Just days after Jeremy Ausmus was crowned the latest PGT Championship winner for $500,000, the PokerGO Tour begins again. The season-starting PGT Kick-Off festival features five big buy-in events, with the first four costing $5,300 to play and the other costing $10,100, five events will not only shape the early leaderboard in the race to reach the top 40 but reward the early birds of 2025 with hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Who Is Playing the Opening Event?
Some stellar names are lining up to take a piece of the pie in the opening $5,300-entry No Limit Hold’em Event #1. Famed poker player and legendary author Maria Konnikova is taking part in the event, with a markup of just 1.05. Selling just 7% of her action, Konnikova is going to sell out soon so be quick in heading to the official PokerStake PGT Kick Off staking page to take your slice.
Victoria Livschitz is another female player you don’t want to ignore as she begins her assault on yet more NLHE glory in 2025. Livschitz is selling 50% of her action to the opening event and at no markup (1.00), so make sure you get in while it’s hot. Victoria, known as ‘Trekker’ for her mountain-climbing won us over in telling us about her journey in technology and poker back in May last year. She also took home over $600,000 in winnings in 2024, cashing over two dozen times in ranking events. Livschitz also came third in a PGT Last Chance event earlier this year for $127,650.
Jonathan Little has sold over half of his available 35% of action to Event #1 in the PGT Kick Off series. At a markup of 1.05, Little is enormous value, with an enviable record in PokerGO Tour events in the last couple of years. Little’s recent PGT cashes more than put him in contention for the outright title in the first fortnight of 2025, but Jeremy Ausmus took the plaudits after winning the $500,000 top prize.
Hendrix Playing a Tune
Hawaii’s most successful ever poker player, Adam Hendrix, heads into this year’s PGT Kick Off playing Event #5 as a certainty. Costing $10,100 to play, Hendrix is selling not one or two but three bullets to the events, with entry #1 at 1.15 markup, and entries #2 and #3 at 1.10 markup.
Hendrix has a superb record in big buy-in events, with over half of his best scores coming in events with a $10,000 or higher buy-in. Indeed, over the course of an amazing career, Hendrix has won over $7.5 million by beating some of the best players ever to look down at hole cards. Adam is number one on the All-Time Money List for players from Alaska, and as we found out from his ‘state mate’ Jeremy Hamey, so many of his peers look up to him from across America that he has earned a global respect in the game.
Three of Adam’s best five career results have come in the last 30 months, with his biggest victory the WPT World Championship $3,000-entry tournament just four weeks ago. The event yielded a return of $629,000 when he beat Ian O’Hara heads-up at a final table that also included Jeremy Becker and Hendrix’ recent late-stage mastery means he’s a lock for value in the Main Event here in Las Vegas.
Stephen on Song in Final Event
Also selling to Event #5 exclusively is Stephen Song. With $8.8 million in career earnings, and all his results coming in the last eight years, Stephen Song has enjoyed a rapid rise to superstardom in poker. Cashing three times in the PGT Last Chance festival at the start of this year, familiarity has bred contentment for the talented Song, who cashed for over $150,000 in three events with buy-ins totalling $30,000.
Song has long been a player to watch but his biggest win is also one of his most recent like Hendrix. In September of 2024, Stephen won an amazing $1,425,000 in Barcelona when he won the European Poker Tour Main Event, beating Andrew Hulme heads-up and outlasting emerging stars Rania Nareddine (4th) and PokerStake’s own David Coleman (5th) at the final table too.
With some of the world’s finest players to pick from, do you pick the ever-reliable Jonathan Little, the rising star of the high roller circuit Victoria Livschitz, or the in-form Maria Konnikova to win across the series? If you’re only looking to back players in the Main Event, you can add talented high stakes regulars Stephen Song and Adam Hendrix in there too.
There are five events to choose from in the PGT Kick Off series. You can check out who is selling to each and every event in Las Vegas at the PokerGO Studio by heading to our official staking page for the series here. Good luck!
