David Peters Wins PokerGO Cup Event #1: $5,100 NLHE ($141,525)

American poker superstar David Peters boasts a poker resume many can only dream of obtaining with countless victories including earning four World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelets amongst his more than $44 million in live tournament cashes as tracked by The Hendon Mob. Peters not only padded his 10th place position on The Hendon Mob All-Time Money List over the legendary Phil Ivey but was able to further diversify his trophy portfolio after defeating Mark Ioli heads-up to win his first PokerGO Cup title in Event #1: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em for $141,525 at the PokerGO Studio at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Peters began the final table as the table captain but coughed it up to Mark Ioli early on the live stream at PokerGO before coming from behind in heads-up play to secure the illustrious title.

Peters nearly won his first PokerGO Cup title three years ago when he finished runner-up to Jake Schindler in the 2021 PokerGO Cup #5: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em for $216,000. While Peters’s reputation has remained stellar, the same can’t be said for Schindler, who collected the $324,000 top prize in this event. Schindler found himself in hot water last year and was banned from the PokerGO Tour after accusations were levied by the poker community regarding illegal real-time assistance (RTA) to allegedly gain an unfair advantage in big online poker events.

Two more close calls came last year when Peters managed a pair of fourth-place finishes in PokerGO Cup events before finally getting the monkey off his back Friday evening to earn his eighth PokerGo Tour title.

2024 PokerGO Tour Event #1: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em Results

The PokerGO Cup Event #1: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em attracted a banner field of 111 entries to create a $555,000 prize pool. The top 16 players went home with at least a $8,325 payout.

PokerGo Cup Event #1: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em Final Table Action

The second and final day of Event #1: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em began with a final table of six hopefuls after the late-night elimination of poker coach Jonathan Little in seventh place.

Peters maintained his chip lead despite doubling up the short-stacked Cody Daniels straight out of the gate when his king-nine was no good against ace-queen. C. Daniels’s fortunes were short-lived as he was the first on the rail at the official final table shortly on a bad beat after his ace-queen was unable to hold against ace-jack, which also pushed Ioli into the chip lead.

Dusti Smith was the final female player remaining before she suffered a similar fate to that of Daniels. She first doubled her short stack when her nine-eight suited improved enough to get ahead of the king-queen held by Fabian Quoss. Moments later, however, Shawn Daniels sent Smith to the rail in fifth place after his pocket queens proved to be good against ace-ten.

Peters inched closer to Ioli’s chip lead after his pocket jacks were good against king-six suited to eliminate Quoss in fourth place, however was still facing nearly a 2:1 chip deficit even after sending S. Daniels to the showers in third place when his ace-eight suited held against king-jack after both players bricked the board.

Ioli had the early heads-up momentum but that all changed after he doubled Peters when the duo got their stacks in with Peters holding trip eights with nine-eight and Ioli failing to hit his gutshot straight draw with ten-seven. Peters padded his lead from there before soon after winning the title when no bad beats came with king-ten against Ioli’s king-five suited.

*Images and hands courtesy of the PokerGO Tour.