Nick Guagenti Wins Poker Masters Event #5 for $186,000

Five events, five winners. Each different, each unique in their poker playing style. The 2022 Poker Masters has already got off to a stellar start, but almost halfway through the series, to have five different winners is a dream for the program-makers at PokerGO. Anyone could win the Purple Jacket… so who won Event #5 and where do they now sit on the overall leaderboard?

The Story of Day 1

With four events each producing a different winner, the stage was set for a dramatic fifth final table in the PokerGO Studio at ARIA in Las Vegas. The structure of the event series is unique, with Day 1 of the latest tournament taking place just a flick of hole cards away from the final table of the preceding days’ event. That dynamic leads to some fun moments, with final table players who’ve just been busted often walking into the first day of the next event and sitting down to play.

When Day 1 of Event #5 was complete, the eventual winner of the event, Nick Guagenti was second in chips, behind the man known as ‘El Hefe’, PokerGO owner Cary Katz. The two would make the heads-up, but only after plenty of twists and turns along the way. Day 1 ended with seven players still in seats rather than six.

When play began on the final day, it was after the 62 total entries had already worked their way past the money bubble. That burst with Andrew Brown min-cashing in ninth place for $18,600, with Matthew Gonzales going one place later in eighth for $24,800. Rast’s elimination in seventh for $31,000 finally brought the final six around and the title was on the line.

Wang and Livingston Swap Bad Luck Stories

Chinese player Jacky Wang was the first to bust of the final six, cashing for $37,200 in the $10,000 buy-in event despite being far ahead pre-flop in Seven Card Stud. Dead by the penultimate draw, Wang crashed out to Alex Livingston as the Canadian strengthened his grip on the chip lead with the elimination.

Despite winning the hand to go into the lead, Livingston would slip from hero to zero and amazingly, bust in fifth for $49,600. With only just more than an hour having taken place in what would be a final table that took over four hours to produce a winner (including breaks), Livingston’s fall from being chip leader to on the rail was as spectacular as it was hard to predict, with the Canadian playing some of the best poker at the table.

Livingston’s end came after 90 minutes of play, with the Limit 2-7 Triple Draw hand seeing his 9-8-6-5-4 shot down by Guagenti’s 7-6-5-3-2 and Livingston unable to overcome the eventual winner’s hand after a tough run-out and a previous hand in which he lost a chunky PLO hand to Cary Katz.

Guagenti Gets Katz

Steve Zolotow had been a popular player at the table, regaling the others with stories of Johnny Moss playing the game back in the day. Zolotow hit the rail in fourth place, however, as his Seven Card Stud hand was beaten by Katz and he exited with $62,000 just outside the podium places.

Katz had a good lead, with 6.45 million chips well clear of Guagenti’s 2,225,000 chip stack, and Ben Diebold with 625,000. Diebold went in the order his stack at that point dictated, busting in third place for $86,800, losing his last chips in Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better as Guagenti took him out and chipped up to over 3.2 million chips, still some way behind Katz with just over 6 million.

With a big lead, Katz bullied his way to over 8:1 up in chips, but Guagenti struck two quick double-ups to make it to even stacks and edged into the lead as a flop of T-9-3 came in Pot Limit Omaha. Katz was all-in with JJ-T-8 and Guagetni called with A-A-Q-2, with both men a 50% chance of winning the hand.

Playing for over 75% of the chips in play, the turn was a six of hearts, dropping Katz’s chances to 28%, and Guagenti sealed the deal with a three on the river, taking the $186,000 top prize, with Katz claiming the $124,00 runner-up prize.

Who Leads the Leaderboard?

After five events, Jeremy Ausmus holds the overall lead, with 242 points a fair margin ahead of both Adam Hendrix (216) and Ronald Keijzer (203). With Ethan Yau (198) and Nick Schulman (191) both around a final table place behind the leader, players such as Cary Katz, Alex Livingston and Erik Seidel will also be focusing on upcoming events knowing one win would likely put them in the overall lead.