Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the
Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donny Peters. His name
is Tim Duckworth. I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas.
I know I did. I think I did. I mean,
I think anytime I can just kind of chill, it's
probably lovely, although I have a hard time always just
like chilling. It was your Christmas, good sir. I know,
I know you said on the Blast Show that you
already opened your gifts, so like just another day for you.
Speaker 2: I opened some gifts, you know, but it was good.
I'm trying to watch what I ate, and I did
not achieve that. We tried a new dessert this year,
key lime cheesecake.
Speaker 1: Well, key lime anything sucks.
Speaker 2: So okay, that's the end of the shot. We'll see
see you guys next.
Speaker 1: You want to go, you want to you want to
rank your top five desserts.
Speaker 2: We've done definitely done that before, and key lime pie is.
Speaker 1: Top Like anything lime anything lemon dessert type of form
is just absolutely disgusting to me.
Speaker 2: How about cheesecake? You okay with cheesecake?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I'm every single year, I'm I'm essentially
the I mean I am I'm the baker of the family,
and I am tasked with making the desserts.
Speaker 2: So make the desserts. That's impressive because we never make desserts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm you know one. It's it's you know, healthier
to usually make it all yourself too. I I enjoyed
baking a bit, so this year I had a request
for my blueberry sour cream coffee cake.
Speaker 2: I would crush that.
Speaker 1: So I made that. That's that's a long time favorite.
And then I made a I made a new recipe,
a chocolate cheesecake and I never made that before. So
made that and that went well. And then I helped
my wife make some sugar cookies for the kids. Her
her idea of baking is, I'm gonna go to the store,
I'm gonna buy the mix, and I'm gonna make it
with the kids. I'm like, no, that's not like, listen,
I don't care to like give my kids a lot
of cookies. My oldest she's three and a half. You know,
she doesn't really like sweets. It's actually kind of weird
but also refreshing, but she hates chocolate. She hates sweets.
I had a piece of chocolate the other day and
she's like, Dad, your breast smells like chocolate. She wouldn't
didn't go near me. I was like, okay, she likes
to make the cookies with my wife, and I was like, well,
I'll just I'll make the dough for you and then
you can just come home and do the rest of it.
So so yeah, so I made that. But love baking,
love love cooking in general. So yeah, little impromptu family pod.
I guess it was all right? Yeah, no, not sponsored.
The key line on this episode of the Poker Go Podcast.
As we mentioned last time and foreshadowed for this show,
we're gonna be heavy on the PGT PGT p g
T PGT. We are going to recap the Texas PLO roundup.
I know it's kind of been a long time coming
for Tim. He's been bugging me to recap that he
was down there, So you know, I'll ask him a
bunch of questions on how that went, and then we're
gonna look ahead to the PGT Last Chance Series and
the PGT Million Dollar Championship because this is you know,
we're in Yes, we're in holiday time, but we're also
in season ending time for the Poker gro Tour. You
know a lot of poker tours kind of wrap up
their season in December week kick ours to January. So
that's what we have coming up. As always, you need
to thank a couple of our sponsors. First up, storm X.
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the last episode, I told you guys about the new
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would highly encourage everyone to get in there and check
it out. Before we press the record button, Tim said,
do you even go on play poker Go? I said, yes,
there literally every single day and I'm in there. I'm
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have a billion chips. I think I'm down like three
hundred million or so of the last week or two
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if you are you know, if you do hop on
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let us know you're in the streets. Maybe Tim and
I will like organize some sort of like quote unquote
meetup game, virtual meetup game play poker growth in the
near future, so play poker Goro dot com. All right,
let's get into what we're talking about on this episode.
First up, Texas Plo Roundup. That took place a couple
of weeks ago, but do want to put a bow
on it? A thirty three hundred dollars buying one million
dollars guaranteed main event. It drew four hundred and seventy
four entries with one hundred and seventy unique player. So
people were in there and they were firing one million,
four hundred and twenty two thousand dollars in the prize pool,
which is well clear of the million dollars guarantee. The
top fifty five places paid. Lawrence Chang proved best amongst
all competitors, topping the field for a three hundred thousand
dollars win. He beat Andrew eg Egay. Is that how
you say it? In a heads up play? Two hundred
K for him, Sonovio Ramirez third place, one hundred and
twenty K, sterl In Seville, eighty K for fourth place,
Kyle Aurora fifth place for sixty K. Sean Rafael got
sixth for fifty one thousand. Ladarren Banks we see him
in the studio quite a bit, so, you know, over
the season, especially for the PLO stuff seventh place, four
banks forty three thousand dollars. David Misruloff, who ran deep
in the Texas Poker Open as well. Right, did he
be the in then.
Speaker 2: He catched like five times that series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he went deep in the main event too,
And I remember being in the chat. He's one of
the best players out of Texas for sure. Mazruloff got
eighth place for thirty five point five. Matthew Macchiochi probably
butchered that last name terribly, I'm sorry, thirty five point
five for him as well, and then Zenis carol Ampo
twenty nine k four tenth place. Some other notable finishes
here we got Arthur Morris fifteenth place for eighteen thousand dollars,
Chantroja twentieth for fourteen thousand dollars, Ben Ludlow twenty fourth
eleven thousand dollars. Ren Lynn, who's you know again. We
talked last time about all the success he's having in
the latter half of this year and success here as well.
With an asterisk because he was in for like eighty
five thousand goals, didn't he have to come in like
fifth place or something to break even something.
Speaker 2: Insane, something like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so he got twenty six for eleven k.
Jordan Griff twenty seventh for eleven thousand dollars, and that's
notable because.
Speaker 2: He is now qualified for the PGT Million Dollar Championship.
That was his third cash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jordan Griff obviously notably second place in the Wspy
main event behind Jonathan Tomayo, but he needed to get
a third cash. What was it Poker Masters or was
it the Plokilo series, the PGTPLO series. He was out,
he was battling. He did not get his third cast there,
but then he headed on down to Texas and he
was able to tick that box. You do have to
have three PGT cash and be within the top forty
points wise to qualify for the PGT Million Dollar Championship.
Tim and I are going to get into that a
little bit more later in this episode. But Jordan Griff
notable twenty seventh place finished here because he does get
that third cash. Then you had Ronald Kaiser thirtieth for
nine thousand dollars, Josh Aria forty first for seventy five
hundred Alex Livingston forty fourth for sixty five hundred and
Matthew Wantman forty seventh, also for sixty five hundred dollars.
There were some other events as part of the Texas
Plo roundup that were PGT qualifying events. There were three
five thousand dollars high rollers. You had Adam Hendrix, Curtis Muller,
and Ronald Kaiser winning those three events. Hendricks top to
field of twenty three entries to win almost fifty two
thousand dollars, Mueller top the field of twenty entries to
win fifty four thousand dollars, and then Kaiser chopped with
Arthur Morris. They both took home just over forty thousand
dollars each. Kaiser was the one who walked away with
that beautiful Texas bell buckle. A right, sir, you're the
you're the commissioner of the PGT. You love Texas, you
love the steaks at Champions Club, you rock the boots,
the hat, the whole damn thing. Surprise, you don't ride
a horse there?
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You were on site, yes, down just outside of
Houston or in Houston. How did the event go? Would
you grade it as a success. I know there was
some i'll say worry, but it's like a small w
worry going in being like, this is a million dollar guarantee.
There's a lot going on in the region poker wise.
Are we going to hit it? No one's ever done
a million dollar guarantee for a potlom and Omaha event,
So you know, give us your thoughts, any interesting tibots
that you want to share, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Obviously, like you mentioned, million dollar guarantee, you never
been done before in a in a multi flight PLO event,
so you know, there's no data on that. We had
no idea if it was going to crush, if we
were going to get crushed. Everyone was very bullish on
us hitting it any Problembviously, you kind of mentioned there
was a lot of poker going on, especially in Texas.
There was events in Houston, there was events up in Austin,
so that drew some players away from ours. But as
you kind of mentioned, one point four million dollars in
the prize pool, we crushed the guarantee and the event
went great. We had people coming out that we expected,
We had a lot of new faces. You know. It
did help the certain players were in for lots of bullets,
including the champion, Lawrence, he was in for nine bullets.
Speaker 1: Nine bullets.
Speaker 2: Holy lord, Well the seven fight, it's understandable. But yeah,
all round, it was a great series. We have already
one hundred percent going to run this back probably a
very similar time in twenty twenty five, just have to
you know, we'll make a little a few little changes
here to the schedule to try and get maximum numbers.
But great series. It was, you know, pretty fun. You
know the PGT. We brought in the PGT PLO series
in twenty twenty three. You know, we've done that four
times now. We haven't set for twenty twenty five, and
this was our first PLO series outside of the studio
and you know, it hit green green check marks all round. Yeah,
it was definitely a great series.
Speaker 1: So a million dollar guarantee for a PLO tournament, you know,
as I mentioned, seemed a little bit lofty, but lofty
is good when you're doing poker tournament guarantees. You said it,
you said, crush the guarantee, you know, one point four
to two million in the price. Well at the end
of the day, so clearing the guarantee, my question to
you is would you like to raise the bar or
push to get that bar raised as it pertains to
the guarantee, Maybe go to one point five, maybe go
to two million, Like, is there any sort of thought
there from you, any discussions that are already happening. What's
your temperature in that regard?
Speaker 2: Yeah, knowing that we lost players due to the competing series,
if that's not an issue next year and hopefully the
Texas poker community kind of teams up together to do
what's best for Texas and that's not schedule over the
top of each other. But if that's the case and we,
you know, we have that period to ourselves, I think
we have to help to guarantee, and both you and
me are probably going to be more conservative. I personally
think it could easily just go to one point five.
Whether or our champions want to just go that big
straight away is another question. I think easily one point
two five is just an easy, you know, little uptick
that shouldn't make the champions club team sweat it at all.
It's just whether or not they want to do the
one point five is probably going to be the question
we kind of bounce back and forth on when we
stop planning this for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: You also mentioned, you know, doing some things to kind
of improve the numbers all around. I would say probably
more specifically towards some of the side events, the high
role events that happening. You know, we're nothing if we're
not fair on this podcas SO Commission. What are some
areas that you would like to improve upon for next
year's Texas PLO around them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we started too small with the buy ins.
We started about three hundred. We missed that guarantee by
like two or three players, and we did a four
hundred miss by you know, another handful of players. Once
we hit those the bigger numbers, the one k's especially,
we exceeded the guarantees. So it says that, you know,
the local community doesn't really want to play small PLO events.
I want to play the bigger ones, obviously when we
talk about the four hundred and seventy four in the
main as well. So a concern of mine going in
was sending people broke too quickly if you have kind
of big buy inside events. But as you see by
these numbers, that really wasn't the case. So starting next
year we'll probably not really build around such smaller buy
and starting a three hundred and escalating all the way
up to three k. We may just start at the
five six, one thousand mark really attract players to get
there from the start high rollers. That's an interesting one.
You know, I didn't have you know, massive numbers, and
it was you know, majority of our players. When I
say our players, the PGT regulars traveling from Vegas or
traveling from out of town. It didn't really draw the
locals like we had thought. So probably want to have
a look at that again and see how we can
maybe improve on that. Maybe it's just two high rollers
instead of three, but that's probably the two negatives that
come out of that series.
Speaker 1: I think, Well, do you think that this series should
have a series leaderboard attached to it and with that,
you know, hopefully generate some more interest in these high
roller events, because you know, there might be some local
players that say, hey, I'm going to kind of fire
my one shot in this main event. It's got the
million dollar guarantee, big price pool, all that sort of stuff,
and I don't need to bother with the the high
rollers because there's really nothing to chase in them, right,
You know, versus when we do even the PLO series,
in the Mixed Game series, you know, anything that we do,
we always have these leaderboards attached to it. So should
we look at attaching a leaderboard to this sort of
thing to hopefully, you know, attract some more interest in
the side events that have to do with the PGT.
Speaker 2: Look that was brought up when we did the Texas
Poker Open as well, and I think it's the way
we schedule this series with the multi flight main event
and the high roller is overlapping the opening flights for
people that have bagged it. I don't think adding a
leaderboard prize actually changes that much. So I probably wouldn't
opt for a leaderboard prize. I would just kind of
configure the schedule a little better for players and work
on you know. Obviously now we've laid the groundwork for
a successful series, so that should help for the next
year's promotion. But yeah, I don't think. I just don't
think a leadable would work or really incentivize people to
play play events and play you know, a multitude of events,
because if you look at the lead like I do,
a leaderboard just for tracking purposes, and even though someone
like Arthur Morris cash in the main event finish runner
up in two high Rollers, he only scored eighty a
PGT points versus the winner, Lawrence, who got three hundred,
So a leaderboard in this aspect's not going to work
as much as like a PGTPLO series where you need
to win multiple events cash multiple times to potentially win.
It's just a yeah, it's just a completely different series,
and I don't think it would work.
Speaker 1: I have one suggestion, okay, but two suggestions, actually two suggestions.
I have no idea if this first one they're about
to say is even a thing. So if it has
already been a thing, then forgive me for being an idiot.
Everyone that wins one of those smaller opening events should
win a seat to the main event as part of
their price. Good point them in there, and then you know,
because you're down there, you know, doing the live reporting.
We're streaming multiple days, you know, we can hit on
that person. You're like, you know, hey, Jim Smith, you
own the three hundred dollar opener and you also got
into this event, like you know, to tell us about that.
But whatever, that's additional kind of marketing, and that's a good,
good story to have second to that. Not this this
last series that h the WPT and winded for the
World Championship event. But I think it was last year
twenty twenty three where throughout the year when they when
they had these satellites, they were doing photos of like
the satellite winners, and like they would all kind of
hold up a ticket or something and they would all
stand there and sometimes there would be three of them,
sometimes there would be ten of them.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: But like I think that helps you know, so every
time that there's a satellite winner or a group of
satellite winners, you know, take a photo of them. If
you're Champions Club, you know, they can send it to us.
Of course, we can put it out there and promote it.
Maybe we have some nice tickets drawn up. Because it
allows people to actually see the satellites in motion, and
like a couple things like one, you start to see
like the number of people that have won satellites, which
then draws in more interest in attending the event, you know,
if you're somebody who's like chasing an event that has
some decent value. Also, if you see a bunch of
people in a photo that you know you don't recognize
because they're recreational as you say, oh, this looks like
it might be a decent value you feel now, you
obviously have no idea if they're a good or bad
player or whatever, but just not recognizing a bunch of
faces is, you know, lends you to think that it's
a good thing. So those two things I would like
to see for next year. But of course, you know
who the heck knows any more thoughts on the Texas
people around up from you.
Speaker 2: Before we move on, No, just looking forward to running
it back next year. Same with the Texas Poker Open.
We have some hopefully a pretty fun idea cooking with
that one to try and encourage some players to get
in early. So yeah, starting to draw up those plans
and hopefully, you know, early January we can get that
announcement out there, get people to stop lucking it in
the accountless you're going to come this time? Remember you
said last time? Yeah, so you'll come into play?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, the Texas pokero Open, Yeah, I would like
to come play. I would like to I would like
to start making one poker centric trip a year. Okay,
that's kind of like my idea in my head now,
of course, I got two young kids, I got a wife,
et cetera. Like it's not can't just like, you know,
get up and fuck off for a week, you know,
as much as I might like to. But yeah, so
part of my idea is maybe it's something where I
can bring the family. And I think we've talked about
this before, you know, like I think like Florida would
be a decent stop because you know, I know, something
a hard rock and like it's a good property to
stay at and they have the pool and all that
sort of stuff, and there's stuff to do around the
area and whatnot. I'm not sure if Champions Club qualifies
as like a place I would bring my family to.
I just don't know what's around that area. That said,
I'm fully prepared to just ask the wife if I
can go for you know, four days or whatever, and
you know, maybe I'll come down there and play, you know,
kind of the tail end of the main events. You know,
I think it would be good just from a work
perspective to be there on site to see the event
in motion, you know, all that sort of stuff. You know,
help out wherever I can help out, et cetera. So yeah,
so I would like to get down there during this
time and for this uh, for this series for sure,
you know one I've just been itching to go seems
like a great place to go play poker. The action
seems awesome, and the tournament itself seems highly valuable, So
you know that would be uh, would be great. So
it's it's certainly in the front of my mind that
I'm trying to make it happen. So we'll see if
I can actually make that happen. Let's now move the
topic of conversation to PGT Last Chance, but kind of
more so just about the PGT lead aboard itself as
we are entering the Last Chance Series. So the PGT
Last Chance Series is something that Tim put together last year.
It's back this year. It's a series of six ten
thousand dollars by an events. It's the final Chance, hence
the name PGT Last Chance to earn some points and
to ultimately qualify for the PGT Million Dollar Championship. We'll
hit on the details a little bit more in a
second about PGT Last Chance, but do want to overview
the leaderboard as things stand right now on the PGT
the top five is still unchanged. You got Jeremy Osmas
up on top with twenty seven and eighty nine points.
Daniel Legrandu is in second place, more than seven hundred
points behind Jeremy Ozmas. So it's very, very very likely
that Jeremy Comus will be crowned the twenty twenty four
PGT Player of the Year. Of course, it's not one
hundred percent yet, but it is very much looking like
that's going to happen. Third place Seth Davies, fourth place
Michael Rocco, and fifth place Jesse Lonis. And then I
mentioned earlier. The PGT Million Dollar Championship is open to
the top forty players as ranked by the PGT Leaderboard.
As things currently stand. Right now, the cutoff is justin
Saliba in fortieth place with nine hundred and twenty one points.
So if things were to end today, the cutoff is
nine to twenty one, and everyone above that would qualify
as long as you do have those three qualifying caches.
So there are players that are inside the top forty
who need to get a third or need to get
the three PGT cashes I should chase, because some of
them have two, some of them have won. Those players
are Jonathan Tomayo, Brian Kim, Nicholas Ostett aka Lena nine hundred,
Jason Segel, Boris Angelov, Matthew Lambreckt Andras Gonzalez, Elie Nakash
and Mellow Latin Waw. So it is Jason Segel and
Andras Gonzalez that need two cases and then everyone else
just needs one cash. Jonathan Tomaio has been chasing this
third cash like crazy. He has action right now listed
on poker steak dot com, So if you want some
action of the current WSP Main Event champion, you can
head on over to poker steak dot com. There are
a bunch of people who have action listed for the
PGT Last Chance Series, but Jonathan Tomio is one of them.
As he chases that third cash. He's in good standing too,
like he's in sixth place right now, seventeen hundred and
thirty points. So in terms of like how things break out,
where you're standing has to do with the amount of
chips that you start with in the actual PGT Million
Dollar Championship. If Tamaio is able to get that third cash,
then he would enter the PGT Championship with you know,
a good a good starting stack. Yeah, there you go.
I'll hit on that in just a second, but I
want to just run through. So the way that Tim
has its structured is, should none of those nine get
three cashes? You know, if anyone doesn't get it, then
somebody gets bumped up, right, So like let's say Jonathan
Tomaow doesn't get a third cash, everyone else does, then
the person in forty first place would qualify because essentially
you just remove Jonathan Tomorrow from the leaderboard. Everyone would
get slotted up one spot. And that's how it would work.
So now let's, you know, for hypothetical purposes, let's assume
none of those nine get another get to three cashes,
so they're all out. Who would be in in this order?
Here's how it would go. Matthew Wantman, Isaac Hackson, Sergio Ido,
Ren Lynn, Danny Tang, Steven Chidwick, Brock Wilson, Taylor von Kregenberg,
excuse me, and Brex Scutten. Now, of course, there is
the PGT Last Chance Series coming up, so there's points
to be had in the series those tournaments, so there's
still a lot of moving and shaking to happening. But
that's kind of the lay of the land right now.
As the leader board shakes out, then of course you
guys can head on over to PGT dot com slash
leaderboard if you want to look at the leaderboard yourself.
You can see how many points people have, you can
see where they're ranked. You can see how much money
they've won this PGT season. You know, how many cashes
they have wins, all that sort of stuff. Tim, you
have the strongest finger on the pulse when it comes
to the PGT, when it comes to the PGT leaderboard.
So how do you anticipate this all shaking out? Have
you been in touch with these players who need another
cash or need to get to three? Like, how is
this all going to kind of solidify in these next
you know what two weeks or so three weeks?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I love this PGT Lost Chance Series
because I think it incentivizes people, you know, to chase
position on the leaderboard. It also, you know, it does
help with a little bit of a warm up to
the championship. But then also the fact that you know,
you could have not played at a single event all year,
you can come here potentially win a dream seat and
be in the championship. Regarding these players, obviously, I've talked
a lot with Jonathan, talked a lot with Matthew Lambresh,
and I believe you've spoken to Brian Kim. They're all aware,
they all know what they need to do. You know,
Tomato's already listed events. Lambresh played every event of the
Poker Masters, played every event that qualify at the NAPT
So they're chasing their their third cash. They understand the
ev they would gain by just you know, qualifying for
the free roll. Some of these other guys that you know,
final table with the main event haven't haven't been able
to contact some are aware, So whether we see them,
I'm not sure, but I'm hoping, you know, they turn up,
make it a nice competitive series. And then for these
people the fringe, even if you're like, you know, you
touched on Matthew Wantman and Hackson and Sergio and Rendley
and all these people being in, well, there's also people
below them that could leap frog them. So that's where
it really gets interesting for me, is you know, we're
talking about everyone from say thirtieth on the leaderboard down
where they're kind of obviously looking to move up the
leaderboard and lock their spot in the also have this
pressure from the players below them where they could potentially
get knocked out. So you know, just getting a min
cash and potentially moving up two, three, four, five spots
is going to be really huge. And that's what I'm
looking forward to seeing the not the race. I don't
want to really care, you know, Osmus Nigrano, they may
not even show up, that's fine, But I just want
to see how the race is on the bottom end
of the leaderboard and how every decision carries so much
EV in this free roll because just making it, you know,
you're gaining what is it about twenty thousand dollars worth
of EV just to sit in this free roll. So
that's what I'm looking forward to. The six events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean listen, remind everyone last year how
Jim Callipy was sweating it so literally the final event,
like the final like is this person going to cash?
Are they not going to cash? Am I going to
get in? Am I not going to get in? He
ultimately didn't get in, and you know you got to
kind of see that heartbreak, you know, first hand, for
Jim Collopy. You know, Jim Callipy is very much within
the top forty. He's currently in seventh place. He has
all the qualifications locked up, He's got nineteen cashes already.
He's on fire. And then just speaking of Jim Callipy,
he just won the two ten k events ten k
PO and ten K Nolan hold him to close the Yeah,
I believe that.
Speaker 2: I saw.
Speaker 1: So he closed the WPT World Championship Series, you know,
with the bank. So he's riding a bit of a
high right now. And of course we know how good
Jim is a poker and how much of a you know,
tough competitor he's out there, so he's not going to
be anyone you know that's that's just going to be
rolled over, you know, come the championship event. But yeah,
and then you know, you all these people right at
the bottom of the leaderboard who are gonna be like
fighting to stay in, you know, like the Scott Severs,
Alex Fox, AND's Jonathan Little. I know Jonathan Little has
action listed on poker Steak. Like those those players who
could get knocked out obviously don't want to get knocked out,
so they need to probably show up and maybe try
and you know, get a couple more points so that
they can lock themselves in. So it's extremely interesting. I
love it, you know, the poker geeking me loves this
sort of stuff. I love how it all shakes out.
I love the competition aspect at the end of the
season here. But you know that's not all that's at stake,
because you've also thrown like another wrinkle into this whole
thing where you have like a separate leader board. I mean,
you have a separate leaderboard for the PGT Last Chance
Series that's gonna award what three seats directly into the
Championship event, and then also five seats into the Dream
Seat Invitational. So why don't you talk about that and
those additional seats and how they can be won.
Speaker 2: Ye, So last year we did two dream seats. They
were awarded to the two highest players on the PGT
Last Chance Leaderboard that did not naturally qualify for the
PGT Championship. So last year was Sam Laskowitz and Dylan
de Stefano. They both were not in the top forty,
but they were second and third on the PGT Last
Chance leaderboard. They both won an event each, they got
the seat into the PGT Championship. Sam unfortunately eliminated on
the bubble in seventh place in that event. This year,
two is not enough. We're going to make it three.
So it's three dream seats up for grabs. The top
three that do not qualify for the PGT Million dollars
Championship will get direct entry, and then for the next
five on the day before the Championship, we're doing a
Dream Seat Invitational. It's open to people that have a
Dream Pass. So these five people on this leaderboard willin
Dream Pass. They will play this free role. People that
have won dream passes anywhere from annual subscribers, people on
social media, through other other platforms. You know, everyone's being
contacted and had their combination handled, everything like that. And
then from that, six of those players will play the
PGT Championship. So even if you're not gonna win the
lead aboard for PGT Last Chance, you're gonna have five
extra shots to win a Dream Pass and then once
you're in that, there's gonna be six stream seats there.
So we're trying to give as much chance for these
players to get in in any way possible. And also
if you're an annual subscriber or there's other ways for
you to potentially be in this million dollar free role. Too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So at the end of the day, there will
be a maximum of fifty players in the PGT Million
Dollar Championship. There will be forty players up to forty
players on the leaderboard, you know, obviously pending everyone shows up,
and then there will be ten additional dream See winners.
So that will make up a feel of fifty. That
puts the value at twenty thousand dollars essentially for getting
into this championship. Now you can probably debate that the
value is probably worth a little bit more for Jeremy
Osmas and a little bit less for you know, one
of the dream See winners, just because they start with
different chips. I guess why don't you hit on that?
But right now, while we're at it, so you know,
the for the for the PGT Championship, the starting chips
have to do with your leaderboard finishing position.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we made a slant. You know, we made a
few changes this year to try and improve on the
PGT Championship, one being that three cash eligibility. And then
the other thing we changed was starting stacks. Last year
was points based, So however many points you had, you know,
basically chop off the last nun by that's how many
Big Minds you would start with. This year, we kind
of did set starting stacks, and we actually, in that
same process gave the players a few more chips. So
currently Jeremy Osmas two seven hundred and eighty nine points.
Last year's format, he would ad two hundred and seventy
nine Big Linds to start. This year is starting with
three hundred and fifty Big Linds. So we're waiting all
the players that qualify a little heavier with you know,
the fortieth place starting with one hundred and thirty Big Linds.
You know, last year it was basically one hundred and eleven,
so he gets a little bit more. And then as
you go down the Dream Seat winners, the ones that
qualified your PGT last chance, they started with one hundred
and twenty five Big Linds, and then everyone below that
that wins in through the Dream Seat Invitational that will
start with one hundred big lines. So yes, there's a
few more chips in play. We're giving the players that
have spent the time earning points and earning their qualification
a little bit of a deeper stack to give them,
you know, a stronger chance to potentially win the championship.
So that's yeah, that's the biggest kind of change we
made to the starting sex.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love the whole old concept behind
the PGT, the season long competition aspect, the leaderboard, battling
all that sort of stuff. I like how you know,
the higher you finish up on the leaderboard, the more
chips you start with, Like, you know, all in all,
I think I'm pretty confident to say that there's nothing
like this currently in poker. Yeah, there's possibly a million
dollar free rolls out there. Sure, Yeah there's Player of
the Year leaderboard's sure, but I don't think that there's
anything that kind of encapsulates all this stuff that the
PGT does out there in poker. And I understand for
many of you listening, you'll probably think that that's Donnie
just being a homer. But you know, I'm being honest.
I do believe that you know so, And if you
want to, I guess question me being a homer, I'll
say that, you know, when the PGT was first announced
or it was like positioned, this was before my time
with Poker Grow, and it was positioned as this ground
breaking high stakes poker series, and that there's nothing groundbreaking
about that. So but I would say that you know,
it has evolved, you know, quite nicely, and largely because
of the man opposite the microphone of me, uh PGT
Commissioner Tim Duckwish. So that's pretty cool overall. So ultimately,
the Last Chance Series is gonna be it's gonna be
a battle. You know, We're gonna be streaming every single
final table six days. It will it's six streams and
seven days because we will take Sunday off. Remco Rinkima
and myself will be on the call for those events.
So I'm very in tune with like what's happening, how
the leaderboards shaking up. I kind of look over this
stuff and study it like a nerd because I love it.
So I would highly encourage you all to tune into
those streams because it's gonna be a lot of fun
as we sweat this thing down right until the end.
Then we'll have that that is it. Is there a
day off or no, there's no.
Speaker 2: Day off Sunday Sunday visit day on No.
Speaker 1: But between the Last Chance and the Championship, no day off.
The Championship starts on January tenth. It's a two day
event January tenth and eleventh. We plan to stream on
both days, so PGT Last Chance will be streaming from
the third until the ninth, and then tenth and eleventh
will have that PGT Million Dollar Championship million dollars prize
pool put up by the Poker Go Tour. The top
forty players as ranked by the PGT Leaderboard. That's what
everyone's going to be battling for during the PGT Last
Chance Series, and then also those select dream See winners.
Tim talked about that the field will ultimately be capped
at fifty players. Starting chips are determined by leaderboard, finishing position.
And then what's the prize breakdown that you have for
us this year? Divving up this million dollar prize pool
because in past years there have been times when it was,
you know, winner take all. I sure it was what
the top six? What are we doing this year?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned the two years ago Jason Kuhn won.
It was a five hundred thousand dollars winner take all.
The next year we bumped it up to a million.
We paid the final six unlike a normal tournament payout.
We're here for some blood. First prize. Half the prize
for five hundred thousand dollars, second two hundred k, third,
one hundred and twenty k, fourth, eighty fifth, sixty and
sixth is forty thousand dollars. So yeah, it's very top heavy,
but I think that's how we get told this. This
is what these guys want, you know, when they get
there to the end, they want to win as much
money as possible. So and also, five hundred k first
prize sounds way cooler than a normal payout in this
event would have made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think it's great. Plus, you know, once
you had Kuhn winning the five hundred k winner take all,
I feel like you kind of just had to keep
firthplace the same, if not larger. I mean, I don't
know if it will ever go larger, but you know,
for right now, keep it at least at that five
hundred k. Do you have any I guess predictions for things.
Mostly I guess mostly for Last Chance because that's you know,
that's when everything gets locked in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just hope we have. You know, last year
we had a really good Last Chance series, very consistent numbers,
you know, high eighties for pretty much most of the events.
So I'd like to see that. I'd like to see
a very competitive series because I think that shows that
what we're doing on the PGT is healthy and people
want to be involved, want to be part of the
free role. They want to compete, whether they're competing for
the dream seats or they're competing for a few more
points to lock in their seat. I think that shows
that what we're doing is correct, like we're on the
right path hitting our goals. So that's kind of all
I asked for, is we get a good turnout. I've
already had players hit us up for wiring info and
telling us in person I'll be there or basically listing
on poker stakes. So hopefully they you know, enjoy their
Christmas with their family. Now they're sick of them. Now,
they just want to get back and play some poker
and come down the studio in a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know there were a couple of players asking
me about the leaderboard stuff for PGT Last Chance, So
I think, you know, signs are pointing in a positive
direction that the that the turnout is going to be good.
You know, as you mentioned when you went over kind
of all the leaderboard stuff that's up for grabs. You know,
you could be someone who has zero points but ultimately
come in and still do very well. For example, like
just to use it. You know, a person who just
want to boatload of money. Scott Stewart just wins two
and a half million dollars. Maybe he now says, oh,
maybe I'll try and you know, go play some of
these events. Maybe I'll continue to run hot and I'll
top this leaderboard next thing, you know, I'm in the
PGT Million Dollar Championship, you know, so so yeah, you know,
there's stuff like that. So I think, uh, I think
it's going to be a really fun series. I'm super
excited for it. I love the streaming aspect of it
because you get to watch it all kind of play
out in real time. You know, I'm gonna do my
damnedest to kind of stay on top of the leaderboard stuff.
As we're doing the commentary, there's going to be a
lot of moving every single day. Maybe maybe you and
I will just hop on a podcast every day and
kind of go over everything. I don't know, Yeah, maybe
we'll just do some kind of some quick hitters, you know,
like yeah, thirty minutes just the lay of the land
on house things shake out, because there's gonna be a
lot of shifting on not only the leaderboard for the
top forty, but also the series leaderboard with every single
event result. So I think that's worth getting out there
and publicizing as much as possible. I have a separate
topic that's not on the rundown because yeah, I mean,
you know, I just kind of thought about it right
before we hit record. He said, you know what, I'm
just gonna I'm gonna bring it to the show. So
last episode, you said you're the best nolam at hold
them on this podcast. I also saw it on social
media today you once again said that. So I mean,
I feel like we need to like play for this.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I don't know what you're doing after
Christmas or you know now in these coming day coming
days after Christmas, but like there's plenty of dailies around town.
I feel like we should hit like a different one
every day.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you even have a bankroll left after
you No?
Speaker 1: No I don't. But I did get some Christmas money
that I'm ready to light on fire. Okay, So so
that's what we're gonna do. But like you know, we
could do like the Saturday six pm at south Point.
Speaker 2: Favorite.
Speaker 1: That's a good one, right, I'm definitely in for that one.
Is the are the wind Dailies back? I've been dying
to play one of these wind Dailies. They have this
massive one on Friday. It starts at noon. It's a
forty k guarantee.
Speaker 2: Never play that, but that's huge. I'm assuming it's back, right,
Why would they Why would they take any time off?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, you know, there's got to
be one on like Sunday or something too. Like we
could just hit like three of them in the weekend,
three different venues and we can see who has the
better results.
Speaker 2: Look, it's not about one tournament just saying.
Speaker 1: That's I were doing three.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean I just gotta I guess I
gotta bury you in person.
Speaker 1: We should We'll definitely do the south Point on Saturday,
for sure.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite.
Speaker 1: We should put that out there on social media.
Speaker 2: To see out On rebuys, I mean, we can do
two rebuys or one of the fine, but I mean,
every decision is we'll do it.
Speaker 1: We'll just do it, like if I bust the first bull,
but then by it's it's just whatever, but it doesn't count.
But yeah, we can do whatever we can figure it.
I'm not gonna it always feels silly when I play
that thing to like go off for like four entries.
I've never gone off for four. I've only gone off
for three, but that was.
Speaker 2: I think I've ever gone off for two. I don't
think I've ever reboarded.
Speaker 1: That because you fold till the end of rigist I.
Speaker 2: Just I just know it's not even that I've busted
like level two before. Thanks go huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm already there. You I already dragged
my ass out of the house, drove down there. It's
a bitch to try and find part working at that place.
It is, you know, it's just like the place is
jam packed. So it's just the pain in the ass
if I'm parking, So I'm like, you know what, I'm here.
I got to stay here, like I gotta do something.
So you know, what's the difference if I just if
I spend another whatever it was back then it was
one fifty. Now it's they have the two hundred dollars
buy in, so I'm looking forward to that. But we're
definitely doing the one on Saturday and then we'll see
if we can figure anything else for the other ones.
I have to take the crown back because it's it's
a bit depressing. I went over my poker results for
this year. I haven't cashed, and.
Speaker 2: Like, that's what we should do in the next because
I haven't looked through my results yet. But we should
look at it.
Speaker 1: We did it last year.
Speaker 2: We went we should we should throw our results in
the next month.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so but this, you know, this can be like
our kind of like last tournament of the year type
of thing. And I actually went through my results and
although I haven't cashed in what seems like in a
live tournament in like six months, they're not as bad
as I thought. I thought I was down way more
money this year.
Speaker 2: So let's say it. Because I haven't looked yet, I
haven't reviewed everything.
Speaker 1: Yea, you know, that's all. That's all I'm gonna say.
Not super long on this episode, unlike the last episode
when we went forever and we were getting yelled at
by a podcast producer extraordinary Rich Ryan. But but yeah,
that'll put a bow on all the PGT stuff. Maybe
we'll have another episode before the year ends. Maybe we won't.
If not, we'll definitely be hitting you with a bunch
in January because we got a whole lot of stuff
happening on the Poker Go front, on the PGT front.
But for now, we will talk to you guys next time.
Speaker 2: So yeah,