The inaugural PokerGO Tour Pot Limit Omaha Series has turned out to be an overwhelming success. Many of the seven events that have run have seen well over 100 entries (only Events #4 and #6 came up a bit short) and the competition has been exciting. One player, in particular, has found it to be very enjoyable, as Spain’s Lautaro Guerra Cabrerizo has earned two championships through the first seven events.
Event #6 Goes to Veteran Jim Collopy
Event #6 on the PGT PLO Series was a complicated affair. A $10,000 PLO Mixed Game, featuring Pot Limit Omaha, PLO Hi/Lo, and Big O (where five hole cards are dealt instead of four), was the battleground and, due to the different disciplines in the game (yes, there are nuances even in Omaha Hold’em), only 86 entries were received for the tournament. That is still larger than many of Texas Hold’em events on the PGT circuit draw, where it often seems as if the same fifty people or so are there to shuffle money around.
Tyler Brown (4.01 million) led the final six players to the felt and it was a difficult array of opponents. Both Dylan Weisman (2.64 million) and Jim Collopy (2.525 million) were poised to strike if Brown made a misstep, while every other player was under a million in chips. Maxx Coleman (925K), George Wolff (350K) and Matt Vengrin (300K) all had a difficult road if they were looking to take this particular title.
Vengrin would decide to try to make his move early and it would cost him. In a PLO hand, Collopy chopped all but one blind out of Vengrin’s stack, but Vengrin fought back to witness the first elimination. He would split a PLO Hi/Lo pot with Collopy in eliminating Wolff from the tournament in sixth place before departing at the hands of Brown in fifth.
Brown and Collopy would swap the lead between each other while decimating the remainder of the final table. Collopy would dismiss Coleman in fourth with a PLO rarity – an Ace high win – and would take the chip lead in a stunner of a hand with Dylan Weisman.
The chips went to the center between Collopy and Weisman pre-flop PLO Hi/Lo, and Weisman had the edge:
Collopy: K-K-7-3
Weisman: A-A-9-5
The flop stunned the audience in attendance, coming down K-Q-2 to thrust Collopy to the lead. Just as quickly, however, an Ace on the turn flipped the table and now Weisman was back in front. With no threat of a low hand to split the pot, there was an audible gasp as the case King came on the river to give the hand back to Collopy and eliminate Weisman in third place.
Nearly equal in chips, Collopy and Brown decided to only play PLO in their heads-up battle and Collopy would make short work of it. In only fifteen minutes, Collopy would cruise to the victory over Brown, scooping up the $206,400 first-place prize in winning Event #6.
1. Jim Collopy, $206,400
2. Tyler Brown, $146,200
3. Dylan Weisman, $103,200
4. Maxx Coleman, $86,000
5. Matt Vengrin, $68,800
6. George Wolff, $51,600
One Day to Finish Off Event #7
It would only take one day for Event #7, the $15,000 Pot Limit Omaha Bounty tournament, to determine the champion. The victor would be a familiar name to the competitors at the PGT PLO Series as Lautaro Guerra Cabrerizo would emerge from the carnage to capture his second championship of the series and seize control of the PGT PLO Series overall championship.
114 entrants were on the tournament clock by the time the seven-handed final table was settled (at about 4 AM this morning Vegas time). Cabrerizo would be firmly in charge of the table with more than half the chips in play (7.015 million), while Issac Haxton (2.34 million), Jesse Chinni (1.76 million) and Isaac Kempton (1.13 million) were the only other players over the million chip mark. Cabrerizo would send a message to the table in the early going, knocking off Haxton in sixth place, to approach 10 million in chips and cement his grasp on the lead.
This would become a theme as Cabrerizo simply jackhammered the final table. He would also take down Johann Ibanez Diaz in fifth and Alex Foxen in third to enter heads-up play against Kempton with nearly a 6:1 lead. While Kempton would eke his way into the lead for a quick moment, Cabrerizo would quickly reassert his dominance and roll to the title and an extra $75,000 in bounties along with his first place prize:
1. Lautaro Guerra Cabrerizo, $228,000
2. Issac Kempton, $171,000
3. Alex Foxen, $125,400
4. Jesse Chinni, $102,600
5. Johann Ibanez Diaz, $85,500
6. Issac Haxton, $68,400
7. Robert Cowen, $57,000
There are two tournaments left in the PGT PLO Series. The $25,000 Championship Event of the series will begin on Saturday, while Event #9 will offer something for those eliminated from the Main Event, albeit a consolation prize with a $2000 buy-in. While there is always a question on who will win the Main Event, the only question left is whether Cabrerizo can be caught for the overall championship.
(Photo courtesy of PokerGO.com)