Masato Yokosawa Takes Down PGT Kick Off Event #3 for $142,800

Masato Yokosawa has captured his first PokerGO tour title after winning Kick Off Event #3, scooping a $142,800 first-place prize.

The Japanese player is now within touching distance of the $2 million mark for live tournament career earnings.

Action Recap

Yokosawa started Day 2 with a bang, sending home Justin Saliba in the first few hands in a standard pocket aces versus queens confrontation.

With six players remaining, Blake Vogdes was now the new short stack but it didn’t take long for a turnaround to play out.

Pocket jacks all-in pre-flop against Erik Seidel was the first of four double-ups for the American before a quiet period.

Michael Vanier was next to go after going with his jack-eight in a blind versus blind spot. Neil Warren’s ace-four was enough to reduce the field down to only five players.

Erik Seidel repeated the same hand against Nicholas Seward who had pocket sixes, losing half of his stack and beginning the end of his run in the event.

Vogdes then picked up the second and third of his four double-ups before sending home Seidel in fifth place.

Blind versus blind, Vogdes went with queen-seven suited and Seidel called it off with sixes. Vogdes turned a winning flush and we were down to four.

In three hands, Vogdes went from the short stack to chip leader and was looking like the hot favourite.

But poker is fickle and only a few hands later he would pay off half of his stack to Seward with pocket sevens not good enough against ace-king.

With only 10 big blinds remaining,  Vogdes jammed his queen-ten of hearts against the pocket threes of Neil Warren in the next hand and ended his rollercoaster event with a $50,400 prize and 101 PGT points.

Three-handed play began with almost equal stacks across the table. Seward made his moves first but ended up on the wrong side of an ace-queen of diamonds against Warren’s ace-king in a blind versus blind spot.

The next elimination came in yet another small blind against big blind hand.

Yokosawa limped and Seward raised it up to 700,000 with king-ten. Yokosawa trap called with pocket aces.

The flop came ten-high and Seward bet out for 325,000. Yokosawa called.

The turn paired the lowest card and Seward bet again for 825,000. Yokosawa called again.

The river was a blank and Yokosawa  jammed for his last 2,000,000. Seward called it off with his tens only to quickly see that he had a worse two pair.

Yokosawa now had a two-to-one chip advantage but it was all over in a couple of hands.

The Japanese player called Warren’s jam with ace-deuce suited and found himself up against ace-six. But a deuce on the flop was enough to give the young player his first PokerGO title and a nice prize to boot.

Event #3: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em Final Table Payouts