Cary Katz Wins 2023 PokerGO Cup; Ike Haxton Wins Final Event for $598,000

The final event of the 2023 PokerGO Cup was a humdinger of a tournament and with just four players cashing, there was a late change at the top of the leaderboard as Cary Katz overtook Anthony Hu to become the overall champion. In winning the final event for $598,000, Isaac ‘Action’ Haxton became the biggest winner of the series.

Bumper Field Goes for Glory

A total of 26 players took on the $50,000-entry Event #8, with just four players making the money after a dramatic Event #7 set up a frantic late push for points. That meant that by the time the final nine battled to make the final eight-handed table of the event, they were still five from the money. The player to miss out on making the final eight was Anthony Hu, who led the leaderboard going into the final event. He busted to Masayi Oya in unfortunate fashion, too, losing with pocket queens against pocket tens, when the Japanese player hit an improbable straight on the river.

Once the final eight were confirmed, Dan Colpoys had the chip lead and having finished second in Event #7, was hoping to eclipse Hu himself. The final table began with the elimination of the shortest stacked player, Jason Koon busting with pocket fives against Sean Winter with pocket sixes.

That exit meant seven remained, and pretty soon it was six, when Oya busted with ace-five outrun by Brian Kim’s five-four. The board of J-6-4-9-T made sure only half a dozen players remained and at that stage, 2 million chips sat in front of Isaac Haxton, with Colpoys the only one with over 1 million chips on 1,010,000. Out in sixth place was Freddy Deeb, who  lost with ace-eight against Colpoys’ king-queen as  the board of Q-5-2-2-8 led to a shove on the river from Deeb and a call from Colpoys.

Brian Kim Bubbles, Winter Frozen Out

With five players remaining, only Cary Katz and Sean Winter could stop Anthony Hu winning the title but both had decent chances. They improved after the bubble elimination of Brian Kim, whose king-ten were no match for Katz’ pocket aces, and with four remaining, Katz’s stack of 1.6 million chips was looking like putting him in contention for the overall leaderboard victory.

When Daniel Colpoys busted in fourth place, it really was all to play for. Colpoys needed the outright event win to be crowned champion, but he failed to do so when his pocket nines lost to Haxton’s ace-five after all the chips went into the middle pre-flop. The flop of A-K-2 immediately set Colpoys behind and the seven turn and queen river ended Colpoys chances, sending him home in fourth place for $130,000 and back-to-back final tables in the final two events.

Hu Watches, Katz Wins

Three-handed, Anthony Hu was watching from the wings, and he needed the specific projection of Haxton win with Sean Winter making heads-up to win. That hope was over when Winter’s king-seven lost to Isaac Haxton’s ace-nine after a board of Q-T-8-7-J, leaving himself one chip, which went in the next hand with queen-jack, losing to Katz’s rivered straight, where the PokerGO Cup winner called an aggressive bet on the river by Haxton with top pair and three clubs on the board.

All that meant Winter’s elimination confirmed Katz as the overall PokerGO Cup winner, but there was still the small matter of the $598,000 Event #8 top prize to go for. As it happened, that pot only gave him 1.65m in chips, with Haxton holding 3.55 million. It took an hour, but Haxton eventually got Katz down to 10 bigs and got there with jack-four against Katz’s king-seven, a jack on the flop doing the business.

When it came to winning the final event, it was Isaac Haxton who won the top prize of $598,000, with Katz claiming $364,000 in second place, but that was enough to claim the overall title. With players such as Phil Hellmuth complimenting the ‘quiet man’ of poker’s elite, the celebrations were for ‘El Jefe’.

Cary Katz is a special guy! He is a great person, and a great man. Generous, kind, polite, world class sharp, and one of poker saviors (he invested over $20M of his own money in ⁦@PokerGO⁩). Congrats Cary!

Cary Katz Crowned 2023 PokerGO Cup Champion https://t.co/JwRFw9k9ko

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) January 21, 2023

You can watch every one of the eight PokerGO Cup 2023 events right here.