Matthew Wantman Wins Final $10,100 Event of 2024 U.S. Poker Open

The stakes are about to be raised at the 2024 U.S. Poker Open, with the three largest buy-in tournaments of the festival set to play out in the coming days. Event no. 5 of the series was the fourth and final $10,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em contest on the schedule. The tournament attracted 92 entries, creating a prize pool of $920,000. After two days of action, it was Matthew Wantman who emerged victorious with the title and the top prize of $239,200.

The was the fourth-largest score on Wantman’s resume. The World Poker Tour champion now has more than $6.4 million in lifetime tournament earnings to his name after this victory.

This was Wantman’s first title and fourth final-table finish of 2024. The 540 Card Player Player of the Year points he secured as the last player standing in this event were enough to move him within striking distance of the top 100 in this year’s POY rankings, which are presented by Global Poker. Wantman also climbed into 20th place on the PokerGO Tour leaderboard thanks to the 239 PGT points he secured for this win.

This tournament played out over the course of two days inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas. The top 14 finishers made the money, but only seven contenders moved on to day 2 action. Six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and two-time WPT champion Daniel Negreanu held the chip lead when cards got back in the air, while Wantman began with the second fewest chips. Outright short stack Paulius Plausinaitis (7th – $36,800) was the first to fall, with his A-K unable to hold facing the Q-J suited of Grant Wang.

Four-time bracelet winner David Peters’ run in this event came to an end when his A-3 suited was outrun by the K-3 of Negreanu, who had shoved from the small blind. A king-high flop turned the tables, and Negreanu held from there to send Peters packing in sixth place ($46,000).

Negreanu’s surge continued when his pocket aces held against the A-K of Wang. Negreanu’s stack grew to more than three-times the size of the closest contender, while Wang was eliminated in fifth place ($64,000).

Victoria Livschitz was well position to double up through Negreanu when she got all-in with pocket kings leading pocket threes, but Negreanu spiked a set on the flop to knock her out in fourth place ($82,800). This was her fourth consecutive in-the-money finish of the festival.

Wantman scored his first knockout of the day when his A-J held up against the A-8 of Erik Seidel in an all-in showdown. Both players flopped a pair of aces, but Wantman’s kicker played to send Seidel home with $110,400 for his third-place showing. The ten-time bracelet winner now has more than $47.5 million in career earnings across 400 lifetime cashes.

Heads-up play began with Negreanu holding roughly a 6:5 lead over Wantman. The key hand of the clash saw Negreanu limp from the button for 200,000 and then shove over Wantman’s raise to 750,000 with A5. Wantman called all-in for 5,500,000 total with KQ and the board came down Q4289 to give Wantman the double up and a massive lead.

Negreanu was left on fumes after that. He managed to win two all-ins to keep his hopes alive, but was soon at risk again with J-8 facing the K-3 of Wantman. A king-high runout brought the tournament to a close. Negreanu earned $151,800 as the runner-up. This was already his 10th final table of the year, with two titles won. He climbed to tenth place in the POY standings, and is now the third-ranked player in the season-long PGT standings.

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

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.

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