Ed Sebesta Wins PokerGO Cup Event #3 for $216,000

Ed Sebesta is the Event #3 champion at the 2023 PokerGO Cup. Sebesta topped a field of 90 entries to take home the tournament’s $216,000 first-place prize.

Now in his 70s, Sebesta is retired and playing poker as a hobby. The hobby comes with a greater cause, as Sebesta donates his winnings to the Holy Cross in honor of his son, a priest, who passed away in 2012 as the result of a brain tumor.

When play got down to heads-up action, it was Sebesta against Nick Schulman. Sebesta had the lead to start the heads-up match and never gave it up, going on to eliminate Schulman in second place and grab the trophy, which was welcomed by a round of applause from all players in the PokerGO Studio.

With the win, Sebesta moved into a first-place tie with Sean Winter on the top of the PokerGO Cup leaderboard. Both have 216 points.

2023 PokerGO Cup Event #3 Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Ed Sebesta	United States	$216,000
2nd	Nick Schulman	United States	$153,000
3rd	Philip Shing	United States	$108,000
4th	Cary Katz	United States	$90,000
5th	Adrian Mateos	Spain	$72,000
6th	Kristen Foxen	Canada	$54,000
7th	Christopher Frank	Germany	$45,000
8th	Farid Jattin	Colombia	$36,000
9th	Ethan Yau	United States	$36,000
10th	Robert Chorlian	United States	$27,000
11th	Andrew Lichtenberger	United States	$27,000
12th	Nick Petrangelo	United States	$18,000
13th	Sergio Fernandez	Spain	$18,000

Saturday’s final table started with a bang, as Kristen Foxen was eliminated on the first hand of the day. She got all in from the small blind with pocket jacks against Cary Katz’s pocket eights in the big blind. Katz ran out a diamond flush to bust Foxen in sixth place.

Adrian Mateos was the next player to bust, and, like Foxen, he also got unlucky to bust. Philip Shing had moved all in from the small blind with ace-eight, and Mateos found pocket tens in the big blind. Mateos called, but Shing flopped an ace and that was the end of the road for the Spaniard.

Cary Katz was back at the final table of a 2023 PokerGO Cup event for a second time this series after cashing in his third event. Katz check-raised all in on the flop with a flush draw, Ed Sebesta called with top pair, and Katz didn’t hit. Katz finished with a payday of $90,000 and 90 leaderboard points.

Start-of-day chip leader Shing went out next. His pocket fives ran into the pocket jacks of Sebesta, and that set up heads-up play between Sebesta and Nick Schulman. To start the match, Sebesta had 9,000,000 in chips to Schulman’s 2,250,000.

Schulman did what he could to pull the stacks closer to even, but in the end his ace-seven couldn’t hold against Sebesta’s king-nine. Sebesta had jammed preflop from the button for effectively 3,275,000 with the blinds at 75,000-125,000 with a 125,000 big blind ante. Schulman called all in with ace-seven. Sebesta’s king-nine hit a king on the turn to win it all.

2023 PokerGO Cup Leaderboard Top 10

Place	Player	Wins	Cashes	Winnings	Points
T-1st	Ed Sebesta	1	1	$216,000	216
T-1st	Sean Winter	1	1	$216,000	216
3rd	Aram Zobian	1	1	$207,500	208
4th	Cary Katz	0	3	$166,800	167
5th	Kristen Foxen	0	2	$153,600	154
T-6th	Alex Foxen	0	1	$153,000	153
T-6th	Nick Schulman	0	1	$153,000	153
8th	Punnat Punsri	0	1	$149,400	149
9th	Adrian Mateos	0	2	$144,000	144
T-10th	Joseph Cheong	0	1	$108,000	108
T-10th	Philip Shing	0	1	$108,000	108

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