Hello, everyone, Welcome back to a new episode of the Poker Go Podcast. My name is Donnie Peters. His name is Tim Duckworth. It is Sunday, January eleventh. It looks like the Jaguars are about to kick an extra point? Is this? Yeah? Extra point to go up? Seventeen thirteen is the middle of wild card weekend, but. More important to be twenty than thirteen. Why is that, mister idiot miss? Yeah? Well, you know kickers af I mean, that's just how it is. Best kicker in the league. No, there's no shot, he's the best kicker in the league. Biggest kick. How about biggest kicker in the league? No, no, Brandon Aubrey's the biggest. Didn't he didn't He set the record for an out those stadium last week. That I don't if you were to line them up side by side and have them do some sort of kickoff Brandon Aubrey all day, Like what do you want to bet all day? And every how many field goals he missed in the last like four weeks of the season. Yeah, because whatever, it doesn't matter. It's twelve twenty two pm on this fine Sunday. We're going to be talking all things end of the season PGT Last Chance PGT Championship. The PGT Championship kicks off on Monday, January twelfth, a two day event. Fifty four players, I believe is what it is. It's forty players from the top forty of the season long leaderboard, as we've been talking about for an entire year. It is also fourteen Dream seats winners, five of which won their dream seats at the death, as some might say during the PGT Last Chance series. So we're going to get into all of that sort of stuff. I'm guessing Tim and I should do some sort of fantasy draft or whatever. He's probably kicking my ass. I haven't even checked on anything I am. So you know, it is what it is. What can you you got? You gotta let the fish win sometimes so they keep on coming back. That's just how it is. As always, please like, subscribe, rate, review, do that whole damn thing. Please. Did have a couple emails come in for mailbag questions. Want to get a few more in there so podcast at PokerGO dot com. If you want to email in a question, a topic, a talking point, a hot take. You know, if you want to drop us a hot take something you feel about the poker world. Fine, we'll dissect it. We'll give our thoughts too, So send that into podcasts at PokerGO dot com. And then I do want to remind you guys once again, that High Stakes Poker is back. It is season fifteen. It is wild, it is crazy. It has global superstar comedian Kevin Hart front and center. You got Andrew Roebl, Jennifer Tilley, Sam Keke Stanley, tang Nick Airball, and so many more. Justin Gavrie is back. I don't know if Justin Gavory is winning ever on High sixs Poker. I mean that guy. I feel bad when I watch him like it is. It's like watching someone get tortured in real time. It's unbelievable. Season fifteen is called the Season of Blood. I like this, By the way, I don't know if this was planned or if it was just happened because Robo said it on one of the episodes and then Kevin Hart said it. But like naming the seasons, I think is like something kind of cool. So season of Blood. So when you know, when we do season sixteen, we're gonna have to see how it shakes out. Give it a name there, but yeah, Season of Blood is available now exclusively on poker Go, seventeen action packed episodes, and I mean, I don't even know if I'm supposed to say this, but I'm gonna say it. So whatever. A couple of weeks, National Heads Up Poker Championship is dropping on poker grol right a couple of weeks. We just got word of the of the time. I think it's early feb. My guy Tim over here is gonna work on getting all those episodes in on the poker Go platform, which he might have already done, but coming up in a couple weeks. That's happening. So basically, you can get on in there to poker Go, you can watch these seventeen action packed episodes for high stakes poker, and then by time you're kind of done binging that, you can get right on into the National Heads Up Poker Championship, the reboot, the return, whatever the heck you want to call it. There. So that's happening, And if you do want to save some cash, I would highly encourage you guys to do so. We all love to save some money. Use the promo Code podcast for twenty dollars off your first year of a new annual plan. All right, let's get into this Last Chance, the Last Chance series six tournaments. As we talked about what a week ago, week and half ago something like that, six tournaments, all ten K buy ins. We had a lot on the line. You had a Player of the Year race that was still to be decided. You had people trying to get into the top forty. You had people in the top forty trying to move up some spot in order to get some more chips for the PGT Championship. You had people who were in the top forty but at the bottom trying to make sure that they stayed in the top forty by competing, maybe getting a couple more points. Then, of course, you had the five dream seats that were up for grabs during the series leaderboard. So even if you hadn't done a damn thing all PGT season, shout out to you, Jeremy Becker, then wow, has he done anything all PGT season? Yea, he did a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Okay, how about this, if you were and I don't even know if you could actually do this, but if you could put points per dollar, he's definitely he's got to be low because he had a ton of buyings all season and it was pretty low. I would also say Jeremy Osmas is probably high up there. I know who's I know who the leader probably is. Who's the leader? Well, at least it's definitely Victoria Lushitz No, no, no, shot, what do you mean she has one hundred and fifty six points. Yeah, but but if you factor in, I think part of Jeremy is that, like he played all the big buy and stuff. Wow, she skipped some bigger buy and stuff, Like she might have skipped a couple of twenty five k's. Even if she skipped the twenty five k's. I mean, Becca has four XRA points on. Her Yeah, I mean it could it could be. And three and a half x the winnings. Listen, there's probably someone even lower than that. But like some years are good, some years are bad. It's just that's just poker. That's the variance of it all. So once again, you know, during this during this series, you know, we got a lot of I don't know, hype buzz, like at least within the room for sure, just of these players like sweating trying to figure out what was happening where they had to finish. You know, do I have to get here? Do I have to get there? Like, well, what about this guy over here? What's going on? And then in addition to that, not only the people in the Pokergro studio, but like you were, you know, messaging people left right and center all day every day, telling them like because there was people that were on the cusp of the top forty or maybe they were you know, right below it and or sorry, right at the bottom of it, and you know, there was a chance that they could fall out. Some did fall out, as we'll talk about, you know, but they were just going to basically sweat it and then hop on a plane today if that were the case. So we got a lot to dive into. I think first and foremost the thing that I want to touch on is the thing that took until the absolute last second to be decided, and that's the Player of the Year yep, which coming into PGT Last Chance, you had Sam Silverll as the leader on top of the season long leaderboard. So the winner for the season long leader board gets a fifty thousand dollars bonus, they get the award, the trophy, and then they also enter the PGT Championship with the most starting chips. Starting hips in that event are based on your leaderboard finishing position. Alex Foxen was like right there within striking distance. He's like fifty or sixty or seventy points behind coming into the series. You know, so like one deep run from Alex Foxen, like he could overtake sover Of course he needed to fade Soverll doing anything as well. Chino Reeim was a long shot, but but he could make it happen, right, He was like four fifty or five hundred points out. You know, a couple of these events had three hundred points plus up top, so you know, a win and then you know some other stuff from from Chino and he could have Tooken, taken the Player of the Year title. Anyone else you would have needed to win like four events, you know, like Shausamal would have needed to win four events. Not that that's necessarily out of the realm of possibility, but you know, it would have been a very very very small chance for that to happen. But you got Soverroll getting in there, like he had a couple of cases to kind of pad his lead. Alex Foxen looked like nothing was really going to happen for him. He was I think we heard him say last night, at least I heard him say last night that he put eighteen bullets in over the course of the entire series. So Alex Foxen was certainly blasting to try and get this Player of the Year title. You know, these three guys, Fox and Sobroll and Ream, they were very much locked in for the championships, like they didn't necessarily need to be there other than going for this POI title. I mean, obviously if you like money too and you want to win money, but you know you necessarily didn't need to to go for this. Chino makes back to back to back final tables like and then entering the final event registration closes. All three of them are in right, so Sover's basically playing defense. Foxen needs what we sorted out as a fourth placer better independent of Soverroll getting any results, and then Chino needed to win, but also like China could win, but then fox and if Foxing finished third, he could lock it up. So there was a lot of moving parts at play for this specific race. Soilver goes out, So now we just have Foxen and Ring both know what needs to happen. Foxen knows he needs to get fourth or if he gets third, for sure he locks it up. Right, if he gets fourth and then Chino wins the tournament, Chino could win POI. Chino knows he has to win. So all this is playing out. They both did they both make the final table? Or where did Chino go out? Chino bust just short of the Fhonne table right eight? Was it eighth or was it ninth or eighth or something like that? Yeah, he finished eighth bubble the final table. Yeah, so he was a bit bummed obviously. I mean, I mean still a good results, still good series for Chino Reim, did you have his series stats on hand? Yeah, he had four cashes at three final tables obviously and that Finnal table bubble three hundred and thirty five points he picked up. Yeah, so China know, you know, a pretty great season overall. And I believe he led in terms of cashes and titles or did fox And tie him in titles? Foxin ended up tying him. They both have five wins for the season. Uh, and obviously there is still one event to go. There is a tiebreaker for that wins. Yeah, Chino crushed the crap the cashes, thirty five cashes. Next best was several with thirty one, and then after that we had two people on twenty eight, which was Nick Schulman and John Reordan. How many of those cases do you know from Chino came in the mixed game series because Fox and Fox and will play polo. They'll both play po will obviously both play in No Limit, but I don't think foxing plays. Yeah, China picked up three cashes during PGT Mixed Games and obviously got a couple at the World Series. He didn't have the best World series, only had four cashes, while Fox and Sxson's World Series was very strong. Eight cash is eleven hundred points. Yeah, so listen, it came down to the wire. Then they get to the found taplesod Chino goes out in eighth places we talked about. They get to the final table of seven and this last event is you know, I don't know, call it the freaking roaring twenties, twenty minute levels, twenty second shot clocks, like it's just everything is twenty twenty second time, banks, et cetera very fast event. They get down to the final table and like, no one's got chips they get When they got down to the found table, there was like one hundred and four big blinds in play total. Josh Aria had many of those big blinds. He had I don't know what thirty five percent of the chips and player or something like that to start. Everyone else was pretty short. Foxon's basically playing this like a satellite, knowing that he has to get to fourth to get the poy. Everyone else knows that. But then there's also the added dynamics of, you know, josh Aria needs to win, and if he wins, he's going to get a dream seat. If aram Aganian wins the tournament, he's going to get into the top forty. If Jonathan Little wins the tournament, he's going to get a dream seat, you know. And then you have what Chewie Brandon Wilson, and was that it. Yeah, yeah, boy, No, Chewey was already in so he could already. But I unders saying that they had already kind of locked up their positions and they're just playing a regular tournament. Before that as well, you had Brandon Wilson, who he wanted to cash in order to just really solidify his position on the leaderboards. He wanted to cash because if he cashed, he got a couple more points. He's like, there's no shot that, like any craziness can happen for me to lose one of these dream seats. But then if he finished at least eighth, this is Brandon Wilson again, then he would move into the top forty of the season long leader board, which other players were rooting for, because if he moves out of the dream Seat leader board into the top forty, he makes an additional dream seat available, most notably for Jeremy Becker, who was in sixth place on the Dream Seat leader Award again five dream seats awarded, Brandon was ahead of him. But if Brandon then gets into the top forty, you know, all this sort of shakes out. And like Brandon's like in he's in multiple pots, all multiple all in situations like before the before the final eight were happening, like it was, it was crazy, and like, you know, Jeremy's messaging us because he's he's playing down the street, I played at Hollywood in the circuit event. He's like, hey, like what are my chances? You know, like We're like, well, Brandon's all in right now, like all this sort of stuff. So it was it was pretty wild. There was one hand in particular where so Jonathan Little he has to win the tournament, but he can also finish second if Brandon Wilson finishes in the top eight. If he were to finish second, then he would have tied with Jeremy Becker, but Brandon Wilson would have been out and moved into the top forty. So but then there was a hand where Brandon Wilson basically moved on and left like one chip behind or one big blind behind or something. Jonathan Little put him all in from the big blind with a six off, which I thought was if you know that, you can't bust Brandon Wilson, Like I thought that that was just crazy to me. But also is that collusion or is that just the dynamics of the situation. I mean, we could question some chip dumping, but uh. I mean, but I'm just saying, I'm just saying, just fold your hand type of thing. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't quite make sense. I think maybe he actually had it wrong in his mind and was actually just trying to bust him. So it took a you know, slightly high variant spot than he may normally have. That's my yeah, I think I would have just folded my hand. You know. It's it's pretty it's very much like a satellite in a lot of ways, you know, because but he also needs Brandon Wilson to finish top eight was part of the equation for him, So I mean what whatever, I mean, It was just there was a lot of just fun, little interesting dynamics to everything that were going on, and like everyone was kind of aware about it. So like, you know, especially when they got down to that seven hind to final table, like everyone knows fox And has to finish fourth, right, everyone knows like josh Aria has to win, or Jonathan Little has to win, or Aramaganiy has to win, you know, so it's very just kind of interesting. Then there was this crazy hand at the final table where josh Aria has he had like one point five million and he raised to one point one million. The big blind was one hunter k so he puts out the large majority of his chips behind him. Brandon Wilson goes all in and has him cover slightly covered folds back to Aria and Brandon Wilson. This is another situation by the way of these players exposing cars, because Brandon Wilson immediately turns his hand over, yeah, and he showed he shows aces, which it's just freaking crazy. So Aria sees it. They're sitting right next to each other. Aria sees it, and he's like quickly folds his hand. He said he had ace jack. So that's another crazy situation where if ari A doesn't see his hand, he probably calls off the rest of his chips right, and then he's likely out of the tournament. The very next hand, Aria gets two kings and doubles up like it's just it was just wild how some of this stuff was playing. Anyway, it goes on that Alex Foxen ends up getting into fourth place or there's four players left, so he secures the Player of the Year title, and then from there you had a long battle to get down from four to one, especially the heads up match that took place between Brandon Wilson and Alex Foxen. It was back and forth, back and forth, multiple lead changes, even though there was like forty big blinds in play total, Like the these guys were just battling back and forth, back and forth, you know, whoever was all in just like could never lose. It was it was crazy. Eventually though, Alex Foxen did the damn thing. He came out on top. He won the whole thing two hundred and thirty two thousand dollars to thirty two point four. I think was was the final prize. So, you know, he had already secured the PGT Player of the Year title, but great good on him to be able to cap it all off with a win. You know, I thought Alex Foxon absolutely crushed this season. You know, Sam's overall would have been deserving as well. You know, of course based on the point system. I trust the point system, you know, but but I you know, I do have to say that I was I was looking through Silverall's results in the past couple of days, and I was like, where where did all these points come from? Like what what happened? And a lot of it was was ws AP related. Think he won the ten K six max for example, Like that was a boatload of points there. There was like a fIF a in there. He was just basically consistently kind of you know, getting points, you know, final table here every series. I mean, he's he's always very consistent. Yeah, over like yeah, every season. You know, he's he's like one of those guys who's he's for sure always in the top ten, if not always in the top five, like always. Yeah, he you know, he won a couple of smaller events, but you know, like every you know, every win counts. You know, a couple you had a runner out finish in the PLO series, you know, several final tables. He had the runner up in the hundred KPLO. You know, he he won an nap AT event, runner up in an NAPT event. Yeah, I think I think well that specifically, just quickly is that I think people because you know, it kind of came about where people were like where did Sam get all his points from? And people kind of forget when like a lot of Sam's points came dissip he did. He did very well during the napt Las Vegas series, So it's like stuff that's not in the studio, people just kind of like forget about. Whereas you're in the studio all sees and long, you're seeing everything that's happening in the studio, so you're you're a little bit more you're closer to that happening so it's just more front of mine. Yeah. So anyway, Alex Oxen is the twenty twenty five PGT Player of the Year. As I did mention earlier, he gets a fifty thousand dollars bonus. He's gonna enter the PGT Championship with the most chips and funny, you know, I kind of joked with him afterwards while he was taking his winner photo for this event that he's had, He's had very very close results to like series titles and stuff like that before. The one that stuck out to me the most was the PLO series where it was him and Jesse Lonis coming down right to the wire. Jesse Lonis is at the final table of the twenty five K championship event of that series, but then they had a five K turbo that was happening that Foxen needed to win. So Foxin is in the in the Foxin's in the main studio rooms. He gets to heads up against I think it was Zach Schwartz, Yeah it was, you know, yeah, and Jesse Lomnis, who is like, you know, always in their blasting maximum pressure on everyone is playing basically icm nitfest in the in the twenty five kids trying to fall so he can get as many points as possible to beat Fox. And so that that was another fun race that you know, once involved Alex Foxen. With this one he ultimately was able to come out on top of. Real quick about Fox and just touching on his year, he was the first player to reach one hundred PGT cases. He has one hundred and eight right now, first player to reach ten thousand PGT points, still leading that. He has the most PGT final tables with seventy seven. He's tied for second with Steven Chidwick for most wins with twelve, behind several thirteen, and he leads PGT earnings with nineteen point three million. So it's not just this year for Alex. Obviously very consistent over the first you know, five seasons of the PGT and you know that reward is now being crowned the twenty twenty five PGT Player of the Year. Crusher, absolute freaking crusher, dream seats. Yeah, all right, who won the five? Tell me who won the five? Well, it was good, it was a good fun race. The big winner David Odie b Baker, two cashes, two runner up finishers, tops the leaderboard gets that dream seat in to the PGT Championship, took that final event off. You know, he's sent me kind of asked me, like, that's my goal, try and get enough points where I can take that last event off. Watched some football, et cetera. So he was in. Next up, Neil Warren won his first PGT title. It was the tied for the biggest field in the room. He's second and he was also one off the top forty two. So if he had cashed in one of those last two events, I think he had to get about the twenty k cash, he would have actually qualified for the top forty. That would have free up another seat four. We'll talk to it for someone else. Clement Dang he won the opening event. He got in because he got another cash as well. And then the penultimate event winner Chi Jun Chu or Justin. I think he said he goes by. He won his first PGT title. To be fourth and then fifth was kind of where it all. You know, the sweat was coming. We had Jeremy Becker in that spot, we had Phil helm with, we had Land and Tyres, Jared Jaffe, all these players playing that finale, you know, knowing what they needed to do. And then obviously they had to sweat some other results, but it ended up going to our boy, Jeremy Becker one hundred and ninety three points. He want a rounded up, so let's just say it's one ninety four. And then yeah, that that person on deck that was Phil Helm with and Land and Tice. So you know, if Neil warrant to get that cash, we could have seen Phil Helm within the PGT Championship, but not this year. We'll have to wait until twenty twenty six hopefully. But yeah, they're the dreams. He winners, ODB Baker, Neil Warren, Clement and True and Jeremy Becka. I mean, just again another really really fun race, you know, came down to the wire, you know, like Becker's in our in our messages, NonStop, just trying to sweat all the stuff that's happening. You know. I'm sure plenty of other people were sweating as well who were close. I know, Jared Jaffey had had a fairly decent run in that in that in that final turbo there, he didn't cash. He did fall. I don't think he cashed. He might have cashed, but either way he fell shorts, you know, but he was definitely like he's like, you know, I need to do this, I need to like basically finish top whatever, and and yeah, you know again another really fun sweat to it all. And then of course you had the just the top forty right where everyone's battling all season long to get into the top forty. You know, Jeremy Osmas ragining PGT Player of the Year, well not anymore, actually last last season's PGT Player of the Year because now it is decided, and and last year's PGT Championship winner, you know, Ozmus also went on to win that event. He was outside looking in coming into the series. He earned enough points. The big one was a final table run that he had in the middle of the series to get into the top forty. But then he's someone who you know, needed to sweat some stuff happening for players getting in. You know, it wasn't in any way, shape or form a guarantee, whereas somebody like let's say Patrick Leonard, who started the season off really hot first half of the season, was at some point he was at the top of the leader board. Then he was you know, within the top five to ten for a good majority leading into the WSP he started to just kind of slide slide, slide, slide slide. Next thing you know, he's outside the top forty looking in. But Pads of course, won an event during the PGT Last Chance which shot him up kind of into the middle ish area of the top forty. So he was like pretty much locked, right, I mean, he was still playing until the end, but he was very much locked in. Osmas was the opposite, you know, he was he got in, but it was like, man, I could still because he only got he only leapfrogged the bottom two people. Yeah, I mean when we started Last Chance, the top forty was sorry, the last the last few names we were we were Richard Greco, Ben Toleraene Sean Deeb, Michael Duek, Jim Calapee, and Joseph Chenko. Nacho Barbero. Now Greco, Toleraine, Deep, Duek and Barbara weren't coming, but they were obviously all hoping to make the championship. So a lot of these guys I was kind of texting to back and forth on the outside. It have to be clear that they weren't coming for PGT Last Chance, correct, correct, Yeah, they were going to monitor and then get on a flight for the championship. And some had flights booked, you know, with you know, ready to cancel if they needed to on the outside. Looking in forty first, with all the like you know rules, we had David Common, forty second, Jeremy Osmas, forty fourth, Patrick Leonard, you know, forty six was TJ. Reid, and forty seventh Sam last Wuiz. I say those names because they played pretty much every event. Now, David Coleman had a great series and leapt into the top forty and moved all the way up to about twentieth place. Jeremy Osmas he got his cash. He missed the ladder against David Coleman, but he was in. But then as things started moving, you know, he was dropping down and down and down. He did get another cash, so that kind of gave him a little bit of a buffer. And then obviously Pads he won event too. He leapt in. Fortunately for TJ. Reid he couldn't get that third cash and that likely that third cash would have qualified him. And then for Sam Lasko it's not a great series either. He couldn't sneak in. So yeah, that lower end of the forty was just everyone was monitoring it. I had texts from you know, Richard Greco and Sean Deev every day, talking to Michael Duek, talking to Ben Toleraine and then even Callopy if you remember from I think it was last year he was the bubble boy. Uh he got pushed out of. Two seasons ago. Yeah, two seasons ago. He was sitting at the bar just just like every like five to ten minutes he would walk into the studio room. I'm pretty sure he was drinking a marguerite or something kind of ease his nerves, and he was like sweating. You know what was what was happening because there was a couple of people in that if they they cashed in that final event would bump him out. And that's what he was sweating last year with Jeremy Becker. How can you forget that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so calop he got himself in. Uh and look he so he was in, but he wasn't locked in, right, He wasn't like David Coleman. So he was still sweating some results come that final event. You know, you would have seen yesterday he was sitting at the bar, but he was a bit happier because it was you know, he was a pretty strong likelihood, you know, to get in. He needed like an exact trifecta of results to get him knocked out. But yeah, he ends up finishing in thirty eighth place, Jeremy Osmas thirty ninth, and Ben toleraen forty. So I mean, Sean Deeb is this year is bubble Boy by one point as well? So he's like, is there? He texted me today, is there any Have you heard of anyone else opting out? And I said, to be honest, the only three names I could think of that May Night show would be Michael Mizrahi, Ben Lamb and Eric Wasserson. And he goes, how I doubt it? And I go, I mean, I've texted Mirahi, but he could easily be playing a slot tournament in Cuba or something. I don't know. Well, I know he's in Vegas today. I did see that. Yeah, he's playing a cash game in Vegas and I so that does help. Deeb did text Wasserson and Lamb. They said they're playing, So he said, probably going to just cancel my flight. I'll see you at the World Series. Yeah, so this is one of the one of the requirements. So you had to obviously get enough points to finish in the top forty. That was a requirement number one. Number two, you had to have at least three PGT cashes, right, Tim and I have talked about this at many points on this podcast during the season. You know, as you know, miss Rocky was one of those people who needed to find a third cash. He was able to find that during the PGT qualifying events at that basically Paradise. But then then the third part of this equation was because we ultimately want forty players from the leaderboard in ideally it would be the top forty, right, but there are some players who in excuse me, in past seasons didn't show, right, They just didn't show Which makes it a little bit awkward because you know, you're trying to create this event that hopefully everyone wants to to play for and try and get in and all that sort of stuff. Okay, but then if they don't show up, it's like, well, do they not like our events? Do they not care for it? Like whatever. So let's say you have forty four people on show up, then you have thirty six. It's like, well, that's kind of weird. On the other side of things, you know, we want to put on an event that everyone wants to play. Everyone you know wants to get in, and we really want to show that high stakes competition aspect of it all. So Tim instituted this new rule that where you basically had to opt in with him as the commissioner. You had to tell him listen, I'm gonna play. So you know, he got a hold of everyone under the sun, and some players said, you know, no, I'm not gonna come. And if that's the case, if you told us ahead of time that you weren't planning to come at all, you know, it's okay for you to basically pass up on my seat. So there was a hand how many of those players were there. They ended up being three people opting out Victor blam Lettara Guerrera and Texas Mike. Okay, So those seats rolled down, and then you had the players that were ineligible that didn't that were in the forty but didn't have you know, enough cashers to get them. So anyone there was no one this year that needed a third cast during Last Chance, right. Uh from the in the forty No, just outside, like I kind of mentioned Terrence Reid was you know, a decent cash outside the top because. Last season we had what Tomayo, Jonathan Tomyo. Jonathan Tomyo was the big one, firing pretty hard to get that last one. And then I think we had someone. Was it was it? Brian Kim was one of them? Was he last year? Is the Yeah? I think that, Yeah, it was a Brian Kim. Brian Kim is another one. He got it. He I remember, got one mini cash right right away. Yeah, he got one min cash to get his third cash to be twentyeth on the leaderboard. Yeah, so those two guys a bit more expensive for Jonathan Tomyo, but you know he did win the main event for ten millions, so he's fine. Yeah, he's okay. So yeah, you know, so we're gonna have have all forty of these players, you know, at least for what they've told us, told Tim, you know, they should be there. You know, no one should be not showing up. So obviously you know we'll see. But yeah, so you know it's an event where I think it's I mean, everyone wants to be there, Everyone wants to compete in this thing. They want to I want to just say, yeah, I played the free Lassia. You know, there's a little bit on it because like obviously there's only topics a price, there's only six payouts, so it isn't it's not like an easy tournament to win. It's not like there's everyone's getting paid out, so it's so hard to make money. But I think you know you hear from these guys. Yeah, I just want to qualify. I just want to be. I just want to be part of it. I want to get the play a bag. I want to get some cool stuff. I want to be I want to feel like this is a cool way to, you know, conclude this season. You know all the hard work I put. In, yeah, for sure, and you see the same thing. But on the opposite side, people that just missed, you know that they they want to get in. You know, there's a bunch of people that put in a lot of volume this season that did not ultimately get in. I mean, I know, Jeremy Becker won a dream seat, but we wouldn't have heard the end of it from him had had he not gotten in. You know, given he was, he was in the studio for every single freaking Nolan Holden tournament, right carry Katz did not qualify this year. You know, he finished what one hundred points out or maybe even less, but you know he was like constantly talking about it and how he wanted to get in there, trying to make that push to the end. So you know, and you see it in that. You know, in the events during the PGT Last Chance Series, everyone is out there trying to chase. You know, you had you had Eric's headel was out there blasting. You had Seth Davies, you had Shannon Shore, you had Brent Kenny as well. You know all these players Aramaganyan, you know, et cetera. Like they were all out there really trying to get some more points to get into that top forty. So you know, there is a bit of pride with it. You know, you kind of want to see. Listen, I put in all this time and effort over the course of the twenty twenty five PGT season. I played, how over many dozens of events, you know, however, many hundreds of thousands of dollars in buy ins. So even if ultimately my effort in the PGT Championship, should I make it, you know, ends up not resulting in a cash. If I bust out before the top six and make any money, like still just making it there is like listen, all this wasn't all or not? Like you know, like so that's what I think a lot of these people are are trying to chase, and that's ultimately what we want to create. You know, this is you know, we're kind of trying to create like I guess pokers version of the FedEx Cup if you want to take us a sports analogy here, or you know, any sort of like playoffs, like you know, I'm watching the Bills Jaguars game right now, so you know, any sort of playoffs, like you want to just kind of get to the dance and then you know, whatever happens in the big dance like can happen, right, you know, we can see somebody come from the bottom and go on to win the thing. You know. Yeah, Alex Foxen does start with an advantage, you know, but yeah, Alex Foxen's advantage is kind of similar to if you get the one seed in the NFL playoffs and you get a little bit of a buye. He gets a little bit of an advantage to start. So yeah, it's a it's good stuff. You know, I like it, you know, I do. Part of me also wishes though that I wish and this is, I guess, you know, something that I'm trying to solve just given my role as like how do we make it kind of catch on more? Just because it's it's it is the closest thing to like a sports league that poker has. I mean, I like, I'm never gonna be one that says, you know, poker is a sport. I don't believe that. But you know, if if this, if there was anything in poker that was as close to some sort of like sports league as possible, I do really believe that the PGT is it just the whole season long aspect you have, you know, all the different elements to it, the points, leader board, et cetera. Like it's you know, it's got basically it's regular season. It's got its play offs, it's got the champion, all that sort of stuff. So you know, yeah, I hope it, uh, I hope it continues to just kind of build and catch on. Mm hmm. I agree. So Fox is gonna start with the lead three hundred and fifty thousand, what's that? Three hundred fifty big blinds yep, and the lowest stack is going to be who it's gonna be from from the top forty. From the top forty, it's one hundred and thirty big blinds. And then and who's that Benal that's been tal that has been tolerant okay, Brandon Wilson, Oh, Eric Blair made it okay, Thomas Boyven, Mike Zulker. I'm just kind of looking to the names there were, like who didn't we see in the top forty during the PGT Last Chance? Adam Hendricks, Yeah, Adam Hendrix, michaelm israhe uh, we didn't say Eric Wassingston, Sean Rafael, Chad Age Sledge. But a couple of these guys, you know, John Wallslink, Isaac Hackson Ao said we're just coming for you know, the free role. They would pretty say. Phil Sternheimer rocked up for the last event, was crushing that then didn't go his way. You know when let you go ninth maybe. Yeah, ninth or tenth, yeah, win Lee, Dylan Lindy and Bryce Yocky showed up on that last event, didn't play, but Ben Lamb didn't play. Ben Lamb. We saw a little bit of Eric Blair, not a whole lot, but Yeah, it's really it's a great series for kind of anyone, you know, if you want to improve your position, or if you need to sneak in, or if you're way up top and need to try and want to try and win that Player of the Year title. So there's a lot of there's a lot of pros for this series. And if you look at you know, I was looking at the numbers just before of the series. You know, we had two one hundred and twenty six entry player fields not play two hundred and twenty six entrants, which was the second largest of all time in ten K buy ins. Now, last year's series very flat, you know, we basically averaged one hundred and sixteen, but the highest we had was one twenty one. Lowest we had was one to eleven. This year we were you know, one O nine, one twenty six, one twenty six, one seventy and bouncing around a little bit. And then we obviously did something different, which was that one day Turbo, which I think got eighty three. But I think eighty three for a Turbo was pretty good a single day turbo, especially with you know, we also had the WSP circuit going on, which did steal a few of our players. So you know, having that on in town and still putting out basically averaging one hundred and eleven entrants in all our events was was very good. Once you're even throw in that whole new tax low that's coming, So I think the series will always have a place in the PGT with all that added value. Yeah, I'm just a big fan of PGT Last Chance. Yeah, I mean I agree with you. I you know, very happy with the numbers themselves as I was tracking them going going along, you know, I was also very happy when I saw someone like a Nick Schulman, Jausamou, Jesse Lonis, you know, Steven Chidwick, Christen Fox, and like those players who were one locked into the top forty. You know, those players are all in the in the top ten, but they were still out there blasting every single day in every single tournament. So you know, yeah, part of that is going to be like, well, what else are these guys are going to do? Their poker players and this is what they do, right, I mean you know, but also as you mentioned, you know, there was there's been plenty of players who kind of told us maybe they'll scale back on their buy ins. And volume doe to the new tax thing at least maybe until that kind of gets a little bit more sorted out. So there was that, and then you know they also like they didn't really need to play. Like yeah, they had nothing. Out there, and like blast Off in all the tournaments, like he's just you know, but you know, part of it is maybe they again, they just want to play because that's what they do. The other part is, like I think it's like I think with Phil Sternheimer. You know, he could have come in on Sunday, but he came in. He got one event in you know, kind of like a little warm up, right, you know, you kind of want to dust the rust off if he took some time off for the holidays, you know, and you know, get in there battle with a lot of the people that you're going to be playing with, you know, come the championship anyway, so you know that sort of thing. He's also secretly here for a nice high stakes mixed game. I mean, it wasn't really a secret in the room. He was telling everyone about about this mixed game that he's got going on. All right, So we talked about the top forty, We talked about the five players who won dream seats from the PGT Last Chance Series. But we also have additional dream See winners. Why don't you let me know who those players are? Yeah, So he ran a variety of promotions you know, and partner promotions throughout the year. First one we did, you know, in a BT Las Vegas. We ran a leaderboard there. Nick Changela, obviously PGT regular most years, hasn't been playing a lot recently on the PGT, but he won that lead aboard. So he'll be starting with one hundred and twenty five big blinds. The next eight dream See winners all qualified to start with one hundred bigs. We're gonna start with Run Good Poker series they ran the last three years. They've ran a basically promotion with us, you know, promoting the PGT, promoting Poker Go and then they run a season ending dream Seed Invitational where everyone that's won a ring gets to know participator, you know, for a price well, but then also to represent Run Good in this that was won by Ed Miller, not the author Ed Miller for those if you remember that name. Similar to Run Good, Champions Club did something very similar. They very much mimicked what we do on the PGT they ran Basically, they did a season ending championship and every quarter they qualified eight players, and then the eight players who didn't qualify via that quarter will filled the final eight spots. So very kind of similar to my ours with a big of a twist. The winner of that was a David Shaw. He was the third place finisher in the Texas Pelo Roundup for one hundred K, his career largest score. So he's going to represent Champions Club. And then we did a. He also won an event before he finished third. Correct, he won one of the I think it was the maybe the plow Monster Stack. Yeah, so I mean, listen, this guy's got some chops, Like he's. Nice guy's yeah, yeah, he's here's a table to WSP event this year. Yeah, Like, if David shows somehow wins this tournament, I will not be in the in the least bit surprised. You know. Yeah, him and him and Ed Miller qualified via like a year long you know, poker promotion. So these aren't just kind of the random selections. These guys kind of blood, sweat and tears to win nast seat. And let me just say one thing quickly, and maybe Tim will just yell at me for saying this afterwards, but I'm gonna say it anyway. If you're an operator or a pokerom manager or whatever out there and you want a similar promotion with a dream seat to work with us, reach out to Tim. You know, nothing guaranteed, but maybe we can do a similar thing with your venue or your tour or whatever. Right like this helps on our side. You know, we can get kind of new people into the big stage, into the big dance, like you know that way on your side, maybe it can be a little bit of a revenue drivers as hopefully you know champions saw So reach out. Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, we're trying to get something back in a way. The pgt to to give you that as the stream seats, so we're always open to listening and having conversations. The next three annual subscribe its pretty self expanentory. You're signed up to Poker Guy, you're watching out content, you're watching WSP all that stuff. You're randomly entered into a draw. We drew three winners there, Travis Hogg, David Friedler, and Timothy Tuvousen, so they'll be representing the annual subscribers. And then we did a social media promotion via Gleam basically you know, retweet this, like this, follow that, and then that was also basically a random drawing and Daniel Van Dyke is going to represent you know, the social media side of Poker Go. And then you know, you listeners at home, we ran a pretty you know, if you've been a longtime listener, you've you would have heard our promotion for the Pogo podcast dream Seat and we did mention this a little while back, but Matthew Petrie he will be win representing the Pogo podcast family. So you know, I'm not I can't really cheer for anyone in this, but like I think, if we're going to cheer for anyone, we should cheer for the podcast listener. And then final dream Set went to Aaron Cooper from WSB Paradise. That was a you know, with the partnership, they're a thrown in seat to one of their events and he ended up winning that one. So he'll be the last dream See winners. So fourteen dream Sea winners, forty players, we got fifty four people trying to win that five hundred thousand dollars first prize on Monday. Yeah, I mean, listen, this is going to be a super fun event. I'm not rooting for anyone. I just want to see good entertainment, so you know, final table, like, you know, I don't really care, Like I mean, yeah, obviously some of these players you know, we're closer with than others or whatever, but ultimately, like I think it's just going to be a super fun event, highly competitive. I think this year kind of the biggest win heading into the event versus past seasons, which is something I kind of already touched on, is that everyone there it wants to be there, you know, which I think is already going to raise the bar a little bit for like the competition and the entertainment aspect coming in. You know, because I listen, I did feel a little bit bummed when phil Ivy qualified the top forty and didn't bother to show up, Like like you feel a little bit bummed because you're, like, man, I put on this party, no one wants to come drink the punch, Like what the fuck? Like you know, so you know, but this one, you know, as we talked about, all these people want to be there. So I think that alone means that this event means something to those players, and I think that's going to then translate through to the level of competition, the battling on the felt, you know, all that sort of stuff. So it's gonna be really cool. The top six are going to pay out. I did hear a little bit of chatter from some people around the studio saying, Oh, it's really really top heavy. It's really really top heavy. I mean yes, I mean like purposefully so, I mean this this event was once in a prior edition Winner take All when Jason Koon won it, remember that one. So you know, it is in a lot of ways it is a made for TV event. I mean it's not, but it has those elements into it, which you know when you kind of cram a lot more money up first prize and you make it a little bit you know, uneven or you know, not as a steady for the payouts. You know, yeah, it's it's a little bit made for TV. But you know, if we were to do like, let's say, regular payouts for a fifty four person tournament, you know, are you gonna get like three hundred and thirty dollars thirty thousand dollars for first place? And then like it kind of goes. No, we want to boom big first place prize, five hundred k, let's. End, and alest you gotta remember it's a free roll, so if these guys are putting up their money, yeah, it would be a normal payass structure. But yeah, we make it a little top heavy. And look, we know what's gonna happen, Like two or three people are gonna get heads up three handed, and hey, let's look at money. You know how tournaments are, so you know that may happen, and we'll deal with that as we have to. But yeah, it is top heavy. And look, obviously there's been some some discussion about hey, flat lining this. We've had discussion of hey make this a full reak back to one, the more everyone gets a payout. So we've we've looked at several different options, and you know, when next year season comes, we'll look at it again and see if we want to change it. But I think, oh, this is the best. Think it's I think it's a good version. The chips are good. I think we've you know, nailed how we do it. I think our promotions definitely makes sense, although some of the players may not understand, but you know, internally, it makes sense for us. And look at you know, I guess we'll quickly talk about the seatrow. It's it's a random seatual for all the players, just like normal, except for the the eight rung, the eight dream See winners with one hundred big blinds, the ones that kind of won, you know, their seat. That one of those will be on each table. So there's not going to be any really unfair tables. It's it's we try and keep that side of things balanced. But you know, look, Alex Fox and Sam several could draw the same table. You know, Alex Fuxon could draw a table with all those dream Sea winners that had one hundred and twenty five big So that side of it's still going to be pretty random. Once we kick things off on Monday. Yeah, I really like this event. I'm very much looking forward to it. Place starts on Monday at one pm Vegas time. There will be live streaming on pokergot dot com taking place a little bit later in the day. We'll basically catch the entire back half of Day one leading down to the final table, and then on Tuesday, the entire final table will be live streamed on poker Go so be sure to tune in to all of that action. It's going to be a lot of fun. We got Jeff Platt and Brent Hanks on the call from start to finish. Yeah, Alex Fox and Michael Is Rocky, Nick Shulman, Daniel mcgron, new Kristen Foxen. You know, all the big guns from the PGT are in the field for this one. So tune in early and watch the whole damn thing. I know I will be. So you want to do some fantasy. Yeah, so I think I've touched on it last week. We should draft per like section of the the. Forty buddy, tell me what I gotta do. You choose someone in the top ten, someone from eleven to twenty, someone from twenty one to thirty, someone from thirty one to forty, and then one of the dream seg wins. You're gonn choose a team of five. I mean, I let you, let me tell you. Let you pick first. And I had I had a really good series. Yeah, I had Becker ODB. Oh you had ODB. I you remember, Oh, yeah, you had a good series. I mean so yeah, I mean you had Alex foxon No, I don't know. I haven't run the numbers yet, so let's just draft. Uh brand new? What what did you say? We're doing top Oneick click on the are you and the p G five doc Click the tab This is PGT Championship. You'll see him kind of tat it up documents. We got a whole bunch of stuff PGT Championship. I am in there, baby, all right. So now draft from that quaded draft from the top ten, then the next ten, the next ten, next ten, and then the dream State winners. How many people are we drafting? Five? Okay? Cool? Who goes first? You? Of course you're getting crushed. I mean, buddy, Alex Fox, that's. Fine, give me China, you get well, you get two. No, I'm gonna let you pick first. Each section? Oh each section? Yeah, each section is really handicapping me. Y yeah, okay, next section. I mean take him. I don't want him, you can have him. Obvious one. David cole I swore you were going to take the grounder, and then I was gonna take David Coleman. I take the hot hand, one of the best players in the world versus one. I was literally on the golf course every single day. I mean, look, I'm texting him tonight. Know what a button opening range is? Or is he more worried about his nine iron? But he's no man, he's texting me today. He's like, what time tomorrow? Yeah? What time tomorrow is? I can make sure I'm off the golf course. I will continue the message. What time has a start tomorrow? And do you have to be on time? So he may be like. On time, but you're gonna lose. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I thought I was gonna get in there. I guess I'll take him. In that section, Coleman is the lowest chance I know. Yeah, he's he's twenty. Yeah, I'll take I'll take Dnggs. All right, next section is fun one. I know who I want right now? See if you take him? Wow, this is a This is a good section. Yeah. If if there was anyone who wasn't going to show up, it's from this section. There's like two names that I mean I would question. But all right, I'm gonna go Thomas Boyn. Yes, I'll take Matt Wantman. Okay, that's a good one. I was I was debating between Thomas Boyn and Pads. Yeah, but I went there all right next section. I mean, you know what I think you take. I'm going with the story. Wow, Okay, who who is that? I'm assuming it's either Osma's or Current. If you're going with the story, it's awesome. Won it last year. Last year's POY has been basically outside the top forty looking in for the large majority of the season, gets in at the end. Now, just run it up and win it, buddy, let's go. I have to take the hot hands, the whole damn thing. Jeremy. I gotta take Brandon Wilson. Okay, that's a good one. I mean he's he's I mean, he's obviously one of the best, and he's he's in form right now, all right, dream seen. Just a lot of a good way we should have done this. We should have started like done like a fantasy football draft where you get like a thousand dollars in auctions and you buy you build your team via chips. Yeah yeah, that could be in a fun way. But this way's fun. I mean, I'm taking Jeremy Becker like he's. I mean, odib's two runner up finishes. It's hard to like dB is in form. Man, you got Nick Petangelo there that's pretty good value. Nick Petangelo of this list, Sure, where are you taking? I'll take give me Nikky p give me Nikky Pei. Probably spent the week right and mountain biking, you know, Mount Charleston in the snow. Probably ready to go. Actually, I just saw a text via someone else that he was heading down to Aria to play that ran twenty five K. So he's you know, dust the rustuff there And. Who is why you can't name this person? Oh, I'm not gonna say who that person? Texas then TEXTA mean, it doesn't really matter. But Alex Fox and David Coleman, Thomas boy Fend, Jeremy Osmas and Jeremy Becker. That is my team. Good team, Good team. Tim has China, Reim Dan and Gran You, Matthew Wantman, Brandon Wilson and Nick Petrangelo. This is all the marbles, baby, all the fantasy poker freaking marbles. We're gonna get a belt. We should get a belt made. We should, we definitely should. I do want to start a fantasy poker league at some point, like a season long league. Yeah, maybe I'll do that in my spare time. All right, cool? Anything else we needed to talk about, hit on whatever. No. PGT Championship season ends on Monday. Tune in watch it, buddy, It's gonna be great. It ends on Tuesday. Yes, in Monday. Oh sorry? All right? Yeah, so we'll be back probably Tuesday or Wednesday. I want to get the winner of the event on here, so we'll try and do that. Did you speak to Fox and last night? Uh? No, I did, but you know he he won Player of the Year. I mean I talked with him. I didn't just get him on the show, you know. I told him. We'll probably do some sort of ceremony and whatever during the day one of the PGT Championships. So, you know, can we get a Fox and Fox and heads up match? Could? Could that? That would be fun? That would be funny, right, all right? Cool, that's gonna do it for us? Uh for Tim Duckworth. My name is Donnie Peters, and we will talk to you guys in a few days, so you