The first PokerGO Tour series of the 2025 season ran at the Aria Jan. 20-24, minting several new champions who put up at least $5,100 to try for a six-figures and a trophy. Repeat champs were Andrew Lichtenberger Spencer Champlin, and Kristen Foxen, who won the same event last year, while Patrick Leonard and Masato Yokosawa claimed their first titles.
A recent inductee into the Women in Poker hall of Fame, she has built a career that will certainly see her at least nominated for the Poker hall of Fame.
The PGT’s next series is the PokerGO Cup Feb 10-19.
Andrew Lichtenberger
Event #1: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em
$117,600
Lichtenberger won his seventh title in the first event of the 2025 PGT season. The man known as “LuckyChewy” won three in 2021, two in 2022, and one in 2023. A pro from New York who works out of Las Vegas, he passed the $20 million mark last year.
Patrick Leonard
Event #2: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em
$124,800
Leonard had a superb series. He sandwiched a win between a sixth and a seventh place finish, two slices of bread worth $46,000 total. The Englishman who plays online as “pads1161” got his first win on the PGT. He’s had some significant wins in his career in live events, including a victory in a $25,000 event at the Aria High Roller 70 — a day before winning a $10,400 event at the Bellagio Cup XIII in 2017.
Masato Yokosawa
Event #3: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em
$142,800
Yokosawa, a pro and Japanese blogger, won his first PGT title in the third event for $142,800. He’s approaching the $2 million mark. His YouTube channel will soon hit a million subscribers. Yokosawa has been at it for over a decade and is the winner of the 2013 World Poker Tour Korea.
Spencer Champlin
Event #4: $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em
$157,500
Spencer Champlin inched closer to the $4 million lifetime mark with a victory in the fourth event of the Kickoff, which attracted 126 entries. He also won a $5,100 event at the PGT Poker Masters for $160,475. It’s doubtful the player from Scarborough, Maine, wants January to end, because in the middle of the month he won the $3,500 championship event at Seminole’s Lucky Hearts Poker Open for $450,000. That’s quite a twofer, Spence!
Kristen Foxen
Event #5: $10,100 No-Limit Hold’em
$197,625
Foxen took down the final event of the PGT’s Kickoff series for the second year in a row, topping a final table that included Joao Simao, Stephen Song, 2024 PGT Player of the Year Jeremy Ausmus, Andrew Moreno, Nick Seward, and Neil Warren, who placed in that order. It’s her third PGT final table of the month after finishing second in a $10,100 event for $187,550, and seventh in its freeroll for nothing. The win pushed her lifetime tally over the $9 million mark.
