Bryce Yockey Tops Stacked Final Table In PGT PLO Series II $10,100 Event

Bryce Yockey is the latest champion decided at the 2023 PGT PLO Series II. The bracelet winner from Torrance, California overcame a field of 114 entries in the $10,100 pot-limit Omaha event to earn the title and the top prize of $239,400.

This was the sixth-largest tournament score of Yockey’s career, with the biggest being the $511,147 he took down as the winner of the 2017 World Series of Poker $10,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better championship event. The victory pushed his lifetime tournament earnings past $4.1 million.

Yockey was also awarded plenty of rankings points after coming out on top in this tournament. The 600 Card Player Player of the Year points he secured moved him inside the top 1,000 in the 2023 POY standings presented by Global Poker, while 200 PokerGO Tour points moved him inside the top 100 on that high-stakes-centric leaderboard.

This was Yocky’s second cash of the festival, having also finished 19th in the $7,500 buy-in bounty PLO event for $11,175. His win in this latest event was enough to move him into second place in the series-long rankings with 250 points.

The second and final day of this event began with seven players remaining inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yockey was in the lead, with several other highly accomplished players still in contention.

Alex Foxen was the first to fall. The bracelet winner’s single-suited pocket kings were unable to beat out the A-J-10-9 with ace-high spades of Kyle Merronm who flopped a wrap draw and made it on the turn. Foxen earned $57,000 for his 21st final-table showing of the year. With more than $3 million in to-date POY earnings and 6,568 points, Foxen is currently the seventh-ranked POY contender. He is also just outside the top ten in the PGT year-long standings, with 19 qualified cashes.

Four-time bracelet winner Ben Yu was knocked out by six-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus, who climbed to third in the chip counts after scoring the knockout. Yu took home $68,400 as the sixth-place finisher.

Yockey scored his first knockout of the day when his top pair and wrap draw beat out the flush draw of Artem Maksimov (5th – $79,800). Merron had moved into the top spot during the early action, though, and added to his lead when his top set of kings finished off two-time bracelet winner and 2022 Card Player Poker Tour Venetian main event champion John Riordan (4th – $102,600).

Ausmus briefly overtook the lead before losing a big clash with Merron to slide back into third position. He eventually got all-in on a K63 flop with A876 facing the QJ83 of Yockey. The K turn maintained the status quo, but the 5 river gave Yockey a higher flush and the pot. Ausmus headed to the cashier to collect $125,400 in prize money for his third-place showing. This was his 20th final-table finish of the year. He now sits in ninth in the POY rankings and 10th in the PGT standings.

That knockout gave Yockey the lead over Merron going into heads-up action. Yockey really pulled away in the early going, only to have Merron begin to regain some lost ground. The comeback ended abruptly when all of the chips went in on a K105A board with Merron holding Q755 for bottom set. Yockey had QJ74 for the nut straight. The 2 did not pair the board and Merron was eliminated in second place, earning $171,000.

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

Here is a look at the current top ten in the series points race through five events:

1st: Stephen Hubbard – 262 points
2nd: Bryce Yockey – 250 points
3rd: Richard Gryko – 246 points
4th: Eelis Parssinen – 236 points
5th: Vasil Medarov – 200 points
6th: Adam Hendrix – 200 points
7th: Daniel Geeng – 188 points
8th: Allan Le – 171 points
9th: Kyle Merron – 171 points
10th: Matthew Wantman – 151 points

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abgrego.

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