Justin Saliba Wins PokerGO Cup Event #4 for $195,000

The hot start to 2023 continues for Justin Saliba. Saliba won Event #4 at the 2023 PokerGO Cup for $195,000 less than two weeks after he scored more than $300,000 for a final-table finish at Borgata in Atlantic City.

Saliba came into the final day of play in fifth position with six players remaining. After Calvin Lee doubled up early, Saliba became the short stack. Saliba found a double when he cracked the pocket queens of Erik Seidel with queen-jack of hearts and maneuvered his way to the winner’s circle from there.

In the end, Saliba topped Anthony Hu in heads-up play Hu had the chip lead for the majority of the final table and began heads-up play with more than a 2-to-1 advantage, but it was Saliba who ultimately came out on top.

2023 PokerGO Cup Event #4 Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Justin Saliba	United States	$195,000
2nd	Anthony Hu	United States	$140,400
3rd	Adrian Mateos	Spain	$93,600
4th	Calvin Lee	United States	$78,000
5th	Andrew Moreno	United States	$62,400
6th	Erik Seidel	United States	$46,800
7th	Jeremy Ausmus	United States	$39,000
8th	Brian Kim	United States	$31,200
9th	Dan Shak	United States	$31,200
10th	Nick Petrangelo	United States	$23,400
11th	Vikenty Shegal	United States	$23,400
12th	Dylan DeStefano	United States	$15,600

Erik Seidel was the first player eliminated at Monday’s final table, with the Poker Hall of Fame member going from second in chips to first out in sixth place. Nothing went Seidel’s way on the final day, including losing with pocket queens against Justin Saliba’s queen-jack of hearts. That hand left Seidel with under one big blind and he was eliminated on the next hand by chip leader Anthony Hu.

Andrew Moreno was the next player to bust. Moreno was at his second final table of the 2023 PokerGO Cup and once again took fifth place. With five players left, it was two blind-versus-blind confrontations with Adrian Mateos that did Moreno in. On the first, he shoved the small blind with ace-seven of clubs and Mateos called with ace-queen. Mateos’ hand held to give him the double. Later, Moreno shoved the small blind for just over eight big blinds with jack-seven and Mateos woke up to pocket aces in the big blind. That was the end of the line for Moreno.

Next to bust was Calvin Lee. With the blinds at 40,000-80,000, Anthony Hu moved all in from the small blind for effectively 1,310,000 against Lee’s big blind. Lee called all in with king-nine. Hu had jack-eight. Hu flopped a jack and held from there to knock out Lee in fourth place.

Spaniard Adrian Mateos was at his third final table of the 2023 PokerGO Cup. Previously, Mateos finished fifth in both Event #1 and Event #3. In Event #4, Mateos finished in third place. He called all in from the big blind with king-ten of diamonds after Justin Saliba shoved from the small blind. Saliba had king-jack and held.

Entering heads-up play, Hu had the chip lead with 6,675,000 to Saliba’s 3,075,000. With the blinds at 50,000-100,000 to start, Hu had 66.75 big blinds to Saliba’s 30.75 big blinds. Saliba consistently picked up pots to move into the lead. On the final hand, he raised all in during the 75,000-125,000 level with ace-four. Hu called off his stack of 2,500,000 with ace-seven and was in a dominating position to double up. The board ran out nine-five-two-queen-three to give Saliba a winning wheel straight.

With the victory, Saliba jumped up to fifth place on the series leaderboard, just ahead of Hu, who moved into sixth place with his result. Mateos took the top spot on the 2023 PokerGO Cup leaderboard and is now the man to catch with 238 points.

2023 PokerGO Cup Leaderboard Top 10

Place	Player	Wins	Cashes	Winnings	Points
1st	Adrian Mateos	0	3	$237,600	238
T-2nd	Ed Sebesta	1	1	$216,000	216
T-2nd	Sean Winter	1	1	$216,000	216
4th	Aram Zobian	1	1	$207,500	208
5th	Justin Saliba	1	1	$195,000	195
6th	Anthony Hu	0	2	$185,400	185
7th	Cary Katz	0	3	$166,800	167
8th	Kristen Foxen	0	2	$153,600	154
T-9th	Alex Foxen	0	1	$153,000	153
T-9th	Nick Schulman	0	1	$153,000	153

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