While the overall finish might have been anticlimactic, the Championship Event of the 2024 PGT PLO Series turned out to be an exciting one. Seth Davies was able to hold off the Event #8 champion, Eelis Parssinen, to take down the $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship Event. The runner-up in the tournament, Samuli Sipila, may not have captured the Event #9 title, but he used that second-place finish to capture the Player of the Series title and the special awards that come with each PGT Player of the Series victory.
Davies Makes His First PLO Cash a Big One
A stunning 72 entries came out for Event #9, the $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship Event, and the $1.8 million prize pool built was shared by only the final eleven men. On Thursday, Lou Garza, Ronald Keljzer, Dylan Weisman, and Ian Matakis would come up short of the final table, with Matakis earning $72,000 for his efforts and the other three men picking up $54,000 of the prize pool. On Friday, the final seven came back to decide the champion with Bruno Furth leading the way.
Furth’s lead wasn’t a massive one by any stretch. Holding 3.49 million chips, Furth had Davies (2.955 million) and Samuli Sipila (2.515 million) breathing down his neck, with Sipila especially with something to play for (more on this in a moment). Sipila in fact would take the lead in the tournament an hour into the play when he dispatched Sean Winter from the final table in sixth place.
Sipila and Furth would trade the lead often in the early play, with Sipila putting a firmer grasp on the proceedings when he knocked off Allan Le in fifth place. On that hand, Le never had a chance as his A-K-9-4 looked good on an A-7-3 flop – until Sipila showed his A-A-9-6 for the flopped set. Furth would not be denied, however, as he would come out to defeat Stefan Christopher in fourth place when he caught two pair, Queens over Jacks, against Christopher’s Jacks over tens.
Where was Davies during all this? Biding his time. He was the short stack with three players left, holding only 2.615 million chips against Furth (5.08 million) and Sipila (6.7 million). Davies would grind it out for a lengthy period, eventually working his way past Furth until he was able to eliminate Furth in third place.
In heads-up play, Davies started at a disadvantage (6.225 million to Sipila’s 8.17 million), but was able to reverse his fortunes within twenty minutes. On that key hand, Davies was able to flop a set and turn a boat with his Q-Q-6-5 on a Q-J-4-4-10 board. From there, Davies was consistently in the lead until he put the Finn away, topping Sipila’s A-Q-7-4 with his K-K-Q-6 after the board ran out 7-6-5-2-5 to earn his first-ever PLO 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 Earns Consolation Prize of Player of the Series
While he had to be a bit disappointed in not being able to hold off Davies for the victory in the Championship Event, Sipila did need to go deep at that final table. Going into the Championship Event, Sipila was in second place on the Overall Championship leaderboard, looking up 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 pass Parssinen for that Overall Championship, with the runner-up finish in the Championship Event making the victory a decisive one.
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
Over the ten-tournament festival, Sipila was able to take down two tournaments and earn four cashes for total official earnings of $776,140. The reason we say “official” is that one of Sipila’s victories came in a Progressive Bounty tournament, where he scored another quarter million dollars, to make his total earnings for the ten days of poker more than a million dollars. For winning the overall championship of the 2024 PGT PLO Series, Sipila “only” receives the Gold Cup, signifying the overall champion of a PGT-sanctioned tournament, and also receives a $10,000 PGT Passport good for any PGT tournament in the next year.
There won’t be much of a break for the “High Rollers.” Beginning on April 5, satellite tournaments will begin for the 2024 U. S. Poker Open, with Event #1 on that schedule kicking off on April 8. That series will culminate in a $25,000 Main Event on April 16.
(Photo courtesy of PokerGO.com)