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

Spencer Champlin got here into heads-up play for the 2025 Lucky Hearts Poker Open $3,500 fundamental occasion title on Jan. 21 with a slight lead over Martins Adeniya. The former accountant turned poker professional was unable to shut out the win in that event, although. He tried an enormous multi-street bluff try within the occasion’s last hand, solely to run right into a backdoor flush for his opponent. Champlin fell simply wanting his first title of 2025, however walked away with a career-best payday of $425,000.

It didn’t take very lengthy for the Scarborough, Maine resident to get one other shot at a trophy. Just three days faraway from that second-place exhibiting, Champlin navigated his approach all the way down to the ultimate two in occasion no. 4 of this 12 months’s PokerGO Tour Kickoff collection. This time round, Champlin overcame a heads-up chip deficit to seize the title and the highest prize of $157,500.

Champlin now has greater than $3.9 million in recorded event earnings, with $582,500 earned already in 2025. This newest win got here with 528 Card Player Player of the Year factors. With the 1,200 he earned because the runner-up within the LHPO fundamental occasion in Florida earlier this week, he has surged into first place within the POY race standings introduced by Global Poker. His 1,728 complete factors give him a 178-point lead over second-ranked Brandon Wilson.

A complete of 126 entries have been made on this $5,000 buy-in no-limit maintain’em event that ran from Jan. 23-24 contained in the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas, leading to a $630,000 prize pool cut up amongst the highest 18 finishers. Only seven contenders bagged up chips on the finish of day 1.

The last day started with two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani within the lead and Champlin in sixth chip place. Mike Vanier quickly overtook the chip lead because of a wild hand that noticed him river tens full towards Zamani’s jack-high straight, which additionally got here in on the tip.

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 primary to hit the rail on day 2. The British poker professional was at his third last desk of the collection, having additionally positioned sixth in occasion no. 1. He earned $25,500 for this seventh-place end, bringing his haul for the collection to $171,000. Joey Weissman (sixth – $31,500) quickly joined Leonard on the rail. The bracelet winner’s A-8 was unable to carry up towards the Ok-Q of Eric Blair, who made two pair to win the pot and slender the sphere to 5.

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 4 on the flop and held from there to ship Soverel house with $37,800. He then scored one other elimination, shoving with Q-2 from the small blind and besting the A-9 of Blair out of the massive blind. Vanier flopped a queen to take the lead and averted Blair’s backdoor straight draw to win the hand. Blair earned $53,550 because the fourth-place finisher.

Champlin’s first knockout of the day noticed his AJ maintain up towards the A5 of Zamani. The flip gave Zamani an open-ended straight draw to go along with his stay card, however a brick on the tip ended his run in third place ($69,300). The latest PGT Last Chance occasion winner now has greater than $7 million in recorded earnings to his title.

Vanier held greater than a 2:1 chip lead when heads-up play received underway, however Champlin narrowed the hole a bit within the early going earlier than the pivotal conflict of the match performed out. Champlin limped in from the button for 150,000 with OkOk and Vanier raised to 550,000. Champlin three-bet to 1,200,000 and Vanier four-bet shoved. Champlin rapidly referred to as along with his large pocket pair and held by way of a Q8434 runout to double into the chip lead.

The two quickly performed one other large all-in pot, with A9 for Champlin besting Vanier’s OkQ. Vanier was left with only a handful of huge blinds after that loss, and was quickly despatched to the rail in second place when his Ok-10 was unable to tug off the massive upset towards pocket kings but once more for Champlin. Vanier earned $97,650 because the runner-up.

Here is a have a look at the payouts and rankings factors awarded on the last desk:

Photo credit: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.