out in sixth and Smith finished fifth.

So, with four players remaining, both Zamani and Ausmus knew they could win the U.S. Poker Open championship if they captured the Event #10 title, still no easy task. In the meantime, Lin was pulling hard for Justin Bonomo, the chip leader going into the final table, and Nick Petrangelo, as a win by either of them (along with the already solidified non-top-two finish by Brewer or Smith) would give him the championship.

It was Zamani, though, that flattened the competition for his first victory and fourth cash of the 2023 U.S. Poker Open. In all, he made $835,800 over the course of the ten events.

Zamani now sits in ninth place on the overall 2023 PokerGO Tour leaderboard, behind Ausmus and just ahead of Daniel Negreanu. Cary Katz (no relation) is in first place, while Ren Lin’s tremendous U.S. Poker Open elevated him to fourth.