Sergio Aido Wins PGT Bounty Blitz Event #2 for $69,000

In one of the quickest final tables in PGT history, Sergio Aido defeated Chris Hunichen heads-up to claim the $47,500 first-place prize plus an additional $21,500 in bounties as he closed out Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em Escalator in just over an hour and a half. 

Aido started the final table with a bang as on the third hand of play, he clashed with Jeremy Becker in a three-bet pot, cutoff vs big blind. All the chips went into the middle on a ten-high flop, and Becker had the best of it with pocket aces and was well in front of Aido's pocket kings. However, when the king of hearts hit the felt on the river, Aido made trips to send  Becker to the rail in 6th place for $10,100 plus $5,300 in bounties and 17 PGT points, but the action was far from done. 

Chino Rheem and Sean Winter then tangled in two big pots, the first of which saw Rheem turn a queen-high straight only to hand Winter a full double thanks to his flopped full house. A few hands later, Rheem got it all in with ace-eight from the small blind, but Sean Winter picked up pocket eights in the big blind to finish him off and send him home in 5th place for $12,300 plus $8,300 in bounties and 20 PGT points. 

Winter didn't keep his newfound chips long as he tried to turn his flopped pair of sevens into a bluff on the river, only for Hunichen to be holding a monster in the form of the queen-high flush. After the bluff gone wrong, Winter was right back on the short stack where he started the day and got his chips into the middle in a race with pocket fives against the ace-jack of Michael Berk, who had him just covered. 

An ace on the flop sent Winter to the rail in 4th place for $15,100 plus $7,800 in bounties and 25 PGT points, leaving Aido, Berk, and Hunichen nearly even in chips as three-handed play began, but that wouldn't last long.

On a board reading , Berk bet 800,000 with 65,000 behind into a pot of roughly 1.4 million, and after a couple of time extensions, Hunichen called, tabling for two pair jacks and nines. Berk could only table for eight-high, giving Hunichen a massive chip lead in the blink of an eye. 

Hunichen extended that chip lead a few moments later when he turned trip eights to send Berk to the rail in 3rd place for $20,100 plus $22,200 in bounties and 33 PGT points, but on the first hand of heads-up play, Hunichen found himself with a chance to end the tournament with pocket sevens only to run square into Aido's pocket aces. Aido would river a full house, and what started as a nearly two-to-one chip lead for Hunichen quickly turned into a roughly three-to-one chip lead for Aido. 

Play slowed down considerably after that, as in just over an hour, chips had been flying around the table, only for Aido and Hunichen to cool off a little as both players threw a punch before Hunichen pulled back to even before an ill-timed bluff with a missed straight sent Hunichen tumbling down the counts for good. 

On the final hand of the tournament, both players would flop top pair with a jack, but Aido had paired his kicker, leaving Hunichen hitting the rail in 2nd place for $30,200 plus $13,600 in bounties and 50 PGT points. 

The win gives Aido his second PGT trophy of the season after he took down Event #5: $10,100 No-Limit Hold'em during the PokerGO Cup in February, and he now sits in 18th place on the overall PGT Season leaderboard with 1,131 points. 

Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em Escalator Final Table Payouts

The PGT Bounty Blitz Series six-event schedule consists exclusively of No-Limit Hold'em events, and all buy-ins are $5,300, with a $200 discount available for on-time entry for players in the registration line by the start of play.

Unique to PGT Bounty Blitz is that every event will be a different bounty format, with $2,000 from each player's entry set aside for the bounty pool.

The remaining events are as follows: Event #3 is a Quattro format, where bounties will begin with 25% of the field remaining and be valued at $8,000. You can currently check out the action from day one of that event here. Event #4 is a Progressive Knockout, where each elimination earns the player half the bounty paid out in cash, which is then added to their bounty value. Event #5 is a Mystery Bounty, and the second-highest bounty prize will be reserved for the final table. Event #6 is a standard knockout tournament, with an elimination earning the player $2,000. 

PGT Leaderboard Top 10 

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