Michael Wang Wins PokerGO “Stairway to Millions” Event #5

High Roller events suit him just fine

For someone who has professed to not playing many high roller poker tournaments, Michael Wang certainly looked every bit of a high stakes veteran, winning the $15,000 PokerGO Stairway to Millions Event #5 on Monday for $219,300. And because he finished in the money, he automatically qualified for the next tourney, the $25,000 event.

Wang was being modest about his lack of recent high roller experience, as he has quite the live tournament resume. Since 2009, he has now amassed almost $3.3 million in earnings, including a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2015. He’s not wrong about the high roller thing, though, as the vast majority of his cashes are in lower or at least modest-stakes tournaments.

This was the first time he won at the PokerGO studio in Las Vegas, and he was impressed, saying, “It’s really good to be in an event where it’s so well run. The studio is amazing. It’s my first series playing here and I can see why all of the top high-stakes players love playing here. From start to finish, it’s been a great experience.”

Stairway to Millions fields getting smaller, as expected

As we have discussed in previous articles, the Stairway to Millions has a sort of “steps” format, in which players can buy in at lower levels and if they make the money, they automatically get a seat into the next, more expensive, tournament. The first event had a $1,000 buy-in – pricey, but cheap for a PokerGO Tour event – followed by a $2,000 tourney and then a $4,000 tourney. Event #4 cost $8,000, which led to this, Event #5, at a $15,000 buy-in.

One thing this format did was draw larger fields. Because PokerGO’s events are mostly high rollers, the fields have been tiny. The first event drew 190 entries, which isn’t incredible, but it’s still much better than most PokerGO Tour events.

We are at the point now, however, where the field sizes are getting quite small once again. There were just 43 entries for Wang’s Event #5 and only seven players made the money. Those seven get free seats into the $25,000 Event #6, but at that price point, expect field numbers to get even smaller. With the $50,000 and $100,000 tournaments, one would expect to see the usual cast of deep-pocketed characters.

Wang said that he is definitely moving forward with the $25,000 event and from there, likely participate in more high rollers as the year goes on.

“It helps to have a little bit of success, not only for the bankroll but for confidence,” he told PokerGO after his victory. “I feel like I did OK. Obviously, I got very fortunate in my run-outs and my hole cards, but I think that more high rollers are on the horizon.”

Wang’s 354 points also put him in the top spot on the 2022 PokerGO Tour leaderboard. Of course, Stairway to Millions is just the first poker festival of the year and there are eleven and a half months to go, but being first right now is better than being last. After Wang is Punnat Punsri, who already has two wins that count toward the Player of the Year standings, Alex Foxen, who has one, and 2021 PokerGO Tour Player of the Year Ali Imsirovic, who also has one win.