21-Year-Old David Chen Wins $10,000 Buy-In Event At 2024 Poker Masters

At just 21 years of age, David Chen is the youngest player to ever win a PokerGO Tour title. The Vienna, VA resident took down event no. 5 of the 2024 Poker Masters series, a $10,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament. He was awarded $217,500 for the win, the first six-figure score on his tournament resume.

According to bio information from the exclusive PokerGO broadcast of this event, Chen is a former U.S. Nationals Math Champion who graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in Computer Science. He was written several articles for poker training company GTO Wizard.

This was just his sixth recorded live cash, with no previous final tables or titles. The 420 Card Player Player of the Year points and 218 PGT points he secured were the first of his career.

This event drew 75 entries to the PokerGO Studio inside ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, with 11 players earning a share of the $750,000 prize pool. Big names like six-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus (11th), David Coleman (9th), Jeremy Becker (8th), and two-time Super High Roller Bowl champion Isaac Haxton (6th) were eliminated inside the money late on day 1.

The final day began with Filipp Khavin in the lead and Chen hot on his heels. Sam Laskowitz was the first to fall. He was left on fumes after losing a classic preflop race with A-K against the pocket queens of Chino Rheem. He then got the last of his stack in with a flopped pair of fives trailing the pocket jacks of Chen to finish fifth for $52,500. This score increased Laskowitz’s career earnings to nearly $2.7 million.

Khavin slid to the bottom of the leaderboard during four-handed play. He eventually got his last nine or so big blinds in preflop, three-bet shoving from the big blind with A-5 and receiving a call from Chen, who had opened with A-8 from the button.Both players flopped their side cards and Chen held through the river to eliminate Khavin in fourth place ($71,250). His earnings are approaching $2 million after this win.

Rheem was the clear short stack when cards got in the air for the final three. He was soon all-in with a double-gutshot straight draw facing the king high and gutshot broadway draw of Chen. Neither player improved from there and Rheem settled for $101,250 as the third-place finisher. The 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event winner and three-time World Poker Tour champion now has more than $15.1 million in career cashes to his name.

Heads-up play began with Chen holding 5,525,000 to the 3,850,000 of three-time bracelet winner Jim Collopy. He was able to extend his lead to more than 7:1 in time for the final hand of the tournament. Collopy shoved for a bit over nine big blinds with A5 from the button and Chen called with J9. The board ran out K6326 and Chen made a flush to lock up the pot and the title.

Collopy earned $142,500 as the runner-up finisher. This was his third consecutive final-table finish at this series, having placed sixth in event no. 3 and third in event no. 4. This was the 20th final-table finish of the Year for Collopy, with four titles won along the way. He now sits in eighth place in the POY race presented by Global Poker and 12th place in the season-long PGT standings.

Collopy’s back-to-back-to-back final tables have moved him into the lead in the Poker Masters’ series-long points race, with his 295 points giving him a ten-point lead over second-ranked Jeremy Becker (285). There are still three events left to play out at the festival.

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

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.

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