The ClubWPT Gold Mystery Quest started online with thousands of players spread across several flights in the month of November. On Friday 100 of them returned for a day of fun and fabulous prizes, leaving only nine players left for Saturday's livestreamed final table.
Those nine players will fight for the $136,475 top prize and the final table mystery bounty prizes, which will be as high as $100,000 and as low as $0. Leading those nine is Michael Jemo, a Pennsylvania resident with just $15,000 in career earnings. Trailing Jemo is a mix of local veterans and sticky pros, starting with Jonah LaBranche in second with his $1.9 million in lifetime earnings. Behind him sits Loni Hui, who leads the rest of the pack as one of only three players over two million chips.
Cash and prizes
The special edition mystery bounty prizes are now gone. Players hatched unique gifts like a PSA10 Charizard card, a massage chair, a miniature horse, multiple modes of transportation, a Gibson guitar, and a trip to Costa Rica. Hui grabbed one of the last big prizes of the night with a trip to play 'Bink-O' that earned $125,000.
Final table play starts on Saturday at 2pm with blinds at 20K/40K/40K and the livestream will kickoff shortly after on a security delay. Let's take a look at the final nine:
Michael Jemo - 2,835,000 (71 BBs)
- Career earnings: $15,125
Michael Jemo has only $15K in career winnings, so he's already locked in his best score and an eighth-place finish will double his lifetime total. His previous best finish was for only $4,440 in a Friday Monster Stack at The Orleans, but it was a Friday in late May with big WSOP crowds so the third-place result is no small feat. Jemo followed that with a win in a secondary event at the Borgata Summer Poker Open, which was his fourth final table of 2025. Could this be the one?
Jonah LaBranche - 2,610,000 (65 BBs)
- Career earnings: $1,982,211
Jonah LaBranche, on the other hand, has already broken through. His path to $1.9M in earnings started in September of 2021 with a 31st-place finish in a $600 Kickoff tournament in Round Rock, Texas. By the following January the Arizona native had his first WSOP ring, then his first six-figure score in September of 2022. The 'Phoenix Kid' has piled up wins since, both big and small, with a near misses at a WSOP bracelet in the 2023 Tag Team event and this year's Millionaire Maker. His biggest win, a fourth-place finish for $875K, happened at this year's Wynn Summer Championship.
Loni Hui - 2,435,000 (61 BBs)
- Career earnings: $4,118,490
Loni Hui is the fan favorite and possibly the betting one, too, with the most deep field experience and poker pedigree at the final table. Her $4M in career earnings date back to 2008, and her best win ever is still the 2013 WSOP bracelet win for $609K. The Staten Island native is coming off of a series in her current home state of Florida, where she finished 21st in the WPT Championship at Seminole. Hui has notched several cashes throughout 2025, but she's still looking for a signature win to close out the year.
Justin Ouimette - 1,585,000 (40 BBs)
- Career earnings: $659,596
Justin Ouimette has plenty to show for himself with thousands of results both live and online, but a win at today's final table would be his best live score. The Canuck's previous live cash, a third-place finish in in a $1,600 buy-in at this summer's Aria Poker Classic, would be eclipsed by a top-two result. Ouimette is from Ontario, but he frequents Playground in Montreal and recently grabbed two cashes at the WSOP International Circuit stop there.
Benjamin Greenberg - 1,330,000 (33 BBs)
- Career earnings: $251,267
Benjamin Greenberg can also improve on his previous high score, which was a top-100 result in the 2012 WSOP Main Event for just over $73K. His resume dates back to the Rio Deepstacks in 2012, and Greenberg can still be seen at stops throughout the US in recent years, but this is his first cash of 2025. Greenberg needs to finish third place or better for a new best.
Aleksei Efremov - 1,260,000 (32 BBs)
- Career earnings: $147,565
Aleksei Efremov has been putting together a six-figure resume the hard way with lots of volume at daily tournaments throughout Las Vegas in the last two years. His previous best live cash was only $9,940, a third-place finish in a Sunday Special at The Orleans in April. He's a frequent player at The Orleans and elsewhere, grabbing four-figure wins on a regular basis in the supersized fields on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons.
Efremov already has a new high score and he can continue to add to it throughout the day if he manages his midstack well.
Nicholas Teeuwen - 1,110,000 (28 BBs)
- Career earnings: $533,208
Another Canadian on the list, Nicholas Teeuwen, just joined us from a trip to Taiwan where he cashed three times in the season-ending APT Championship. Teeuwen won the WSOPC Main Event in Calgary last year, picking up a career-best $166K in American dollars. The London, Ontario resident is also a WPT Prime champion, having won the online edition during 2024's Winter Festival on WPT Global. A new career-high is just out of reach for Teeuwen, but he can still add a lot of money to a resume that has only been active since 2022.
Brian Smith - 715,000 (18 BBs)
- Career earnings: $170,099
Brian Smith has been adding to his Hendon Mob page since 2012, but this will be his second brush with the big pay jumps. Smith previously finished fifth in this summer's PLO Double Board Bomb Pot at the WSOP, grabbing $72K for what is short of half his lifetime take. The New Jersey native lives in Georgia now, and he has plenty of final table experience throughout the country. Smith can report a new high score with a second-place finish.
Michael Hooper - 475,000 (12 BBs)
- Career earnings: $226,453
The short stack is our final Canadian, and he will need a lot of heart to ladder up on this field. Michael Hooper is no stranger to success at the Wynn, having finished 48th in last year's WPT World Championship for $71,000. He also finished third that same year in a $1,100 buy-in at the Wynn Summer Classic. Hooper has been reporting results since 2019, when he finished 60th in the EPT Main Event in Barcelona. This would be his first major win.
2025 ClubWPT Gold Mystery Quest remaining payouts
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | $136,475 |
| 2 | $95,250 |
| 3 | $70,350 |
| 4 | $50,650 |
| 5 | $39,500 |
| 6 | $28,825 |
| 7 | $20,800 |
| 8 | $15,850 |
| 9 | $12,350 |
Images courtesy of Luther Redd/Rachel Kay Miller/World Poker Tour.
