Cary Katz Wins 2021 PokerGO Cup Finale for $1,058,000

On Wednesday, Cary Katz became the final event winner of the 2021 PokerGO Cup series, topping the 23-entry field for a winning score of $1.058 million. The payday became the eighth seven-figure score of Katz’s career.

“It means over a million dollars,” Katz said of what the win means to him. “I’m pretty excited about that score. I think it’s the first $100K of the year. I feel very fortunate because I came in second to last in chips. I doubled up the first hand and it was smooth sailing from there.”

Katz topped Sam Soverel in heads-up play and denied Soverel the opportunity to finish atop the overall series leaderboard. Thanks to Katz beating Soverel in the end, Daniel Negreanu was crowned the 2021 PokerGO Cup series champion. For winning the overall series title, Negreanu picked up an additional $50,000 in prize money.

Check out the replay of the final table on PokerGO.com.

Dan Smith was the first player to bust. With the blinds at 20,000-40,000 with a 40,000 big blind ante, Katz raised to 80,000 from the cutoff seat with king-queen and Smith reraised all in from the button for 590,000. Smith had pocket tens. Soverel found pocket jacks in the small blind and made the call of Smith’s shove. Katz folded. The jacks held up for Soverel and Smith was eliminated on the money bubble.

Negreanu busted next, and it came in a rather unlucky fashion after he got his money in with pocket aces against Soverel’s pocket eights. An eight hit the turn, prompting Negreanu to fall out of his chair, and that ended the run of “Kid Poker.”

Negreanu picked up $230,000 for the fourth-place finish and stuck around the PokerGO Studio to see if Soverel would go on to win the event or not.

A short-stacked Sean Winter busted next, also falling at the hands of Soverel. Winter picked up a $368,000 payday and cleared the table to allow for Soverel and Katz to compete in heads-up play.

When heads-up play began, Soverel had 3.3 million in chips to Katz’s 1.3 million. Katz battled to get things to even and eventually took a lead that he would stretch out. Along the way, Katz showed a couple of bluffs to Soverel on hands that Soverel folded.

Soverel’s stack slipped down to just a handful of big blinds and then money went in with him holding ten-nine to Katz’s queen-four. Katz flopped a pair of fours and held from there, securing the victory for $1.058 million. Soverel picked up $644,000 for his second-place finish.

The final table payouts are as follows.

With Soverel finishing second, Negreanu won the overall PokerGO Cup title, finishing atop the leaderboard with 537 points. He picked up an additional $50,000 in prize money.

The final standings from the 2021 PokerGO Cup leaderboard are below.

Ali Imsirovic remains the leader atop the 2021 PokerGO Tour standings, sitting with 2,394 points. He has a decent lead over Sean Perry, who has 1,553 points in second place.

Moving into third place in the PokerGO Tour standings was Winter, who took third place in the final event of the PokerGO Cup. Winter now has 1,303 points.

With his runner-up finish in Event #8:$100,000 No-Limit Hold’em at the PokerGO Cup, Soverel jumped up to fourth place in the PokerGO Tour rankings. He now has 1,213 points and is fewer than 100 points out of third place.

Katz improved into the top 10, now sitting in eighth with 1,086 points. Outside the top 10, Negreanu now finds himself in 13th with 743 points.

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