Jeremy Ausmus Wins PGT Venetian Las Vegas Classic High Roller #2 After Grueling Heads-Up Battle for $99,200

Reigning PGT Player of the Year, Jeremy Ausmus, defeated Stephen Song after a greuling two-and-a-half hour heads-up battle to win the PGT Venetian Las Vegas Classic High Roller #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold'em for $99,200, 99 PGT points, and the gold PokerGO Cup trophy.

This is Ausmus' eighth PGT win, which brings his PGT career earnings to more than $13,800,000, while his total career earnings now eclipse $27,700,000 according to The Hendon Mob. Ausmus came into the final table near the bottom of the pack in chips, but was able to maneuver through a talented final seven players that included Jim Collopy, Aram Zobian, Shannon Shorr, Brock Wilson, Song, and Rick Mechammil, to take the biggest piece of the prize pool.

The tournament drew a total field of 62-entrants, creating a prize pool worth $310,000, with the final nine players all earning a piece of it. Joao Simao was the unfortunate bubble boy, when his big draw couldn't complete against the top pair of Shorr, and Jeremy Becker just missed his sixth final table in under two weeks after going out on the final table bubble with king-three against Song's king-six on a king-six-ten-nine board.

Song came into the final table with more than a two-and-a-half-to-one chip lead over his next closest competitor, Wilson, who started with a little more than 1,100,000. Play kicked off with a back-and-forth battle between Collopy and Zobian in a series of hands that saw Collopy spike the river to double through Zobian, then Zobian double through Collopy, then Collopy spike the turn to ultimately bust Zobian in seventh-place. Collopy was down to just one big blind shortly before the start of the final table, but was able to spin it into a third-place finish.

Wilson was next to exit in sixth-place after losing nearly half his stack in a big pot with Song, then Song would finish him off shortly after when Wilson shoved king-queen and run into Song's ace-ten. 

Ausmus woke up with aces in the big blind to bust Shorr in fifth-place after Shorr shoved the hijack with ace-four suited. This put Ausmus over the million chip mark, but he still had his work cut out for him, as he was a two-to-one dog to both Collopy and Song at the start of three-handed play. 

However, Collopy busted a short while later in a cooler spot by running his jacks into Song's queens all in preflop, giving Song a little more than four-to-one chip lead at the start of what would become a marathon heads-up battle between him and Ausmus. The two players duked it out over a two-and-a-half hours, swapping the chip lead no less than seven times, as well as surviving multiple all-ins while at risk.

Aumsus would eventually emerge victorious when his pocket pair held against the overcards of Song, sending Song to the rail with a runner-up finish.

2025 PGT Venetian Las Vegas Classic High Roller #2 Payouts

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