Spencer Champlin's Hot 2025 Start Continues with PGT Kickoff Win

Spencer Champlin came into the Event #4: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em final table as one of the short stacks and watched as Michael Vanier ran roughshod over the table, but when the two met heads-up, it was a different story as Champlin emerged victorious to capture the title and $157,500 first place prize plus 315 PGT points. 

Champlin came into the heads-up match at a nearly two-to-one disadvantage to Vanier but picked up kings to find an early double and then took most of the chips in play when Vanier's king-queen pre-flop call of a nearly 40 big blind shove from Champlin who held ace-nine. When the dust settled, Vanier failed to find a king or queen and was left with just four big blinds.

Vanier put those four big blinds into the middle with king-ten, only to run into Champlin's pocket kings again. A king-queen-ace flop left Vanier live, but he failed to find a jack. He headed out the door in second place for $97,650 plus 195 PGT points, but it must have felt a little bitter sweat after what happened earlier in the day. 

The first hour of play saw none of the short stacks find the exit, but Vanier, who came into the day second in chips, would be the beneficiary of the cautious play and would score a colossal double into the chip lead when he rivered a full house with pocket tens and got paid by start-of-day chip leader Martin Zamani's rivered jack-high straight giving him just under seven million of the sixteen million chips in play. 

The war path had just begun for Vanier as Event #2 champion Patrick Leonard and his jack-ten would also run right into Vanier's pocket tens. Leonard could not find a jack and was out the door in seventh place for $25,200 plus 50 PGT points. 

Vanier would take a back seat for the subsequent elimination as short stacks Joey Weissman and Eric Blair got all the chips in the middle, holding ace-eight and king-queen, respectively. Blair had Weissman covered by just 75,000 chips, and when a queen hit the flop, Weissman was left walking to the rail in sixth place for $31,500 and 63 PGT points. 

By this point, though, Vanier had over eight million chips and put them to use quickly as he moved all in from the cutoff, covering the table with ace-four before Sam Soverel called with ace-ten next to act on the button for just over a million chips. A four in the window gave Vanier the pair to come from behind as he moved to over ten million chips and left Soverel shaking his head as he, too, hit the rail collecting $37,800 plus 76 PGT points for the fifth-place finish. 

Once again, Vanier put those chips to work open-shoving from the small blind with queen-duece and found himself well behind when Blair called for just under two million chips from the big blind with ace-nine. However, Vanier would find another pair on the flop as a queen emerged from the deck, and Blair hit the rail in fourth place for $53,550 plus 107 PGT points when he could not improve, giving Vanier just under twelve million of the sixteen million chips in play. 

With Vanier sitting on the massive lead, Zamani open-shoved the button for 2,275,000 with ace-five. Champlin re-shoved the small blind for 2,300,000 with ace-jack, but Vanier could not find anything playable from the big blind, leaving the two short stacks to battle. 

Zamani was in rough shape, and while he managed to turn a straight draw, he would improve no further, hitting the rail in third place for $69,300 plus 139 PGT points to set the stage for Champlin's heads-up comeback. 

Event #4: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em Final Table Payouts 

Leonard Picks Up Third Cash of the Season to Pad Points Lead

Event #4 almost set a new record for the largest field size in a $5k No-Limit Hold'em event in PGT history, falling just six entries short of the 131 players that made their way through the doors of the PokerGO Studio during Event #1 of the 2024 Poker Masters but still created a prize pool of $630,000 with the top eighteen players getting a share of the money. 

Seventh-place finisher Leonard was one of those eighteen to find a cash, picking up his third in four events to become the first player to cross 300 points on the leaderboard to remain alone at the top with 342 points. Event #4 winner Champlin also crossed the 300-point total with his first cash and now sits in second place with 315 points. 

Runner-up Vanier scored his second cash of the season and moves into the fifth with 251 points but trails a pair of event winners in Andrew Lichtenberger, who finished twelfth in Event #4 to edge Vanier by 16 points for fourth place, while Masato Yokosawa and his 286 points rounds out the top five. 

John Riordan, who finished in eleventh place in Event #4, joined Leonard in the three cash club and squeaks into the top ten with 150 points, one point behind ninth-place Nick Schulman, seven points behind eighth-place Aram Zobian, thirteen points behind seventh-place Nicholas Seward, and twenty-nine points behind sixth-place Neil Warren, none of whom found a cash in Event #4. 

Sixth-place finisher Weissman earned his second cash of the series but fell just outside the top ten with 149 points. Kristen Foxen (18th), Justin Saliba (16th), and David Chen (13th) also earned second cashes on the young season. Saliba is the furthest up on the leaderboard with 64 points, good for the 21st spot. 

Round out the rest of the Event #4 pay days are Beka Iordanishvili (8th), David Peters (9th), Yunkyu Song (10th), Igor Yaroshevskyy (14th), Jeff Madsen (15th), and Brandon Sunshine (17th). 

The 2025 PGT Kickoff concludes with Event #5: $10,100 No-Limit Hold'em, and action is already underway with the PGT live reporting team on site providing all the day one action here before the final seven players bag and tag for the evening to play the final table on January 25th starting at 1:00 PM PST on PokerGO. 

2025 PGT Leaderboard - Top Ten

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