Billy Tarango Survives Furious Heads-Up Comeback To Win PokerGO Tour Pot-Limit Omaha PKO

Billy Tarango secured his first major poker tournament title as the champion of the 2025 PokerGO Tour Pot-Limit Omaha Series $5,000 progressive knockout event. The PLO regular had a scare when his 17.5:1 chip advantage at the start of heads-up play nearly vanished, but he was eventually able to right the ship and close out the victory to earn $88,245 plus $85,000 in PKO bounty payouts.

This was the second-largest score for tarango, who finished sixth in last year’s World Series of Poker $25,000 PLO event for $383,191. He now has more than $584,000 in career earnings, with most of his largest paydays coming in the increasingly popular four-card poker variant.

A total of $795,000 in prize money was paid out in this event, with the top 23 finishers making the money. Among those that cashed were 2023 PGT PLO Series champion Lautaro Guerra (14th), three-time bracelet winner Jim Collopy (11th), bracelet winner Patrick Leonard (10th), six-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman (9th), two-time bracelet winner Joao Simao (8th), and 2023 WSOP mystery millions champion Tyler Brown (7th).

Two-time bracelet winner Jesse Lonis came into the final day leading the remaining five contenders. He expanded his lead early on by eliminating bracelet winner James Chen in fifth place. Chen committed most of his stack preflop, four-betting with AKQ7 over the three-bet of Lonis, who held AQ76. Lonis called and then looked up Chen’s shove after the flop brought the 1044. The 6 turn gave Lonis the lead, and the 7 river confirmed his victory in the hand. Chen earned $28,620 for this deep run, which was his second of the series after placing third in the kickoff event for $82,000 just a day earlier.

Arthur Morris bowed out in fourth place when his AA54 went up against the KQ102 of Stephen Hubbard after a flop of 1093. Morris was nearly a 3:1 favorite when the chips went in, but the K turn and 4 river saw Hubbard’s kings up win the pot. Morris, the champion of the 2022 WSOP Circuit Hard Rock Tulsa main event, earned $35,775 from the main prize pool as the fourth-place finisher.

Lonis won a massive pot during three-handed with the second-nut flush when he looked up a river raise from Hubbard, who had the nut-flush blocker in his hand. That call propelled Lonis to a massive lead, giving him nearly two thirds of the total chips in play to work with.

Tarango doubled up with nines and fours besting Lonis’ nines and threes to take a big chunk out of that lead, though. Soon after that, the two top stacks clashed in another key showdown. Tarango raised to 300,000 from the small blind with AJ86 and Lonis called with J1075. The flop came down J76 and Tarango bet 500,000. Lonis potted to 2,200,000 and Tarango quickly re-potted all-in for 7,800,000 total. Lonis called to set up a showdown for almost all of the chips in play. The 6 on the turn saw Tarango’s lower two pair become sixes full, which left Lonis drawing slim. The 4 river sent the 163-big-blind pot to Tarango, while Lonis fell to 22 big blinds.

What just happened?!

Huge pot breaks out of nowhere between @JesseLonis and Billy Tarango.

https://t.co/CZSLg6c8Yv pic.twitter.com/kjDtLfNLFy

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) March 27, 2025

Lonis’ last chips went in on a J75 board with his QJ109 trailing the 10755 of Tarango. The J made things interesting, but the K on the end sent Lonis packing in third place ($47,700). He now has more than $15 million in career cashes to his name.

With that, Tarango entered heads-up play with 18,800,000 to the 1,075,000 of Hubbard. Hubbard ripped off three straight double-ups to narrow the gap to 5:3. He came even closer to evening things up before Tarango began to regain control of the match, with his advantage sitting at better than 4:1 by the time the final hand of the tournament was dealt.

Hubbard raised to 450,000 from the button with AAK3 and Tarango defended his big blind with 10754. The flop came down J94 and Tarango led out for 500,000 with his bottom pair and gutshot. Hubbard called with his overpair and the 6 on the turn gave Tarango a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw to go with his pair and live cards. Tarango check-raised all-in over Hubbard’s pot bet of 2,050,000 and Hubbard called off his remaining 750,000. The river was the K, giving Tarango a flush and the pot.

Hubbard walked away with $88,245 and $34,000 in bounty payouts as the runner-up. The 2023 PGT PLO Series $10,000 buy-in event winner now has nearly $880,000 in lifetime earnings after this latest strong showing in a PLO tournament.

Final Table Results

Photo credit: PokerGO.

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