The third high-priced, $10,500 Infinitely Buyable Disc for 2023 Poker Joe Cup The festival is officially in the books. A total of 90 entries were made by the time registration closed, creating a final prize pool of $900,000 paid out from among the top 13 finalists. After two days of high-stakes tournament competition, Ed Sebesta was victorious with the title and the first prize of $216,000.
It was the second-biggest tournament score to date for the Texas resident, trailing only the $311,915 he earned as the $10,000 high-ball winner in 2022. Open Seminole Hard Rock Poker. He now has over $1.1 million in career earnings.
In addition to the title and money, Sebesta also earned a 540 card player Player of the year points for winning. He also got 216 PokerGO Tour points, enough to move him into a tie with Shaun Winter for the lead in both Poker Joe Cup Points race and PokerGO Tour arrangement.
While 13 players made money at the event, only the top six made it through to the second day and the live-streamed final table. Among those who received money but did not make it to the last day were Twice World Series of Poker Bracelet winner Nick Petrangelo (12th place), bracelet winner Andrew Lichtenberger (11th place), bracelet winner and poker blogger Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau (9th place), and 2022 POY Runner-up Farid Jateen (8th place).
The final day started with Philip Sheng in the lead and Sebesta second for chip. Three-time bracelet winner Kristin Fox started out as a short set, and it only took one hand to get it all through. On the first deal of the day, I pushed pocket jacks out of the small valance and Carrie Katz called out eight pockets in the big valance. The board brought up four diamonds, and with the only diamond in hand, Cutts won the bowl and dumped Foxen in sixth place ($54,000).
Four-time bracelet winners Foxen and Adrian Mateos were each on their second final table of the series. Mateus’ run was soon over when his pocket scores failed to hold up against A-8 of Shing. Ace’s high flop gave Ching the lead and he took over from there sending Mateus into fifth ($72,000). The Spanish championship star has now earned close to $30.7 million in career earnings.
Katz was next to fall. He’s got it all with a huge draw facing Cebesta’s top queen pair. The turn and the river brought Kates no help and he lost fourth place ($90,000). He now has over $35.7 million in lifetime cash.
While he started the day in the lead, Xing Sebesta doubled through the quadruple move to take off the lead. He was basically tied for the second time when the next big hand came up. With curtains from 75,000-125,000, Shing paid for 2,500,000 with five button pockets. Sebesta connected from the mini-blind with pocket jacks and Nick Schulman went down three-time bracelet winner via the big blind. The larger pocket pair stayed in best riverside form and Shing was eliminated in third place ($108,000). It was his fifth career six-figure score, increasing his lifetime earnings to over $1.1 million.
The head-to-head game started with 9,000,000 for Sebesta and 2,250,000 for Schulman. The disparity narrowed slightly after about 20 minutes of play, but Sebesta was still firmly ahead when the final hand of the tournament was dealt. Open sepista shove off the button with k
9
, an effective bet just over 27 big blinds. Shulman thought about it before scraping his 3,400,000 tally pile with an A.
7. The council ran out
64K9 And Sebesta made kings to secure destiny and title.
Shulman earned $153,000 as runner-up. He now has $15,264,802 in professional tournament earnings after this latest deep run.
Here’s a look at the payouts and ranking points awarded for the final six:
| Place | player | earnings | POY points | PGT points |
| 1 | Ed Sebesta | $216,000 | 540 | 216 |
| 2 | Nick Shulman | $153,000 | 450 | 153 |
| 3 | Philip Cheng | $108,000 | 360 | 108 |
| 4 | Cary Katz | 90 thousand dollars | 270 | 90 |
| 5 | Adrian Matthews | $72,000 | 225 | 72 |
| 6 | Christine Foxen | $54,000 | 180 | 54 |
Image credit: PokerGO / Antonio ABrego.
