Mamut defeats PokerOrg’s Reid heads-up in NAPT PokerStars Open

The North American Poker Tour (NAPT) is back in Las Vegas this week and has already seen several winners crowned in preliminary events, including Nick Petrangelo and Cherish Andrews.

Another familiar name – at least around these parts – was very nearly added to the winners' circle as our own live events manager, Terrance Reid, came within a whisker of winning the $1,100 PokerStars Open.

Reid ended his starting flight as chip leader, carried the lead into the end of Day 2, and maintained it heading into the final table. At the end of the day – a particularly long one, with play ending in the early hours of Friday morning – it would be Nikolai Mamut (below) who claimed the victory and the top prize of $158,700. The UK-based Russian pro's career earnings now sit just over $1.2 million.

The victory is the second of Mamut's career - and of 2025.

Big names make the final table

The final 43 players returned on Thursday, down from the 267 runners that filled out Day 2. Reid topped them all with 141 big blinds, ahead of the likes of Aaron Massey, Dan Sepiol, Anatoly Nikitin, and Jack Hardcastle, who all returned with a spot in the top 10. Other Day 3 hopefuls included Andrew Moreno, Tristan Wade, Michael Rossitto, and Toby Lewis.

The field shook out to its final nine over the course of more than six hours. Wade fell early in the day, and Rossitto hit the rail just outside of the three-table redraw. Meanwhile, Hardcastle and Massey weren't far behind him before Stephen Song, Jeff Madsen, and Nikitin all ran out of chips as the final table approached. 

What remained was a final table led by Reid, and comfortably so. The veteran PokerOrg staffer had led for much of the tourney before pushing his way to 5.7 million chips for the final nine. The trifecta box of Sepiol and Kyte trailed behind, and Mamut was right behind him, followed by Marc Foggin, Jim Collopy, Yifan Tang, Toby Lewis, and Andrew Kang. 

Toby Lewis made the final table but was busted by Reid in fourth.

PokerStars Open final table chip counts (Blinds: 25K/50K/50K)

1. Terrance Reid – 5,700,000
2. Dan Sepiol – 3,750,000
3. Jon Kyte – 3,660,000
4. Nikolai Mamut – 3,580,000
5. Marc Foggin – 3,200,000
6. Jim Collopy – 2,530,000
7. Yifan Tang – 2,400,000
8. Toby Lewis – 1,650,000
9. Andrew Kang – 1,040,000

Sepiol falls first on final table

Kang doubled off the bottom early, and Mamut grabbed a full double from Kyte before Sepiol was the first elimination of the final table. Sepiol suffered a setback in a clash with Reid, and he eventually handed over the rest of his chips with an ill-timed bluff against the chip leader. The hand moved Reid to near 10 million and Sepiol to the door. 

Tang was next in eighth, and Foggin left in seventh, leaving Lewis as the hard-charging chip leader ahead of a second-place Reid. It didn't last long, however, and Reid retook the chip lead with the elimination of Kang in sixth place. Kyte followed in fifth after Collopy's suited ace-six busted his Big Slick and left him with crumbs. 

Lewis couldn't sustain the mid-day momentum and Reid sent him to the rail in fourth, leaving him with a comfortable lead for three-handed play against Collopy and Mamut. 

The tournament soon hinged on those two when they found themselves all in for one of the biggest pots of the day.

Mamut was four-bet all in with and Collopy snap-called with . The board ran out with a jack, and Collopy was left near the felt, soon gone for good when Reid cleaned up the last of his chips. 

Heads-up play started with Reid holding 19.2 million to Mamut's 9.2 million, but a hot run of cards for Mamut changed the endgame over the next two hours.

End game: Mamut, Reid and the trophy.

Reid: 'I decided that I would not do a deal'

Before the end came, a heads-up deal was discussed but ultimately rejected by Reid. As he told us:

"I had just over 13 million, and he had just over 15 million, so we were pretty close, and we were coming back to the 300K big blind level. So we were still over 40 big blinds effective.

"He wanted to put $10-15K on the side and play for the rest, but it was not an even chop. We ran the ICM numbers, and then he wanted additional money over ICM.

"I decided before we even got to heads-up that I was not going to do a deal at all, and then I talked to some people on the break and said that if we played to the next break, where we got even more shallow and we were still similarly stacked, then I would think about it.

"He came up to me on the break and asked to talk numbers. I'm never going to just straight up turn him down, and I wanted to hear what he had to say. Ultimately I told him, 'No, thank you.'

"I felt like I was playing fine; I wasn't running good. He's probably got more heads-up experience, especially in big spots, but I had decided before we even got there that I wasn't going to do it unless there was a really good reason to. And given that he wanted to take additional money, that sealed the deal. I said no pretty quickly and played it out."

Does he regret his decision?

"I'd have $20,000 extra dollars or whatever, but you know... we can't be results oriented."

Reid picked up just shy of $100K for his deep run.

Reid has picked up cashes in the 2025 PokerStars Open everywhere from Italy to the USA.

$1,100 PokerStars Open Las Vegas results

^{Images courtesy of Rachel Kay Winter/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd.}