Joey Weissman Leads PGT Kickoff Event #2 Final Table

The PGT Kickoff continued on Tuesday from the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em. The tournament drew 96 entries and Joey Weissman leads the final seven players.

Weissman scored several knockouts throughout the night and, among others, eliminated Liv Boeree, Neil Warren, Yunkyu Song, and Andrew Moreno to surge up the leaderboard en route to the overnight chip lead. He leads a final table that includes Joseph Cheong, Sam Laskowitz, Chino Rheem, Aram Zobian, Patrick Leonard, and Natalie Ferguson. These seven players will return on Wednesday at 12 p.m. already guaranteed $19,200. Up top for the winner is the $124,800 first-place prize, 250 PGT points, and the Event #2 trophy.

The field of 96 entrants created a prize pool of $480,000 and the final 14 players earned a piece of it. Michael Walsh was the unfortunate bubble boy when he was forced all-in from the big blind, and although he just had to beat jack-high, he only had ten-high and was gone just short of a cash. David Chen (14th), Rodger Johnson (13th), Bertrand Rosique (12th), Stephen Song (11th), Phil Hellmuth (10th), and Andrew Moreno (9th) were the first to fall in the money.

Leonard made his second consecutive final table following a sixth-place finish in Event #1, and John Riordan just missed out on achieving the same feat. Riordan finished fourth in the first event of the series and made a deep run in Event #2 before he got his ace-queen in against the pocket fours of Leonard. The flop provided additional outs but the runout bricked, and Riordan was eliminated in eighth place, while the seven remaining players bagged to return for the streamed final table.

The PGT Kickoff is the first series of the 2025 PGT season and players earn double PGT points for all cashes, allowing them to springboard up the PGT leaderboard.

PGT Kickoff Event #2 Final Table

When play resumes, there will be 3:00 remaining in Level 17 with blinds at 20,000/40,000 with a 40,000 big blind ante.

Play will resume on Wednesday, January 22, at 12 p.m. PT, and the final table will be livestreamed on PokerGO at 1 p.m. PT.

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