The tenth and final event of the 2023 Poker Masters concluded on Tuesday and with it, Stephen Chidwick claimed the throne as Poker Masters Champion. His one win and three other cashes gave him 688 leaderboard points, almost 200 clear of second place Vladas Tamasauskas.
Though he ended up with a convincing leaderboard win, it took Chidwick until the final day to wrap it up. It was Tamasauskas who had the lead going into Event #10; in fact, he was atop the leaderboard from the get go, having won the first event of the series. But he was eliminated on Day 1 of the final event and needed everything to break absolutely perfectly at the final table to maintain his top spot.
And things did not break perfectly for Tamasauskas. Chidwick finished second in Event #10, earning 302 PokerGO Tour points to leapfrog Tamasauskas on the Poker Masters Leaderboard and win the Purple Jacket. Even if he had finished third or fourth, Chidwick still would have eclipsed Tamasauskas, though at that point, other players might have elevated themselves to the lead.
To illustrate how bad it looked for Tamasauskas’ chances going into the Event #10 final table, the six players competing for the tournament title were Jonathan Jaffe, who won the event, Chidwick, Alex Foxen, Brian Kim, Chino Rheem, and Nick Petrangelo. When the dust settled, Chidwick had the most leaderboard points, Rheem was third, Foxen was fourth, and Jaffe was fifth, and Kim was tenth.
As I said, it would have taken the perfect final table order for Tamasauskas to hold on to the top spot. Even Kim would have finished ahead of him had he won the tournament.
Stephen Chidwick wasn’t the only one to have a great 2023 Poker Masters. He was one of seven players that cashed in at least four of the ten events. Both Rheem and Foxen cashed in five. He was the only player, however, to cash for more than $1 million. Tamasauskas was the only player with two victories.
For the championship, Chidwick wins the coveted Poker Masters Purple Jacket and a $50,000 bonus, bringing his 2023 Poker Masters total winnings to $1,159,000.
Up next on the PokerGO Tour is the $25,200 No-Limit Hold’em ARIA High Roller #13 tonight, followed by the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl on Thursday. October kicks off the PGT Mixed Games II series at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas, which will run for two weeks.
2023 Poker Masters Leaderboard – Final Standings
- Stephen Chidwick – 688
- Vladas Tamasauskas – 506
- Chino Rheem – 487
- Alex Foxen – 460
- Jonathan Jaffe – 454
- Andrew Lichtenberger – 327
- Ren Lin – 325
- Darren Elias – 319
- Justin Bonomo – 314
- Brian Kim — 284
Image credit: PokerGO.com
