Negreanu and Seidel Among Six to Return for 2022 U.S. Poker Open Event #1 Final Table

Event #1: $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em of the 2022 U.S. Poker Open attracted some of the biggest and best to the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and six players will return Thursday to compete on the streamed final table.

Japan’s Masashi Oya leads the pack with a stack of 4,325,000 chips, representing more than a third of the chips in play. Shannon Shorr (2,340,000) and Ren Lin (1,705,000) bagged the next top stacks, while Daniel Negreanu (1,550,000), Erik Seidel (1,240,000), and Joseph Cheong (565,000) will also be contending for the Event #1 title.

The 93-entrant field created a prize pool of $930,000, with 14 players getting a piece of it. Alex Foxen ended up bursting the bubble after getting pocket kings in against Oya’s pocket jacks. A jack on the flop vaulted Oya ahead, and Foxen failed to improve as he left empty-handed.

With the bubble having burst, eliminations quickly followed with Japan’s Tamon Nakamura making his exit in 14th after getting his chips in with a better flush draw against Cheong, but losing to a runner-runner straight.

Phil Hellmuth sat directly next to Negreanu near the end of the day and even doubled through him a couple of times, but his run ended in 13th place. Dan Shak (12th), Ivan Zufic (11th), and Sean Perry (10th) found themselves without any chips soon after, and the nine remaining players converged on a single table.

Rok Gostisa finished in ninth place when he couldn’t improve after Lin flopped a set of eights, and Nick Schulman couldn’t find help when running into Shorr’s superior ace, sending him to the rail in eighth. Kristina Holst made a boat to secure a short-stacked double through Seidel, but soon after, lost a flip to Negreanu when her pair of threes couldn’t hold against ace-king, ending her run in seventh place.

Many other players came out for the first event of the 2022 U.S. Poker Open, including Ali Imsirovic, Dan Smith, Jeremy Ausmus, Adam Hendrix, Joe McKeehen, Jonathan Little, Nate Silver, and Wynn Millions Main Event runner-up Isaac Kempton, who also sits second on the 2022 PokerGO Tour Leaderboard.

Chipleader Oya only has a few results on The Hendon Mob, but they include three podium finishes, with two of them being deep runs in Venetian High Rollers earlier this year as part of the PokerGO Tour.

The remaining players have locked up $55,800, but all eyes are on the $213,900 first-place prize. Negreanu is the only player at the final table currently in the top ten on the 2022 PokerGO Tour Leaderboard, and he has the opportunity to move up several spots on those standings if he ends up victorious.

When play resumes, Level 15 will continue with 19:24 remaining and the button will be in Seat 3.

The final six players will return to the PokerGO Studio on Thursday, March 17, at 12 p.m. PT with the final table airing on PokerGO.com and the PokerGO YouTube channel at 1 p.m. PT.

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