Martin Zamani Leads PGT Kickoff Event #4 Final Table

The PGT Kickoff continued on Thursday from the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with Event #4: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em. The tournament drew 126 entries and Martin Zamani leads the final seven players.

Zamani went on a run in the later hours as he knocked out the final four players of the night with various degrees of skill en route to the overnight chip lead. He leads a final table that includes Michael Vanier, Sam Soverel, Joey Weissman, Eric Blair, Spencer Champlin, and Patrick Leonard. These seven players will return on Friday at 12 p.m. already guaranteed $25,200. Up top for the winner is the $157,500 first-place prize, 315 PGT points, and the Event #4 trophy.

The field of 126 entrants created a prize pool of $630,000 and the final 18 players earned a piece of it. Ryan Leng was the unfortunate bubble boy for the second day in a row when he got ace-queen in against the ace-nine of Zamani and a nine landed on the river. Kristen Foxen (18th), Brandon Sunshine (17th), Justin Saliba (16th), Jeff Madsen (15th), Igor Yaroshevskyy (14th), David Chen (13th), Andrew Lichtenberger (12th), John Riordan (11th), Yunkyu Song (10th), and David Peters (9th) were the first to fall in the money.

Beka Iordanishvili would be the last elimination of the night when he got his short stack in with queen-ten against the king-jack of Zamani. The board ran out all low cards and Iordanishvili was eliminated in eighth place, while the seven remaining players bagged to return for the streamed final table. 

Leonard is at his third final table in four events following a sixth-place finish in Event #1 and a victory in Event #2. Weissman is at his second final table of the series after a fourth-place finish in Event #2 and Vanier is at his second-consecutive final table following a fifth-place finish in Event #3, while Soverel, Blair, Zamani, and Champlin each notched their first cash of the series.

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 #4 Final Table

When play resumes, there will be 27:00 remaining in Level 19 with blinds at 30,000/60,000 with a 60,000 big blind ante.

Play will resume on Friday, January 24, at 12 p.m. PT, and the final table will be livestreamed on PokerGO at 1 p.m. PT.

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