Samuli Sipila Crowned Champion Of PokerGO PLO Series

More than half of Samuli Sipila’s $1.5 million in recorded poker tournament earnings were earned in the span of a week. The Finnish professional player accumulated $776,140 in prize money across four in-the-money finishes during the 10 events that comprised the PokerGO Tour Pot-Limit Omaha Series, securing two titles along the way. As a result, Sipila ended as the clear victor of the festival-long points race and was awarded yet another trophy and a $10,000 PGT Passport.

In addition to winning the series-long points race, Sipila also climbed into third place in the season-long PGT points standings. He trails only Dylan Weisman (1,047 points) and David Coleman (937 points).

The three largest cashes of Sipila’s tournament career were all recorded during this run. He started off his PLO hot streak with a win in the fourth event of the series, a $10,100 buy-in tournament. He outlasted 89 entries to earn $240,300 and 240 PGT points.

Two days after that title run, Sipila managed a seventh-place showing in another $10,100 buy-in PLO event, adding $34,000 and 34 PGT points to his tally. After busting out of that event, he hopped into the $15,100 PLO progressive bounty event. He was the last player standing from a 74-entry field in that tournament, earning 270 points and $159,840 from the main prize pool as the champion. He also pocketed $239,000 in bounty payouts from that event, bringing his overall haul to $1,015,140.

With two titles and three cashes through seven events, Sipila was sitting atop the series standings with three events left to play. A fellow Finnish poker pro then surpassed him thanks to earning his second title of the series, leaving Sipila in need of a deep run in one of the final two events on the schedule.

He managed that feat and then some, making it down to heads-up play in the $26,000 buy-in championship event. He ultimately finished as the runner-up, earning a career-high score of $342,000 and 205 points to end with a 184-point margin of victory.

Sipila joins Spain’s Lautaro Guerra and America’s Daniel Geeng as the three champions of this series, which was first introduced in 2023. Here is a look back at how this four-card poker festival went down.

Negreanu Finds The Winner’s Circle Again

In the final days of March last year, Allan Le took down a $10,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha event at the U.S. Poker Open for his first PGT title. Just shy of a year later, Le once again battled his way to victory. The latest win saw Le defeat a field of 132 entries in the $5,100 kickoff event, earning $161,700 as the champion.

The WSOP bracelet winner based out of Southern California now has more than $4.1 million in recorded tournament earnings to his name. Allan is one of the three Le brothers with multiple millions in career scores. Nam Le is sitting on $7.5 million in lifetime cashes, while Tommy Le has accrued $4.3 million on the circuit.

While Le was earning his second PGT title in a PLO event, Eelis Parssinen was taking it one step further by successfully defending his title from the 2023 PGT PLO Series II festival. Last October, Parssinen converted a final-table chip lead into the title in the $7,600 buy-in pot-limit Omaha bounty event.

He came out on top in the exact same event at this series, besting a field of 103 entries to earn $131,325 from the main prize pool and another $32,500 in bounties. But Parssinen was far from finished racking up rankings points and prize money at this festival.

Daniel Negreanu kicked off 2024 with a public commitment to focus on ‘quality over quantity’ this year after posting a $2.2 million loss on the poker tournament circuit in 2023. The 49-year-old Poker Hall of Fame member’s efforts to pare down the number of events he enters to ensure proper rest and focus have seemingly paid off.

He has managed nine final-table finishes and two titles so far this year, with his first win being a victory in the kickoff event of the PGT Last Chance series that ran just a few days into the new year. The six-time bracelet winner and two-time WPT champion’s most recent victory saw him defeat a field of 118 entries in event no. 3, which featured a $5,100 buy-in. He earned $147,500 for the win.

Negreanu now has more than $51.5 million in lifetime earnings, which places him seventh on poker’s all-time money list.

Negreanu’s two final-table finishes during this festival, including this win, helped propel him into 15th place in the 2024 Card Player Player of the Year race standings and fourth in the PGT season-long points race.

Sipila And Parssinen Hog The Spotlight

Sipila scored his first win of the series by taking down event no. 4, a $10,100 buy-in affair. He bested a field of 89 entries to earn $240,300 and his first PGT title. His two prior recorded tournament wins before taking down this event had also come in pot-limit Omaha tournaments, with one at the 2017 Aussie Millions and the other at the Masters Classics of Poker series the same year.

The Helsinki native failed to make the money in the following event, which was the $5,100 buy-in progressive bounty. That event saw 139 entries made, with Dutch poker pro Ronald Keijzer earning $80,275 for the win and another $80,000 in bounty payouts as the champion.

He overcame six-time bracelet winner Josh Arieh heads-up to secure the trophy. He ended up with four in-the-money finishes during the festival, with 278 PGT points earned along the way. That gave him a seventh–place spot in the final series standings.

Dylan Weisman was the next champion crowned. The PLO regular beat out an 85-entry field in another $10,100 buy-in event, earning $229,500 for the win. Previous series champion Lautaro Guerra finished runner-up, adding to a fourth-place finish in the second event.

This was the fourth-largest tournament score yet for Weisman, bringing his career earnings to more than $3.5 million. Four of his five top paydays have now come in pot-limit Omaha events, including the $166,461 he earned as the champion of a $1,000 buy-in PLO tournament at the 2021 WSOP.

Weisman has now won three titles and made seven final tables in 2024. This latest victory awarded him 480 POY points, bringing his total to 2,332 with more than $1 million in to-date POY earnings. He now sits 13th on the overall leaderboard.

This series saw Weisman overtake the top spot in the season-long PGT points race as well, with 1,047 total points earned across nine qualifying cashes. Four of those were made during this series, including this victory. That was enough for him to wind up fourth in the final series-long standings.

Sipila backed up his win in event no. 4 by taking down the $15,100 progressive bounty event a few days later. He overcame a field of 74 entries, earning $159,840 from the main prize pool and $239,000 in bounty payouts. In between his two victories, Sipila also recorded a seventh-place finish in the $10,100 event won by Weisman. This victory gave him a healthy lead in the points race, but that status was soon challenged by one of his countrymen.

A day after Sipila’s second win of the festival, Eelis Parssinen emerged victorious in event no. 8, a $15,100 buy-in tournament. Parssinen took home $348,600 for his second win, less than a week after successfully defending his title in the $7,600 bounty event.

This was his fourth cash through the first eight events of the series. In addition to his two first-place showings, he also finished 12th in a $5,300 progressive bounty event and 11th in a standard $10,100 PLO tournament. With 565 PGT points and $515,850 in prize pool earnings, he took a 21-point lead over Sipila with two events left to play.

Davies Wins Finale, Sipila Comes Up Clutch

Coming into the $25,000 buy-in championship at this series, not a single one of Seth Davies’ top 10 tournament scores came in an event that he had won. That streak ended when he emerged victorious from a field of 72 entries in the aforementioned high-stakes PLO event with the top prize of $522,000.

This victory became his 10th largest payday on the circuit overall. Davies, a WPT main event champion, now has nearly $25.8 million in lifetime earnings.

This was the first title and ninth final-table finish of the year for Davies. With 2,814 POY points and more than $1.7 million in to-date POY earnings, he is now ranked sixth in the 2024 POY standings. The victory also moved him into the same spot on the season-long PGT leaderboard, with 590 points earned over four qualified cashes in that points race.

The solid turnout for this event built a prize pool of $1,800,000. The top 11 finishers made the money, with Tomas Ribeiro being knocked out on the $54,000 bubble. Davies held the chip lead among the remaining 10 contenders that moved on to day 2.

He was still among the top two stacks when the field combined onto a single table. Two-time bracelet winner Joao Simao fell in sixth place at the hands of Stefan Christopher. Not long after that, Davies’ flopped two pair held up against the overpair of aces held by Sean Winter to narrow the field to five.

Allan Le slid into the danger zone after losing a big pot to Silpila, who then finished him off in fifth place with a full house against Le’s flush.

Christopher was the next to fall, losing to Bruno Furth’s flopped queens up. Christopher was paid out $171,000 for his third final-table finish of the series.

Despite scoring that knockout, Furth was ultimately the player eliminated in third place in a boat-over-boat situation to Davies.

Heads-up play began with Sipila holding a slight lead, but Davies won a sizable pot and began to pull away, only to have Sipila fight his way back. Davies woke up with aces against Sipila’s kings, however, putting him firmly in the driver’s seat. It wasn’t long after that he was able to finish it off.

Sipila earned a career-high payday of $342,000 as the runner-up while moving back ahead of Parssinen on the festival’s leaderboard.

Sipila’s victory in the series-long points race became official when James Calderaro took down the tenth and final event of the festival later that day, besting a small field of 21 entries in the $5,100 pot-limit Omaha dealer’s choice event for a $56,700 payday. ♠