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Sean Winter Captures Poker Masters Purple Jacket In 2022

The 31-Year-Old Poker Pro Cashed For $777,000 During The Series of 10 Events, More Than Any Other Player

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Sean Winter seems to have had a feeling he might hit the jackpot during the 2022 Poker Masters high-stakes tournament festival, part of the PokerGO Tour. According to social media posts by three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and PokerGO commentator Nick Schulman, Winter had reached out to him earlier in the series sharing photos about repeatedly sighting the number sequence ‘7-7-7’. It began with a picture of a cube truck from a local Las Vegas company called Triple 7 Movers on the first day of the series and continued with multiple snapshots of three sevens hitting the flop.

The last pic that Schulman referenced is a screenshot of the final standings in the race for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket. What it shows is that Winter cashed for $777,000 during the series, the most of any player. In fact, Winter’s later-series performance saw him accrue enough PokerGO Tour rankings points to secure the jacket and the $50,000 bonus as the player of the series.

Winter had not cashed through the first six tournaments of the ten-event series. That all changed when he finished second from a field of 69 entries in the first $25,000 buy-in tournament of the series, earning $345,000 and 207 rankings points.

Just two days later, Winter emerged victorious from a field of 54 entries in the penultimate tournament of the festival, securing another $432,0000 and 259 points. As it turns out, Winter’s heads-up opponent in that event was none other than Schulman, who accrued four cashes during the series, including three final-table finishes with two second-place showings. Schulman ended up finishing third in the race for the jacket, behind Winter and Jason Koon, who took down the final tournament of the festival for $666,000.

This was Winter’s second PokerGO Tour player of the series win, having secured similar honors in the U.S. Poker Open earlier this year thanks to a late surge at that festival. Winter now has more than $22.9 million in career tournament earnings.

Winter’s strong performance at this series also helped propel him towards the top of the standings in the Card Player Player of the Year race. He now has three titles and 16 POY-qualified final-table finished in 2022. With 5,198 points and more than $3.4 million in year-to-date POY earnings, he now sits in second place on this year’s POY leaderboard, which is presented by Global Poker. He trails current leader Stephen Chidwick by 979 points. He is also just outside the top five on the PGT leaderboard.

Coming into the final table of that $50,000 buy-in finale won by Koon, two players still had a chance to unthrone Winter: World Poker Tour champion Seth Davies and nine-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel. If either one of them came away with the title, they would have usurped Winter to secure the player of the series honors. As it turned out, Davies finished fifth for $148,000 while Seidel earned $203,500 as the fourth-place finisher. Seidel ended up in fourth place in the points race for the series, having made four cashes along the way for a total of $418,900.

Here is a look at the final top ten in the Poker Masters points race:

Rank Player Points Wins Cashes Winnings
1 Sean Winter 466 1 2 $777,000
2 Jason Koon 449 1 2 $747,000
3 Nick Schulman 361 0 4 $473,800
4 Erik Seidel 309 0 4 $418,900
5 Alex Livingston 291 0 3 $386,800
6 Andrew Lichtenberger 279 1 1 $465,750
7 Cary Katz 271 0 3 $339,000
8 Adrian Mateos 266 0 1 $444,000
9 Jeremy Ausmus 242 1 2 $242,000
10 Martin Zamani 223 1 1 $223,100

Photo credit: PokerGO /Antonio Abrego.