Nick Petrangelo Continues High Roller Domination With PokerGO Cup Win

Nick Petrangelo has dominated the high roller scene in the early weeks of 2022. He has made five final tables and won three titles through the first six weeks of the year, with his three victories all coming in high stakes events with buy-ins of $25,000 or higher. His latest title run saw him defeat a field of 41 entries in the 2022 PokerGO Cup $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, earning $369,000 as the champion. The 35-year-old poker pro and two-time World Series of Poker bracelet now has more than $2.1 million in year-to-date tournament earnings, by far the most of any player on the live circuit.

Petrangelo’s ongoing hot streak didn’t only pick up steam after the new year began, though. In the last six months, he has cashed for more than $5.7 million, with two seven-figure scores in that time period. He has won five titles during that time frame, with four more runner-up finishes and one third-place showing. Petrangelo has recorded at least one six-figure cash per month since August of 2021.

“Everything has been going really well since even, like, September,” Petrangelo told PokerGO reporters after his latest big score. “A little up and down, but yeah, since then pretty much everything has been working out. I’m running great, winning all-ins, and getting hands at the right times. Sometimes you get around the bubble when you have a lot of chips and you lose a couple of hands, but it’s been the opposite for me when I go deep and everything just goes well.”

In addition to the title and the money, Petrangelo also earned 420 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of the fifth event at the PokerGO Cup. The score was enough to see him climb into sixth place in the 2022 POY race standings, which are sponsored by Global Poker.

Petrangelo was already sitting atop the leaderboard in the PokerGO Tour points race. With the 221 points he added via this victory, he now has a 634-point lead on second-ranked Ali Imsirovic.

Petrangelo entered the final table of this event in fourth chip position. Three-time bracelet winner and World Poker Tour champion Nick Schulman started the day as the short stack, but managed to double up early on to leave four-time WPT main event winner Darren Elias at the bottom of the leaderboard. Elias, who was at his third final table of the series, three-bet all-in for just shy of 10 big blinds with K-Q from the cutoff facing an under-the-gun raise from Schulman. With A-K in the hole, Schulman made the quick call. He flopped a pair of aces and held from there to send Elias home in sixth place ($51,250).

2021 Card Player Player of the Year award winner Ali Imsirovic was the next to fall. He lost an all-in with A-K suited against the J-10 suited of fellow short stack Schulman to be left with less than a big blind. He was eliminated shortly after that, earning $82,000 for his fourth final-table finish of the year. The 49 PGT points he earned solidified his hold on the second-place spot on that tour’s leaderboard.

Sean Winter lost a chunk of his stack with K-10 suited facing the A-10 of Schulman to fall to the bottom of the chip counts. The last of his stack went in with Q-10 suited, which was dominated by the K-Q of Petrangelo. Both players flopped a pair of queens, and Petrangelo’s kicker played by the end to narrow the field to three. Winter earned $112,750 as the fourth-place finisher.

The next big preflop showdown saw Schulman open from the button for a minraise of 160,000 holding A7. Klein three-bet all-in holding 88 and Schulman called for just over 15 big blinds. The flop came down AJ2 to give Schulman top pair and the lead. The 7 on the turn gave him two pair, leaving Klein in need of one of the two remaining eights in the deck on the river. The 8 on the end gave Klein a winning set to eliminate Schulman in third place ($164,000). This was Schulman’s second cash of the series. The six-figure payday he earned increased his lifetime live tournament earnings to $13,656,763.

With that, Klein took a more than a 3:2 chip lead into heads-up play with Petrangelo. The two battled it out for more than an hour. Klein was able to extend his initial advantage in the early going, but Petrangelo stormed back to nearly even thanks to a rivered straight against Klein’s top pair of kings. By the time the final hand was dealt, Petrangelo held just four more big blinds than Klein. The action began with Klein limping in from the button holding QJ. Petrangelo moved all-in from the big blind holding A9. Klein called for just shy of 29 big blinds total. The board came down K6368 to lock up the pot and the title for Petrangelo. Klein earned $246,000 as the runner-up finisher.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded to the final six:

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.

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