Jason Koon Earns Winner-Take-All PokerGO Tour Championship For $500,000

The PokerGO Tour was first introduced in 2021. The high-stakes-focused collection of events was a rousing success in its initial run and still managed impressive growth in its second year.

The 2022 PGT season featured 175 events, with 24,998 total entries made and more than $426 million in prize money awarded along the way. This season concluded with the first-ever running of the PGT Championship, a $500,000 winner-take-all freeroll.

The event featured the top 21 players from the final PGT standings who were invited to partake in the final showdown. Another unique wrinkle for this event saw the starting chip stacks determined by the qualifying players’ final PGT point totals. For example, top-ranked Stephen Chidwick’s 3,412 points were worth 342,000, while Benny Glaser, who qualified at the last minute thanks to his runner-up finish in the WPT World Championship just a day before this event kicked off, began with 165,000 for his 1,646 points.

After two days of action, Jason Koon added yet another title to his résumé, capturing the trophy and the top prize of half a million dollars. The 37-year-old poker pro now has more than $41.9 million in lifetime tournament earnings to his name, placing him seventh on Card Player’s all-time money list.

This win came just a few weeks after Koon defeated all-time World Series of Poker bracelet leader Phil Hellmuth in the largest High Stakes Duel match yet, with $1.6 million on the line.

“It’s always beautiful. I somehow run hot towards the end of the year. Do you remember the WPT at Bellagio when they had those two $25Ks and I won them back-to-back in late December? I just kind of run hot in December,” Koon told PGT reporters. “I don’t know if it’s Christmas time or what, but it’s beautiful.”

Despite a more limited playing schedule, Koon came into the PGT Championship with the third-largest stack thanks to another strong year on the live high roller circuit. Koon cashed 18 times in PGT-qualified events, with three titles won and more than $6.7 million in qualified earnings. In fact, this $500,000 win was only his fourth-largest cash of the year.

His top payday in 2022 came when he took down the €150,000 buy-in short deck event at the Triton Series Madrid festival for $1,837,500. That victory saw Koon tie the record for the most Triton titles, joining Mikita Badziakouski with four wins on the high-stakes tour.

Koon may have started this event in third place, but he finished day 1 as the clear chip leader with nearly 57 percent of the total chips in play and just six contenders remaining.

World Poker Tour Player of the Year Chad Eveslage was the first to fall on day 2, with his flopped flush running into a higher flopped flush for Koon. Stephen Chidwick soon followed when his K-10 was unable to beat out Koon’s Q-8.

Even though he started the tournament with the shortest stack, Benny Glaser’s run concluded at the final table when his K-Q suited was unable to come from behind against the A-4 suited of Sean Winter. Glaser flopped a gutshot straight draw, but Winter’s top pair held through the river to see him enter three-handed action with the second-largest stack.

Koon and Winter clashed multiple times during the next stretch of play, with Winter mostly coming out on top. Koon then slid to third place briefly after his A K was beaten by the A 3 of two-time bracelet winner Nick Petrangelo in a preflop all-in.

“Almost every time, unless it’s a total dream, you come into a final table and you have all the chips. But at some point, generally three-handed, stacks are going to converge and change hands, and you almost always lose the chip lead,” said Koon. “That’s why when I was hearing people say, ‘It’s your tourney to lose,’ I said, ‘Guys, I’ve got 57 percent of the chips and there are six people here and it’s the best players in the world. This is not my tourney to lose. I’m going to win it maybe half the time or whatever.’ I just embraced it, and then looked up and there was basically 100 big blinds in play three-handed. I knew that I wasn’t the chip leader, so I’ll just do what I can do and go from there. I took some beats and then I made some hands, and there I was.”

Koon soon managed to move back into second place with his trip threes besting the queens and threes of Petrangelo. A preflop coin flip then set up heads-up, with Winter’s pocket sixes outracing the K-10 of Petrangelo.

The final showdown, with the title and $500,000 hanging in the balance, began with Winter holding 2,035,000 to Koon’s 1,185,000. The pair went on to battle for nearly two hours. Fairly early on, Koon doubled up with a turned two pair besting the flopped top pair of Winter. His river shove was called to see him take slightly more than a 3:1 chip lead.

Winter battled all the way back into the lead, but his final time on top was short-lived. Koon won a big pot with aces full, besting a busted nut flush draw for Winter, who also called the river with king high to go with the two pair on board.

By the time the final hand was dealt, Koon’s lead had grown to more than 6:1. Koon raised enough on the button to put Winter all-in. Winter called with J 8 and was dominating the 10 8 of Koon, but a 10 6 5 3 3 runout gave Koon tens and threes for the win.

Despite the runner-up finish, Winter was sent home empty-handed. The Florida native did have another stellar year at the tables, however, with 20 PGT cashes and three titles won. In March, he won back-to-back events to become the U.S. Poker Open champion. Then with a win and a runner-up finish at the Poker Masters in October, he was awarded the purple jacket as the player of the series.

Stephen Chidwick Tops 2022 PGT Points Race

Stephen Chidwick was the player who accrued the most PGT points in 2022. Of the 1,019 individual players to record at least one PGT-qualified score this year, Chidwick ended the year with not only the most rankings points, but also the most titles won (six) and the most cashes (32). He had two more victories and nine more cashes than his nearest competitors.

While Chidwick led in three of the four main performance categories measured, he ended up being fourth in PGT earnings, with his $6,314,084 trailing WSOP main event champion Espen Jorstad ($10,217,955), Jason Koon ($6,731,848), and Alex Foxen ($6,578,029). All three of those players finished inside the top 10 in the final 2022 PGT standings.

Despite winning the finale, Koon ended up in third place. The runner-up finisher was none other than Poker Hall of Famer Phil Ivey. The 10-time bracelet winner won three PGT-qualified events and made the money 17 times. The 45-year-old living legend of the game earned more than $5.9 million from PGT scores this year as he returned to the high roller circuit after years of dealing with off-the-felt legal issues. ♠

PGT Final Standings

Rank Name Points Wins Cashes Earnings
1st Stephen Chidwick 3,412 6 32 $6,314,084
2nd Phil Ivey 3,083 3 17 $5,944,394
3rd Jason Koon 2,833 2 17 $6,231,848
4th Michael Duek 2,400 1 6 $5,063,505
5th Sean Winter 2,368 3 20 $3,599,071
6th Alex Foxen 2,356 4 19 $6,578,029
7th Espen Jorstad 2,239 1 5 $10,217,955
8th Chad Eveslage 2,162 2 8 $2,777,680
9th Danny Tang 2,139 1 12 $3,830,315
10th Mikita Badziakouski 2,089 2 11 $4,292,769