Martin Zamani Leads PGT Last Chance Event #5 Final Table

The PGT Last Chance continued on Tuesday from the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, with Event #5: $10,100 No-Limit Hold’em. The tournament drew 121 entries and Martin Zamani leads the final seven players.

Zamani spiked the river to double through Jeremy Becker near the end of the night before he eliminated Becker en route to the overnight chip lead. He leads a final table that includes Rania Nasreddine, Brekstyn Schutten, Ren Lin, Kristen Foxen, Chris Brewer, and Joey Weissman. These seven players will return on Wednesday at 12 p.m. already guaranteed $48,400. Up top for the winner is the $302,500 first-place prize, 303 PGT points, and the Event #5 trophy.

The field of 121 entrants created a prize pool of $1,210,000 and the final 18 players earned a piece of it. This was the biggest PGT owned and operated $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament in history, eclipsing the record of 119 entrants set during the second and third events of this series.

Mike Lang was the unfortunate bubble boy when he got his short stack in with ace-nine and failed to improve against Brewer's ace-king. Linglin Zeng (18th), Nicholas Seward (17th), Darren Elias (16th), Joe Serock (15th), Joseph Cheong (14th), Shannon Shorr (13th), David Stamm (12th), Elvyn Bellosantos (11th), Neil Warren (10th), and Jeremy Becker (9th) were the first to fall in the money.

Adam Hendrix picked up his second cash of the series following a seventh-place finish in Event #2 but just missed out on another final table. Hendrix got his last few big blinds in on a blind-versus-blind confrontation with queen-nine against Foxen's suited jack-four, and when Foxen turned a flush, Hendrix was eliminated in eighth place and the seven remaining players bagged to return for the streamed final table.

PGT Last Chance is the concluding series of the 2024 PGT season and gives players their final opportunity to accumulate PGT points to qualify for the season-ending PGT $1,000,000 Championship, which is open to the top 40 eligible players on the PGT leaderboard.

Foxen and Lin are already in the eligible top 40 and will have an opportunity to improve their leaderboard standing and starting chip stack for the PGT $1,000,000 Championship. Schutten squeezed his way in with this event, while Weissman needs a podium finish, and Brewer needs a win to be in the qualification zone. Zamani and Nasreddine are further out and will have their best chance at qualification through a Dream Seat.

Any player who chooses to play this series could also win a Dream Seat for direct entry into the PGT $1,000,000 Championship, as three will be awarded to the top three point earners of the PGT Last Chance series who do not finish among the eligible Top 40 on the PGT leaderboard.

PGT Last Chance Event #5 Final Table

When play resumes, there will be 30:00 remaining in Level 20 with blinds at 40,000/80,000 with an 80,000 big blind ante.

Play will resume on Wednesday, January 8, at 12 p.m. PT, and the final table will be livestreamed on PokerGO at 1 p.m. PT.

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