Daniel Smiljkovic Wins 2023 PokerGO Tour Championship For $500,000

The PokerGO Tour has completed its third season, which saw more than $352.4 million in total prize money paid out across 132 events. The 2023 season concluded with the second-annual PGT Championship freeroll featuring the top 40 PGT point earners across the season and 14 Dream Seat winners. The prestigious event sported a $1 million prize pool, doubling the $500,000 that was awarded in last year’s winner-take-all debut.

The top prize of $500,000 this year was ultimately awarded to German poker pro Daniel Smiljkovic. This was the fourth-largest recorded score for the bracelet winner from Filderstadt, who now has more than $6 million in career cashes to his name after this latest victory.

Smiljkovic had to withstand an impressive display from actress Arden Cho, who came into the day with the shortest stack but seemed like she might run away with it at one point during the final day. Smilkovic was eventually able to turn the tide, overcoming a big chip deficit during heads-up play to capture the title.

2023 was Smiljkovic’s best year yet on the live scene. The longtime online grinder’s three largest scores all came last year, including a third-place finish in a $100,000 Triton Poker event in Vietnam for $1,450,000 and a third-place showing in the massive $25,000 GGMillion$ high roller at the WSOP Paradise festival for nearly $1.2 million.

With seven PGT cashes totaling more than $2.6 million in earnings, Smiljkovic ended the season in 16th place. He helped secure his spot in this freeroll event with three cashes during the PGT Last Chance festival.

The PGT Championship played out over the course of two days inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. The $1 million prize pool was allocated to the top six finishers, with day 1 seeing the 54-player field narrowed down to the money.

As one might expect, plenty of the biggest names in the game fell along the way, including 17-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, 10-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel, six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu, four-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman, and many more.

The final table began with Smiljkovic in the lead, having 42 percent of the chips in play to start. It didn’t take long for a big hand to arise. Just a few minutes into the day, a three-way all-in saw Artur Martirosian’s pocket queens square off against A-K for both Smiljkovic and four-time WPT champion Darren Elias.

A king-high flop was bad news for Martirosian, but a river queen saw him make a set to win the main pot and surge into second place on the leaderboard. Smiljkovic remained out in front despite taking a loss in the hand. Elias, who ended 2023 in 30th place in the PGT standings, earned $40,000 as the sixth-place finisher. His lifetime earnings now sit at $13.1 million.

Five-handed play continued for a couple of hours before the next elimination took place. In that span, young German poker pro Leon Sturm had battled his way into the lead, while Martirosian had fallen to the short stack. Martirosian’s A-K was flipping against pocket fives for Sturm. An ace on the flop tipped the scales in Martirosian’s favor, but a five on the turn left the Russian drawing dead.

He took home $60,000 as the fifth-place finisher, adding to a week that already saw him nab two trophies in the PGT Last Chance series. He finished the season as the 32nd-ranked contender in the PGT race.

Daniel Weinman came into this event with only one qualified score. It just so happened to be a win in the largest tournament of the year in the WSOP main event. Weinman topped the largest turnout ever for the big dance, besting 10,043 entries to earn $12.1 million and 2,300 PGT points.

That ended up being good for fourth place in the final standings, earning the former poker pro a seat in this freeroll. He turned the opportunity into $80,000 with a fourth-place finish after making a hero call against Smiljkovic’s turned trips.

This was only the third cash recorded by Weinman since his career-defining win this summer. He returned to his job at RF Poker working on RFID table technology for poker broadcasts and has not been playing many tournaments during the second half of the year, although he did find the time for a runner-up finish in a WSOP Circuit main event at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina.

The next big hand was between Sturm, who had overtaken the lead by then, and Cho, who had climbed into second chip position thanks to some well-time moves during short-handed play. Cho then took the lead when Sturm attempted a triple-barrel bluff against her bottom two pair.

Sturm never recovered and soon found himself eliminated by Smiljkovic. Sturm earned $120,000 as the third-place finisher and increased his recorded earnings to nearly $5.9 million. More than $5.2 of that has been earned since the start of 2023.

Heads-up play began with Cho holding a 5:2 chip lead that she extended before Smiljkovic won a race with A-K against pocket nines to give himself some breathing room.

Cho was able to pull back out in front as the match continued, winning a big pot with top pair that turned into a backdoored nut flush to extend her lead to nearly 4:1. But Smiljkovic bounced back yet again, with A-5 besting Cho’s A-2 after all the chips went in the middle.

The decisive pot of the match began with him limping with Q 10 on the button. Cho, who had Smiljkovic covered by just shy of two big blinds, checked with J 4 and the flop came down J 9 8, giving Smiljkovic the nut straight. Cho check-called a bet with her top pair and the turn brought the 5.

Cho checked and Smiljokov bet again. Cho check-raised all-in and Smiljkovic quickly called off his chips. The 9 was a mere formality as Cho was drawing dead on the turn. It didn’t take long to close out the win from there.

Cho earned a career-high payday of $200,000 as the runner-up. The actress is best known for her work on television shows like Teen Wolf, Partner Track, and the upcoming live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The cash-game aficionado based in Los Angeles now has $375,000 in tournament earnings. This deep run supplanted her previous top score of $71,400 earned for a 55th-place showing in the 2022 WPT World Championship.

Cho was one of the Dream Seat winners who participated in this event, representing sponsor Eat Mezcla. Of the 14 qualifiers, she was the only one to make the money.

Other Dream Seat winners included Albert Hart, Julio Clavell, and Steve Kearney, who got in via a drawing for PokerGO annual subscription holders. PokerGO also held a social media contest won by Caleb Hancock. Ian Steinman and Ryan Bell earned seats via a sponsored promotion by GTO Wizard, while Jeff Lennon qualified through the RunGood Poker Series. ♠

Final Table Results

Place Player Payout
1 Daniel Smiljkovic $500,000
2 Arden Cho $200,000
3 Leon Sturm $120,000
4 Daniel Weinman $80,000
5 Artur Martirosian $60,000
6 Darren Elias $40,000