Lautaro Guerra Cabrerizo Wins Third PGT PLO Title To Lock Up Series Champion Honors

Lautaro Guerra Cabrerizo quite simply dominated the PokerGO Tour Pot-Limit Omaha Series. The Spanish PLO specialist and online high-stakes cash game player won three of the nine titles offered during the inaugural running of this PGT PLO festival at the PokerGO Studio inside the ARIA Resort & Casino, cashing for $967,150 along the way. Guerra Cabrerizo punctuated his impressive performance by winning the $25,000 buy-in championship event, topping a field of 83 entries to earn his third trophy of the series and a career-high payday of $518,750.

Guerra Cabrerizo’s three titles were all won within a handful of days. He started by taking down a $10,000 buy-in PLO event for $220,400. Just a couple days later he won the $15,000 PLO bounty event for another $228,000. His completed hat trick resulted in his series earnings and PGT rankings points being more than double the nearest competitors’, resulting in a clear victory in the PGT PLO series championship competition that saw him receive yet another trophy and the $25,000 championship bonus.

“I thought maybe I could win one trophy, or at least two among my friends, but didn’t expect to take home four,” Guerra Cabrerizo told PGT reporters after the series wrapped up. “It was a really good series. For PLO players, this was our dream. They were really good tournaments, all of them. [The PokerGO Studio] was fantastic, and the staff was great. I would like everyone who plays PLO to come next time.”

Guerra Cabrerizo ended with 774 total points. This was enough to not only earn him the series championship but also to move him into the outright lead in the 2023 season-long PGT points race. He surpassed PokerGO Cup champion Cary Katz, who now sits in second place with 693 points.

With 2,092 Card Player Player of the Year points, Guerra Cabrerizo now sits in 17th place on the 2023 POY leaderboard presented by Global Poker.

Guerra Cabrerizo reportedly took up poker more than a decade ago, but really found his stride when he focused his efforts on pot-limit Omaha.

“Once you get to PLO, you never go back to two cards,” said Guerra Cabrerizo. “I really enjoy the entirety of the game.”

The $25,000 buy-in championship event played out over the course of two days. The field of 83, which built a prize pool of $2,075,000, was narrowed down to just 16 contenders by the end of day 1. Guerra Cabrerizo came into day 2 in seventh chip position. By the time the final table of seven was set, he had climbed into third. Early in the final-table action, Guerra Cabrerizo won a big pot with the nut straight to surge into the outright lead.

Four-time bracelet winner Josh Arieh was on the losing end of the big pot that saw Guerra Cabrerizo claim the top spot on the chip counts. Arieh was ultimately the next to hit the rail, when his flopped top two pair clashed with the pocket aces and nut flush draw of Krasimir Yankov. The turn brought an ace to give Yankov top set, but it gave Arieh outs to a flush. A blank river saw him sent home with $103,750 for his seventh-place finish.

Current POY race leader Nacho Barbero was the next to be eliminated. His pocket kings ran into the pocket aces of Yankov, who ended up with a heart flush to win the pot. Barbero earned $124,500 for his sixth-place showing. This was his fifth final-table finish of the year, with two titles won and $2,969,800 in POY earnings accrued along the way. As a result, he extended his points advantage in the 2023 standings, with 4,200 points to his name. That gives him an 840-point lead on second-ranked Aliaksandr Shylko (3,360 points).

Two-time bracelet winner Jim Collopy got all-in with pocket aces against the flopped two pair and open-ended straight draw of Yankov. Collopy turned a set of aces, but Yankov also improved to an ace-high straight. The river changed nothing and Collopy, who won the $10,000 mixed PLO event earlier in the series, was eliminated in fifth place ($166,000). With 343 points and $409,800 in earnings accumulated during this series, Collopy ended up finishing second in the PGT PLO points race.

Bracelet winner Chris Lee’s run in this event came to an end when his short stack went in with pocket tens. He was up against the pocket jacks of Guerra Cabrerizo, which ended up making the nut flush to win the pot. Lee took home $207,500 as the fourth-place finisher.

Yankov lost a big pot against Ren Lin to fall to the bottom of the chip counts during three-handed play. He ended up with the last of his stack in preflop with A-8-8-7 with ace-high hearts facing the A-K-Q-J with king-high diamonds of Lin. Yankov’s pocket pair was best through the turn, but a face card on the river saw him eliminated in third place ($269,750).

With that, Lin took more than a 2:1 chip lead into heads-up play with Guerra Cabrerizo. A pair of big double-ups saw Guerra Cabrerizo overtake the lead. He then took more than a 4:1 lead thanks to winning a big pot with a rivered ten-high straight. The final hand saw all of the chips go in on a A9283 board. Lin revealed 9974 for a flopped set, but Guerra Cabrerizo had A654 for a six-high straight made on the river. Lin secured $352,750 as the runner-up finisher, the third-largest score of his career.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the $25,000 championship final table:

Below are the top ten in the final standings for the PGT PLO series points race:

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.

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