Alex Foxen Wins First Event of Inaugural PokerGO Cup for $178,200

The first event of the inaugural PokerGO Cup has its champion, with Alex Foxen topping a field of 66 entries to take home the $178,200 first-place prize following approximately four hours of final-table play on Wednesday. With the win, Foxen also picked up 178 PokerGO Tour points and grabbed the early lead atop the PokerGO Cup leaderboard that will award an additional $50,000 in prize money at the conclusion of the series.

To relive all of the action from the final table, you can find the replay on PokerGO.com.

For Foxen, the result was his 14th in-the-money finish of the year, with 12 of those coming from events that qualify for the PokerGO Tour. Prior to this one, Foxen had yet to win an event this year, making this victory in the opening event of the PokerGO Cup his first win of 2021. While it doesn’t appear that Foxen is slowing down, if you ask him he feels as though he’s taken things a bit easy more recently.

“Honestly, I feel like I have taken a bit more time off poker recently than I have in the past, especially the last three or four years, so in my mind I feel like I have slowed down a little bit,” Foxen told PokerGO after the win. “Being in Las Vegas, there’s so many good tournaments out here. Everything is right in your backyard so it makes it really easy to play as much as you can. I definitely have intentions of starting a family eventually and know that will take me away from the game a bit, so I’m trying to do everything I can with the time with no restrictions left.”

Kristina Holst was the first player at the final table to bust. From the under-the-gun position, Sean Perry moved all in for 475,000 with the blinds at 25,000-50,000 with a 50,000 big blind ante. Next to act, Holst called all in for 455,000. Everyone else folded, leaving Perry’s pocket fours up against Holst’s pocket jacks. The flop was favorable to Perry, giving him a set of fours, and he held from there. Holst picked up $39,600 for her finish.

Next to bust was Jordan Cristos, falling with the blinds at 40,000-80,000 with an 80,000 big blind ante. David Coleman moved all in from the button holding ace-king and a stack of 3.625 million, easily covering the shorter stacks of Cristos (570,000) in the small blind and Sean Perry (630,000) in the big blind. Cristos called all in with king-queen and Perry folded. Despite flopping an open-ended straight draw, Cristos was eliminated. He picked up $52,800 for the result.

In a surprising clash of the two big stacks, Foxen and Coleman went at it next. On the button, Foxen raised to 160,000 with pocket kings. Coleman picked up pocket eights in the big blind and moved all in for 3.6 million. Foxen made the call for his stack of 3.19 million. At the time, Perry had fewer than six big blinds and Sergi Reixach had fewer than 13 big blinds. The board gave Foxen the double and made him an overwhelming chip leader.

Coleman fought for a bit longer as Foxen bullied the table but ultimately fell in fourth place for $66,000. After that, Reixach bowed out in third place, hitting the rail when his queen-seven couldn’t beat Foxen’s king-queen.

Down to just two big blinds at one point, Perry staged quite a comeback, and he even worked his way into the chip lead during heads-up play. Foxen stayed strong, though, and eventually retook the lead before winning it all. Foxen reflected on what was going through his head after losing such a commanding chip position.

“Just trying to take every hand one at a time is really the only way to go through it or otherwise you’ll be on an emotional roller coaster,” Foxen said of the wild ride against Perry. “It’s just trying to solve every hand individually and assess everything at the completion of each hand and move on from there. This was a crazy one, with a lot of action and a lot of big pots. It was fun.”

On the final hand, Foxen limped on the button holding pocket nines with the blinds at 50,000-100,000 with a 100,000 big blind ante. Perry checked his option with ten-eight and flopped top pair on an eight-high flop. Perry checked, Foxen wagered 100,000, and Perry called. The turn was a queen and Perry checked. Foxen announced that he was all in and Perry called off his stack for 480,000. The river was a king and it was all over. Foxen had won the first event of the inaugural PokerGO Cup.

The final table payouts are as follows.

In addition to taking $132,000 in prize money, Perry earned 132 PokerGO Tour points to narrow the gap between him and Ali Imsirovic. Imsirovic leads with 1,897 points and Perry has 1,553 after the first event of the PokerGO Cup. With the victory, Foxen climbed to No. 9 on the PokerGO Tour leaderboard.

Looking ahead, Foxen was open that he hasn’t yet set any specific poker goals for 2021. Rather, the two-time GPI Player of the Year winner is keeping things a little more widely focused on his overall game.

“I’ve yet to set specific goals, but I think that playing as well as I can, continuing to put up good results, and do everything I can to perform as well as possible is really my goal,” Foxen said. “I just try to improve everyday, get better, improve upon the results I’ve put up in the past, and improve upon all of the decision making I’ve made in the past. If I do that, I’ll be pretty happy.”

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