The final event of the 2025 PokerGO Tour welcomed 40 leaderboard qualifiers and 14 Dream Seat winners to the season-ending PGT Championship, a $1,000,000 freeroll at the PokerGO Studios in Las Vegas.
A star-studded final table is the expected ending for a leaderboard battle that came down to the last event, when Alex Foxen passed Sam Soverel at the Last Chance series to secure the Player of the Year honors and the number one spot for the PGT Championship. That placement was significant, as the $1,000,000 freeroll starts with staggered chip counts based on where players landed on the PGT leaderboard, but neither player made it to the second stage.
The top-40 qualifiers were joined by 14 Dream Seat winners, a combination of random drawing winners and players who won their way in via different PokerGO promotions or by finishing in the top five of the Last Chance series this past weekend. One of those Dream Seat winners, Aaron Kupin, is still alive after starting at the bottom of the chip counts on Day 1. He will return in the middle of the pack, looking up at Andrew Lichtenberger and chip leader Michael Wang. Behind him is PokerGO Studio stalwart John Riordan, followed by seven-time WSOP champ Daniel Negreanu, Chad Eveslage, and Eric Blair.
The final seven will return on Tuesday at 1pm local time. They have one more player to eliminate before everyone makes the money, and they will play down to a $500,000 winner after that. You can see everything on PokerGO.
Let's take a closer look at the PGT Championship final table:
Wang leads Lichtenberger, Negreanu
Michael Wang - 2,890,000 (96bb)
- Career earnings: $9,456,159
Michael Wang had seven cashes and one win on the PGT schedule during the 2025 season, with the lone victory tallied in the $10,000 PLO Championship at this summer's WSOP. That bracelet was his third and it was complemented by a $555K summer win in a $1,600 buy-in at Wynn.
Wang started in the middle of the pack of qualifiers with 220 big blinds before a big bump from a clash with Chino Rheem, who shoved over 700K with pocket eights. Wang moved in with his own stack and forced the rest of the table to muck before turning over 
. The king fell on the turn and Wang jumped up to 1.7 million as the tournament drew down to its final two tables. Wang surged to the top of the counts at the end of the night, jumping over Lichtenberger and Kupin to claim the top spot for Tuesday's final table.
Andrew Lichtenberger - 2,410,000 (80bb)
- Career earnings: $23,827,935
A double that left Michael Mizrachi with crumbs was the beginning of Lichtenberger's ascent on Day 1, and he didn't really look back after that. 'LuckyChewy' entered the $1,000,000 freeroll in the top ten on the PGT leaderboard, affording him 285 big blinds to start the day. He fell back momentarily before the chips went to work, leaving a trail of qualifiers in the process. Alex Foxen was one of them late in the day, followed by Adam Hendrix in ninth towards the end of the evening.
Lichtenberger couldn't hold off Wang for the late night chip lead, but he will still return in second with 80 big blinds and a lot of damage to do on Tuesday.
Aaron Kupin - 1,690,000 (56bb)
- Career earnings: $1,846,041
Kupin's climb from a Dream Seat to near the top of the leaderboard started with a three-way all in against Chi-Jen Chu and PokerGO Social Media drawing winner Daniel VanDyke. Kupin's kings were good, busting Chu and leaving VanDyke with practically nothing. The day started at the bottom of the stacks for Kupin and it ended with the third-best. The Dream Seat winner has already had a great year, starting with a bracelet in the $2,500 Mixed Big Bet and punctuated by a victory in the PGT 9-Game Mix at WSOP Paradise. The latter was good for $282K and a Dream Seat, enough to put him over $1.8 million in career earnings, according to The Hendon Mob. Kupin is mostly seen in mixed-game fields, both at the summer WSOP and in the PokerGO Studio, where he has never won an event.
John Riordan - 1,230,000 (41bb)
- Career earnings: $6,465,124
The end of the night was looking dire for John Riordan, who was sitting with the short stack on the final seven bubble. A double with Big Slick changed his fate, however, and Riordan finished the night in the middle of the pack.
Riordan is one of the most consistent players at the PokerGO Studio, where he has 28 cashes and one win this season. That was good for 15th on the PGT leaderboard and a upper-middle starting stack for the championship. Riordan has over $6.4 million in career earnings, having started on the mean streets of Florida back, where his first win was in the WSOP Circuit Main Event at West Palm Peach in 2011.
Daniel Negreanu - 1,020,000 (34bb)
- Career earnings: $57,608,695
Kid Poker started the day just outside the top ten with 275 big blinds and plenty of ammo with which to play. He got rolling early, busting Clemen Deng to move up the charts before a later double against Wang moved him into position to make a run at the final table.
Negreanu would settle nicely into the fifth spot on the board with some space between him and the two short stacks, Eveslage and Blair. It was another fun season for the seven-time champ, who won a Dealer's Choice and a PLO event at the PokerGO Studio in 2025. Negreanu racked up 19 other cashes on tour this year, good enough to finish 11th on the season-long leaderboard.
Chad Eveslage - 800,000 (27bb)
- Career earnings: $11,261,008
Chad Eveslage is another player who had a strong season, earning him 245 big blinds to start the PGT Championship. Two big wins buoyed the year, starting with a win in the Super High Roller $100,500 Mixed Games event. He would later pick up a WSOP bracelet in the $25K HORSE event and cement his legacy as one of the best mixed players of this or any time. Eveslage only needed a handful of other cashes to earn a spot high on the leaderboard, and he has parlayed it into a final table appearance. There's some work left to do on Tuesday as Eveslage fights with Blair to stay off the money bubble.
Eric Blair - 685,000 (23bb)
- Career earnings: $4,043,860
Eric Blair started the day further down the list with 165 big blinds, but an early pair of pocket kings sent Brandon Wilson to the rail and put Blair on the path to the final table. He was in pretty good shape until the last stretch of hands where he handed a pot to Wang and suffered a brutal river to Lichtenberger. Blair would end up on the short stack and he will have a lot of work to do on Tuesday.
His standout season included 13 total cashes and two wins at the PokerGO Cup, adding up to 41st on the final PGT leaderboard. Not everyone in the top 40 met the minimum requirements for the tournament, so Blair was among the group that moved up and in to the $1,000,000 freeroll. The Las Vegas resident has been a regular at the PokerGO Studio and he has put together a resume of over $4 million in earnings throughout a long and successful career on the local poker scene.
Images courtesy of Antonio Abrego/PokerGO.
