Day 1 action has concluded in the opening event of the PokerGO Tour's Last Chance series, the precursor to the PGT's season-ending $1,000,000 Championship Freeroll next week. In the $10,100 NLH Event #1, Nick Schulman steadily marched through the evening levels to emerge as the leader entering Friday's seven-player final table.
Schulman will head up a potent lineup in pursuit of the event's $283,050 first-place prize. His end-of-the-day stack of 4,025,009 is nearly twice the total bagged by his nearest competitors, Joao Simao and Victoria Livschitz, with the seven finalists having the following Day 1 counts:
| 1 | Nick Schulman | 4,025,000 |
| 2 | Joao Simao | 2,295,000 |
| 3 | Victoria Livschitz | 2,170,000 |
| 4 | Bryce Yockey | 1,670,000 |
| 5 | Nguyen Le | 1,530,000 |
| 6 | Matthew McEwan | 1,260,000 |
| 7 | Aram Zobian | 930,000 |
Becker eliminated on the bubble
Simao closed out the Day 1 action by sending Dan Shak to the rail in eighth. The final 16 players of the event's total of 111 players made it into the money, earning a share of the event's $1,110,000 prize pool and locking up PGT points.
Jeremy Becker became the event's bubble boy, not long after Landon Tice crashed out after leading briefly during the evening's action. And it was a pretty brutal runout, with his kings cracked by Simao's A-K with an ace on the river.
Those who made it into the money on Day 1 but busted short of the final table were as follows:
| Rank | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Dan Shak |
$44,400 |
| 9 | Martin Carnero |
$33,300 |
| 10 | Sam Laskowitz |
$33,300 |
| 11 | Byron Kaverman |
$27,750 |
| 12 | Chris Brewer | $27,750 |
| 13 | Joseph Cheong |
$22,200 |
| 14 | Brian Kim |
$22,200 |
| 15 | David Coleman |
$16,650 |
| 16 | Nick Petrangelo |
$16,650 |
Freeroll implications
The top 40 players on the PGT season-long leaderboard get guaranteed invites to the $1,000,000 freeroll next week. Schulman has already locked in his freeroll seat, as he began the day in 13th place, well inside the safety zone.
The same doesn't apply to Simao and Livschitz, however, who began the series in 94th and 93rd, respectively. Both would likely need a win and another decent cash during the Last Chance series to move into the top 40 – a win alone would move either player into 41st spot with five events remaining. However, that scenario would likely also put either player in the running for one of the conditional seats awarded separately to the top finishers on the Last Chance series leaderboard.
The key freeroll development on the day involved Brian Kim, who entered the day 17th on the PGT 2024 leaderboard on the basis of two huge cashes in leaderboard qualifying events, including his third-place run in the 2024 WSOP Main Event. However, another prerequisite for a freeroll seat is having three qualifying PGT leaderboard cashes, and Kim needed to make the money in a Last Chance event to secure a seat. That took place on Thursday, as he survived a key all-in outside the money before busting in 14th place.
Nine other players are also in the PGT leaderboard's top 40 despite having only one or two qualifying cashes. It is unlikely that all of them will snag additional cashes, and a few may not even play in the series. That means that several players outside the current top 40 will likely move into those freeroll spots when the Last Chance series concludes next week.
The other major development involves Bryce Yockey, who sits outside the top 40 but returns to the Day 1 finale in fourth. If he finishes in that spot (fourth) or higher, he will move into the top 40, but the higher he finishes, the more secure his grip on a freeroll seat will be.
You can watch the final table live on Friday on PokerGO, starting at 1pm Vegas time.
Images courtesy of PokerGO.
