Ali Imsirovic climbs PokerGO POY ranks again with $270k win at Venetian

Venetian Deepstack 2022 High Roller Event #4: $25,000 No-Limit Hold'em was the fourth and final event of the Venetian Deepstack High Roller series. These events are all part of the PokerGO tour.

It was a select crowd that played the event, most of whom were familiar from the previous three days of poker. Punnat Punsri — who tops the POY leaderboard at this early stage — was one of the few notables to bust before registration closed. At that point there were just 20 buy-ins in the pot. This made for a nice round $500,000 prize pool split between the top three finishers.

The small field meant that when the buy-in period closed, there were just nine players left. Shortly after that, the official final table was reached. It looked like it was going to be a pretty brisk game of cards.

Barry Hutter was the first to the rail in 8th place, when Sam Soverel rivered trips after a pre-flop shove. Hutter was closely followed by Chris Brewer, Justin Saliba, and Cary Katz.

With three places paid and blinds going up every 40 minutes, the final table felt as much like a single table sit 'n' go as the half-million dollar game it actually was.

Into the money

That left Masashi Oya — a new contender on the high stakes scene after his big win in the MSPT — on the money bubble, playing against Steven Grady, Sam Soverel, and last year's PokerGO POY, Ali Imsirovic. Oya was in a den of lions.

Still he held on, watching first Soverel exit (4th – $0), then Grady (3rd – $80,000).

Oya started heads up with a small chip lead — little over 1.3 million in chips to a little under 1.2 million. A single 25k chip was all the edge Oya had against one of the best players in the world, running on one of his hottest streaks.

Things went well at first. Imsirovic was down to 600k at one point, with the blinds at 10k/20k. But Imsirovic won a hand to even things out. Then another to put Oya down to 785k.

The next hand, Oya held Q♣9♠ on a flop of 3♦️5♠7♠.

The turn was the Q❤️ and Imsirovic threw a small bet of 175k out. Oya called with top pair, and the river came down 2♦️.

With very little behind, Oya called when Imsirovic shoved. Oya showed his queens, but Imsirovic rolled over the 5♣3❤️ for two pair.

Imsirovic won $270,000 and enough player of the year points to put him in third place on the leaderboard. Oya won $150,000 for his second place finish and is currently in 4th for POY.

"Reigning @PokerGO Tour Player of the Year Ali Imsirovic closed out the first @VenetianPoker High Roller series of the season with a $270,000 victory," wrote PokerGO News on Twitter. "Is this the start of his back-to-back campaign?"

Venetian Deepstack 2022 High Roller Event #4: $25,000 No Limit Hold'em complete final table results

Featured image source: PokerGO