Eelis Parssinen Goes From Worst to First to Capture Second Title and $348,600 in Event #8: $15,100 Pot-Limit Omaha for $348,600

Eelis Parssinen came into the final table of Event #8: $15,100 Pot-Limit Omaha presented by PLO Mastermind fifth of sixth in chips, but the Finish Pro was up to the challenge, battling all the way back to take home his second title of the series and the $348,600 first place prize. 

Parssinen quickly fell to the bottom of the leaderboard as short-stack Erik Seidel scored a double through start-of-day chip leader Alex Foxen on the fifth hand of the play. However, Parssinen would find a double of his own through Seidel twenty minutes later to vault to the middle of the pack. 

Parssinen would move into second in chips a level later when his pocket aces held against Lou Garza's pocket queens, sending the 2023 $50k WSOP PLO bracelet winner out the door in sixth place for $62,250. 

The five-handed play was a slugfest, as Seidel was sitting on less than ten big blinds at the time of Garza's elimination and managed to double twice through Foxen to keep his tournament hopes alive. 

Foxen then conceded the chip lead to Michael Duek during the chaos, and Duek put those new chips to work when his queen-eight-five-five turned trip eights to send Seidel and his pocket kings home in fifth place for $87,150. 

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Duek would keep the chip lead during all of the four-handed play, but it would be Parssinen who would score the next knockout when his pocket queens flopped a set to crack the pocket aces of Joao Simao, sending the Brazilian home in fourth place for $118,275, while Foxen now sat at the bottom of the counts. 

Parssinen sat just seven big blinds below Duek for the chip lead and quickly moved in front during the first few hands of play as Duek couldn't get anything going, and at one point, had a hand declared dead pre-flop when he ran out of time banks. 

Foxen took advantage of Duek's missteps and scored a double through the 2023 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher when he flopped two pair with kings and sevens, against Duek's ace-king. 

Duek's tournament run ended one hand later when his flopped bottom two pair was cracked by Parssinen's turned kings up, sending him home in third place for $161,850. 

Parssinen took the chip lead into heads-up play and immediately picked off a Foxen river bluff on the first hand of the match but then lost the chip lead when Foxen scored back-to-back doubles on the next two hands to vault back in front. 

But with the blinds quickly escalating, Parssinen would find a double of his own to retake the chip lead and never looked back. 

Foxen would not go away quietly, however. The long-time pro picked up his third double of the match but still trailed Parssinen two-to-one in chips after the hand and would eventually bow out in second place for $224,100 when his flopped top pair was done in by Parssinen's top two. 

Event #8: $15,100 Pot-Limit Omaha Final Table Payouts

One day after Samuli Sipila captured his second title of the 2024 PGT PLO Series, his fellow Finn Parssinen joined him in the two-timmers club, but with four cashes to Sipila's three, Parssinen now sits atop the series leaderboard. Parssinen came into the day fifth in the standings with 216 points, and after picking up 349 points for the win now sits with 565 points, 21 points clear of Sipila with two events to go. 

Event #8 was the second $15,100 buy-in of the series, and even without the added incentive that Event #7 provided with the progressive bounty, it managed to increase the field size by nine entrants. 83 entrants walked through the doors of the PokerGO Studio, creating a prize pool of $1,245,000, with the top twelve players finishing in the money. 

However, even with the added runners, the only other movement inside the top ten of the leaderboard was courtesy of Foxen, who picked up his first cash of the series to vault into sixth place, knocking Jim Collopy off the leaderboard. 

Duek and Garza each picked up their first cash of the series but sat in 15th and 31st, respectively. Poker Hall of Famer Seidel picked up his third cash of the series and now sits in 18th place, and Simao matched Parssinen with his fourth cash, but without a tournament victory, he sits in 14th with 170 points.  

The penultimate event of the series, Event #9: $25,200 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, is already underway, and you can catch all the day-one action here: https://www.pgt.com/live-reporting/pgt-plo-series-2024/event-9-25200-potlimit-omaha-championship. The live stream of Event #9 is scheduled to get underway at 6 p.m. PT on March 29th, with PLO Mastermind founder Fernando Habegger set to join Donnie Peters and Remko Rinkema on the call, but the time is subject to change based on how the tournament shakes out. 

Players will have one more opportunity to add points in the chase for the PGT Passport, as there will also be a one-day $5,100 Pot Limit Omaha that will run in tandem with the Event #9 final table. However, depending on how that plays out, the passport could already be out of reach. 

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