Jesse Lonis continued his banner year on Wednesday with an outright victory in Event #1 of the 2025 PokerGO Tour (PGT) PLO Series II. The $5,100 buy-in tournament drew a field of 146 entrants to generate a prize pool of $730,000 with twenty places paid and $175,000 for the eventual winner.
Lonis entered the final table second in the chip counts, behind only Chino Rheem. In comparison to the top two, the rest of the final table competitors were short-stacked and in need of serious spin ups. Despite a rough start to proceedings – Lonis sent full double ups to both Isaac Haxton and Artem Maksimov – it took only a little more than an hour for him to collect all of the chips in play.
While Lonis picked up the $175,000 first-place prize, he won even more money thanks to a $50,000 side bet between himself and five other players.
A flurry of a final table
Anthony Hu was the first man sent to the rail as he committed the last of chips with 
and ran into Haxton's 
. The 
board favored Haxton all the way and Hu's run came to an end in sixth place. With the infusion of chips, Haxton looked to be in a comfortable position, but a three-bet pot against Lonis turned the tide of the final table.
With nearly 3M chips in the middle, Haxton committed the remainder of his stack on the 
flop. Lonis snap-called and had the best of it, but needed to fade Haxton's outs.
Haxton: 
Lonis: 
Lonis' bottom set improved to unbeatable quads on the 
turn before the meaningless river completed the board and Haxton's day was done.
Lonis unstoppable
Maksimov exited next as he ran into Lonis' flopped straight and needed runner-runner outs to survive. When the turn and river bricked out, his run came to an end in fourth place while Lonis' overwhelming chip lead grew even larger. Josh Arieh wasn't going down without a fight, but Lonis' run-good proved too difficult to overcome.
On a 
flop, Arieh called it off when Lonis raised to put him all-in and found himself as an equity favorite.
Arieh: 
Lonis: 
Arieh's combo-draw offered plenty of outs to the winner, but the turn cut down on those outs significantly as Lonis improved to two pair. Lonis' hand remained best on the 
river.
It was a cooler finish to the tournament as Rheem and Lonis collided on a board reading 
. When the chips went in on the turn, Rheem tabled 
for a jack-high flush and Lonis showed him the 
for the nut flush. The meaningless 
completed the board and left Lonis with all of the chips in play.
With the win, he moves into the top ten positions on the 2025 PGT Season Leaderboard. Lonis now sits in ninth place, just a few points shy of Andrew Lichtenberger in eighth.
PGT PLO Series II Event #1: $5,100 Pot-Limit Omaha
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jesse Lonis | $175,00 |
| 2 | Chino Rheem | $106,000 |
| 3 | Josh Arieh | $76,700 |
| 4 | Artem Maksimov | $58,400 |
| 5 | Isaac Haxton | $43,800 |
| 6 | Anthony Hu | $36,500 |
Images courtesy of Antonio Abrego/PokerGO
