Popular British pro Patrick Leonard added $124,800 to his live poker tournament earnings and claimed the early lead on the 2025 PokerGO Tour leaderboard with a victory in the second event of the PGT Kickoff Series.
Leonard was one of 96 entrants who ponied up the $5,100 buy-in; those players created a $480,000 prize pool that the top 14 finishers shared.
Day 1 ended with only seven players in the hunt for the title. David Chen, Rodger Johnson, Bertrand Rosique, PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona champion Stephen Song, the legendary Phil Hellmuth, Andrew Moreno, and John Riordan all busting inside the money places before the curtain came down on proceedings.
Leonard sat down at the seven-handed final table at the bottom of the pile but won a monster-sized pot when he found pocket aces in a hand where Chino Rheem held pocket tens, and Sam Laskowitz was dealt a pair of kings in the hole. All the chips found their way into the middle of the felt at the PokerGO Studio, the board ran out jack-high, and Leonard soared toward the top of the counts. Rheem crashed out in seventh for $19,200.
Natalie Ferguson only had four big blinds when Rheem busted and was the next player out of the door. Ferguson managed to triple up, but Joey Weissman halted her comeback. Having flopped top pair with her king-ten, Ferguson’s stack went in on the turn. Unfortunately for Ferguson, Weismann, who is selling action for this series on StakeKings, had also flopped top pair with his ace-ten. The river bricked, and Ferguson bowed out.
Fifth place went to Laskowitz who had been trying to rebuild his stack after the three-way all-in that Leonard won. The last of Laskowitz’s chips were committed with king-queen, which lost to the king-nine of former World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event finalist Joseph Cheong.
Cheong then won a massive pot when his pocket jacks held in a three-way hand against Weissman’s ace-eight and Leonard’s ace-queen. Cheong was flying high, but Leonard was on the ropes with a handful of big blinds. However, Leonard immediately doubled when his queen-jack won a flip against Weissman’s sevens.
Leonard got his hands on the rest of Weissman’s stack when Weismann open-shoved from the small blind with king-eight. Leonard looked down at ace-king and made one of the easier calls of his illustrious career. Weissman flopped an open-ended straight draw that he ultimately missed, busting in fourth for $43,200.
Heads-up was set soon after when Cheong bowed out at Leonard’s hands. Queen-jack was again the winning hand for Leonard; it out-kicked Cheong’s queen-seven.
Aram Zobian went into the heads-up battle with Leonard trailing three-to-one in chips, and with the continually increasing blinds eating into each player’s stacks, the deficit proved too much for Zobian to overcome.
The final hand saw Zobian unable to get away from a turned pair of threes, and he made a hero call only to discover Leonard was sat with two pair. Zobian crashed out in second place for $79,200, leaving Leonard to claim the winner’s trophy and the $124,800 top prize.
Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em Final Table Results
| Rank | Player | Country | PGT Points | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patrick Leonard | United Kingdom | 250 | $124,800 |
| 2 | Aram Zobian | United States | 158 | $79,200 |
| 3 | Joseph Cheong | United States | 115 | $57,600 |
| 4 | Joey Weissman | United States | 86 | $43,200 |
| 5 | Sam Laskowitz | United States | 67 | $33,600 |
| 6 | Natalie Ferguson | United States | 48 | $24,000 |
| 7 | Chino Rheem | United States | 38 | $19,200 |
PokerGO Tour Leaderboard Top 5
Leonard’s victory followed his final table appearance in the opening event, and the PGT Points earned from those two results have seen the Brit climb to the top of the 2025 PGT Leaderboard.
None of the current top five navigated to the final table of Event #3; its final table shuffles up and deals on January 23.
Andrew Lichtenberger, champion of Event #1, is hot on Leonard’s heels, while Aram Zobian, Nick Schulman, and John Riordan are also on “Pads”‘ coattails.
| Rank | Player | Cashes | Wins | Earnings | PGT Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patrick Leonard | 2 | 1 | $145,800 | 292 |
| 2 | Andrew Lichtenberger | 1 | 1 | $117,600 | 235 |
| 3 | Aram Zobian | 1 | 0 | $79,200 | 158 |
| 4 | Nick Schulman | 1 | 0 | $75,600 | 151 |
| 5 | John Riordan | 2 | 0 | $59,100 | 118 |
Remaining PokerGO Tour Kickoff Schedule
Event #3 is down to its seven-handed final table, where Japanese star Masato Yokosawa leads from ten-time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel.
The penultimate and final events of the PGT Kickoff Series start on January 23 and January 24. PokerNews‘ expects both events – the latter has a $10,100 buy-in – to be well-attended, not least because double points are awarded in these two tournaments.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Thu 23 Jan | #3 – $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em Final Table |
| Â | #4 – $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em |
| Fri 24 Jan | #5 – $10,100 No-Limit Hold’em |
Las Vegas is a Happy Hunting Ground For Leonard
Although Leonard is better known for his online poker prowess, he has almost $3.5 million in live cashes. The ARIA in Las Vegas, where the PokerGO Studio is located, has been a happy hunting ground for Leonard. In 2017, he won a brace of $25,000 High Rollers in the space of three days for $789,600 before rounding off an impressive hat-trick with a victory in the $10,400 Bellagio Cup XIII for an additional $475,940.
His first appearance in the PokerGO Studio resulted in a sixth-place finish in the PGT Kickoff Series opening event for $21,000, and then this impressive victory was worth $124,800.
More than 60 of Leonard’s recorded 122 live scores stem from Las Vegas-based events. No doubt this victory will not be the last time we see Leonard’s name in a Vegas live event’s payouts or him lifting a winner’s trophy aloft.
Lead image courtesy of PokerGO
Senior Editor