Patrick Leonard Comes Back From Four Big Blinds to Win Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em

One day after scoring his first cash inside the PokerGO Studio, Patrick Leonard found himself back at a PGT final table, and after surviving some wild swings, defeated Aram Zobian heads-up to capture the title in Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em for $124,800 plus 250 PGT points. 

Leonard started the day at the bottom of the chip counts, but he found pocket aces after just making it back from the bathroom in time to catch his hand an hour into play to soar to the top of the counts. Chino Rheem found pocket tens, Sam Laskowitz found kings, and over three million chips ended up in the middle of the pot pre-flop in the blink of an eye with Natalie Ferguson sitting on just over four big blinds. 

The board ran out jack-high, Rheem went home in seventh place for $19,200 plus 38 PGT points, and Leonard found himself in a virtual three-way tie for the chip lead with Joey Weissman and Joseph Cheong. 

Ferguson, who was making her first appearance at a PGT final table, scored the unlikely ladder and looked to be making a run at her first PGT title after scoring a triple and getting a shove through, but would eventually fall in sixth place for $24,000 plus 48 PGT points when she flopped top pair with king-ten. Weissman had also flopped top pair but held ace-ten; all the chips went into the middle on the turn, and Ferguson's day was through. 

Laskowitz never recovered from running his kings into aces but managed to bob and weave his short stack into a ladder. He would eventually take another brutal beat as his king-queen was outflopped by Cheong's king-nine, sending him home in fifth place for $33,600 plus 67 PGT points.

The action continued to heat up as start-of-day chip leader Joey Weissman open shove, covering the table four-handed only for both Leonard, who held 2.5 million chips, and Cheong, who held 2.2 million chips, to call it off. Weissman had ace-eight, Leonard had ace-queen, and Cheong had pocket jacks as seven and a half of the twelve million chips in play made their way into the middle of the table. 

The board ran out clean for Cheong as he tripped to take the chip lead, while Leonard was left with just four big blinds. Leonard, however, would not go down without a fight and found an immediate double as his queen jack outflopped Weissman's pocket sevens. 

A few hands later, Weissman again went with maximum aggression, open-shoving 1.6 million from the small blind with king-eight, only for Leonard to find ace-king in the big blind. The flop gave Weissman life with an open-ended straight draw, but he improved no further and was out the door in fourth place for $43,200 plus 86 PGT points. 

Leonard moved to second in chips after the elimination, and with the blinds climbing to nosebleed territory, he quickly started to pull away from both Zobian and Cheong before watching as Zobian would find aces to double through Cheong and leave him with the short stack. 

Leonard would then finish off Cheong in third place for $57,600 plus 115 PGT points when his queen jack outkicked Cheong's queen-seven to take a three-to-one chip lead into heads-up play. 

Zobian, who had been the short stack for almost the entire day, picked up the first few hands of heads-up play but ultimately couldn't get away from his turned pair of threes as his hero call with bottom pair ran square into Leonard's two pair sending him home in second place for $79,200 plus 158 PGT Points. 

Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em Final Table Payouts 

Leonard Scores Back-to-Back Cashes to Move to The Top of Season Leaderboard

Event #2 of the 2025 PGT Kickoff Series saw an increase of twelve players over Event #1 as 96 hopefuls made their way inside the PokerGo studio, creating a prize pool of $480,000 in the process, with the top 14 players finding cash. 

Event winner Leonard was one of two players to find a cash in back-to-back events and now moves to the top of the season leaderboard with 292 PGT points as he improved on his sixth-place finish from Event #1. John Riordan joined Leonard in the two cash club and just missed out on joining him for the second final table of the series as he finished in 8th place for $19,200 plus 38 PGT points. 

Poker Icon and Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth made his first appearance inside the PokerGO Studio of the 2025 season, and the "Poker Brat" managed to pick up his first cash of the year in the process before bowing out in 10th place for $14,400 plus 29 early season points. 

Also finding their first cash of the season in Event #2 was fan favorite David Chen (14th), Rodger Johnson (13th), Bertrand Rosique (12th), Stephen Song (11th), and Andrew Moreno (9th), but none managed to crack the top ten on the leaderboard as that is only filled with final tablists.  

The 2025 PGT Kickoff continues with Event #3: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em with day one already well underway, and you can catch all the action from the PGT Live Reporting Team here as they play down to a final table. As always, you can then see the Live Final Table the next day (January 23rd for Event #3) starting at 1:00 pm PST on PokerGO. 

2025 PGT Leaderboard - Top Ten

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