The latest PokerGO Tour event in Northern Cyprus has a familiar winner, with Chinese player Quan Zhou banking $316,000 after his defeat of Lewis Spencer heads up. The second event of this year’s PGT Super High Roller Series took place at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel & Spa and at a final table packed with talented professionals, and Zhou was the cream of the crop.

Lin Takes the Lead

With the final seven players reached overnight, a field of 39 – exactly the same as in Event #1 – was trimmed to the business stages of the tournament on Day 1. At that stage, British player Ben Heath went into the action as chip leader but all that was to change, and quickly, as the money bubble played havoc with the laws of chance.

Aram Zobian, well known to PokerStake fans as a prime seller of action on the site via our Staking page, was the shortest stack and sadly for the American, he busted first, bubbling the money when his queen-ten went into the all-in showdown with Felipe Ketzer’s jack-eight ahead but was overtaken after the board fell to send Zobian to the registration desk for Event #3.

The first player to cash was perhaps the most experienced player at the stacked final table of six, Jeremy Ausmus. The only other American at the table moved all-in with ace-queen but couldn’t hit against the pocket tens of Ren Lin. The Chinese player rode out the board and sent Ausmus home in sixth place for $62,000, in the process piling up over half of the chips in play.

Heath Falls Off a Cliff

With five players remaining, Brazilian player Felipe Ketzer was the player to miss out on the top four six-figure payouts. Instead, Ketzer claimed $83,000 when he first watched Lewis Spencer survive by making a runner-runner flush then lost his own stack to Zhou in a blind-on-blind battle between the two shortest stacks. That left four players, with two each from China and the United Kingdom.

After doubling, Spencer might have thought he was destined for the title when he found pocket queens four-handed but was behind his caller Ren Lin in chips and cards when the Chinese player turned over pocket kings. Spencer had the extreme fortune of hitting a two-outer queen on the flop to survive, damaging Lin’s chances in the process.

Lin stayed alive past the overnight chip leader, however, as Ben Heath went from the big dog with seven players in the hunt to being picked off in fourth place for $116,500. All-in with queen-jack, Heath was behind Quan Zhou’s ace-three and both an ace and a three landed on the flop to leave Heath needing a miracle that would not arrive. Blanks on the turn and river landed while the British poker crusher thanked his opponents for their time and made his way from the felt.

Zhou Left Singing as Spencer Takes Silver

With three players left, Quan Zhou struck gold against his countryman Lin. The latter flopped a flush when Zhou flopped Broadway and everything looked fine for Lin as he doubled through his fellow Chinese player into a huge lead. Soon after, however, he lost a flip with ace-queen to Zhou’s pocket sixes and as Spencer watched on happily, Lin then lost the last of his chips and won $158,000 in third place when his Broadway draw failed to overcome Zhou’s top pair.

Heads-up, Zhou had a slight edge on Spencer in terms of chips and on just the second hand between the pair, the British was all-in with a pair of his own. While Zhou had triumphed with pocket sixes against Lin, Spencer couldn’t hold on as Zhou’s ace-deuce got lucky. An ace on the flop meant Spencer was drawing to the ‘Devil’s Hand’ but a third six never came and he left in second place for $220,000.

In winning the tournament, and top prize of $316,000, the Chinese player Zhou has sneaked up the PGT leaderboard a little into 198^th place, still some way short of the 40 places that will qualify players for the 40-player PGT Freeroll Championship at the end of the current season with a million dollars being awarded for no entry fee in that event.

It was the third-place player Ren Lin who made the most important move up that list, with his result bumping him to 42^nd place, albeit another few scores behind qualification with several events still to play in 2024.

Photograph courtesy of PokerGO, the home of the Super High Roller Series.