Spencer Champlin Bounces Back From Heads-Up Loss With PokerGO Tour Kickoff Win

Spencer Champlin came into heads-up play for the 2025 Lucky Hearts Poker Open $3,500 main event title on Jan. 21 with a slight lead over Martins Adeniya. The former accountant turned poker pro was unable to close out the win in that tournament, though. He attempted a big multi-street bluff attempt in the event’s final hand, only to run into a backdoor flush for his opponent. Champlin fell just short of his first title of 2025, but walked away with a career-best payday of $425,000.

It didn’t take very long for the Scarborough, Maine resident to get another shot at a trophy. Just three days removed from that second-place showing, Champlin navigated his way down to the final two in event no. 4 of this year’s PokerGO Tour Kickoff series. This time around, Champlin overcame a heads-up chip deficit to capture the title and the top prize of $157,500.

Champlin now has more than $3.9 million in recorded tournament earnings, with $582,500 earned already in 2025. This latest win came with 528 Card Player Player of the Year points. With the 1,200 he earned as the runner-up in the LHPO main event in Florida earlier this week, he has surged into first place in the POY race standings presented by Global Poker. His 1,728 total points give him a 178-point lead over second-ranked Brandon Wilson.

A total of 126 entries were made in this $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament that ran from Jan. 23-24 inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas, resulting in a $630,000 prize pool split amongst the top 18 finishers. Only seven contenders bagged up chips at the end of day 1.

The final day began with two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani in the lead and Champlin in sixth chip position. Mike Vanier soon overtook the chip lead thanks to a wild hand that saw him river tens full against Zamani’s jack-high straight, which also came in on the end.

Devastating River for Martin Zamani!
: https://t.co/U87HtUAbSf pic.twitter.com/xkCtQ2SSsI

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) January 24, 2025

Event no. 2 winner Patrick Leonard was the first to hit the rail on day 2. The British poker pro was at his third final table of the series, having also placed sixth in event no. 1. He earned $25,500 for this seventh-place finish, bringing his haul for the series to $171,000. Joey Weissman (6th – $31,500) soon joined Leonard on the rail. The bracelet winner’s A-8 was unable to hold up against the K-Q of Eric Blair, who made two pair to win the pot and narrow the field to five.

Vanier added to his already sizable lead when his A-4 outran the A-10 of two-time bracelet winner Sam Soverel. Vanier spiked a four on the flop and held from there to send Soverel home with $37,800. He then scored another elimination, shoving with Q-2 from the small blind and besting the A-9 of Blair out of the big blind. Vanier flopped a queen to take the lead and avoided Blair’s backdoor straight draw to win the hand. Blair earned $53,550 as the fourth-place finisher.

Champlin’s first knockout of the day saw his AJ hold up against the A5 of Zamani. The turn gave Zamani an open-ended straight draw to go with his live card, but a brick on the end ended his run in third place ($69,300). The recent PGT Last Chance event winner now has more than $7 million in recorded earnings to his name.

Vanier held more than a 2:1 chip lead when heads-up play got underway, but Champlin narrowed the gap a bit in the early going before the pivotal clash of the match played out. Champlin limped in from the button for 150,000 with KK and Vanier raised to 550,000. Champlin three-bet to 1,200,000 and Vanier four-bet shoved. Champlin quickly called with his big pocket pair and held through a Q8434 runout to double into the chip lead.

The two soon played another big all-in pot, with A9 for Champlin besting Vanier’s KQ. Vanier was left with just a handful of big blinds after that loss, and was soon sent to the rail in second place when his K-10 was unable to pull off the big upset against pocket kings yet again for Champlin. Vanier earned $97,650 as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.