PokerGO Tour Sets $500,000 Championship Freeroll for Las Vegas
The Jan. 11-12 finale pays five places, with leaderboard position determining each player’s starting stack.
- The 2026 Season PGT Championship will run Jan. 11-12, 2027, at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas.
- The top 40 on the PGT leaderboard and selected Dream Seat winners can enter the invitation-only freeroll.
- Five places will be paid, with a $250,000 winner’s package and a $25,000 minimum payout.
- Sean Winter led the standings at the announcement, but remaining festivals can still reshape the qualifying field.
- January’s Last Chance festival will award five Dream Seats before the Championship.
The PokerGO Tour will close its 2026 season with a $500,000 Championship Freeroll at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas on Jan. 11-12, 2027. The field will include the top 40 players on the season leaderboard, along with selected Dream Seat winners from the RunGood Poker Series and other qualifying routes.
PokerNews reported that five players will be paid. The champion receives $250,000, split between $100,000 in cash and $150,000 in PGT Passport cash, while the minimum payout is $25,000, comprising $10,000 in cash and $15,000 in PGT Passport cash.
Leaderboard position will matter before the first hand is dealt, as starting stacks are based on each player’s standing. Players seeking a leaderboard place must have cashed in at least four PGT events during the season, including one tournament owned and operated by PGT, and must opt in before the PGT Last Chance Series begins.
At the time of the announcement, Sean Winter led the standings with 2,223 points, with two wins and 17 cashes. Eelis Parssinen and Jeremy Ausmus followed him, with Ausmus having recently added points through a Poker Masters trophy.
Alex Foxen, Brock Wilson and Adrian Mateos were also in the top 10. Foxen is a 13-time PokerGO champion, Wilson has won the PokerGO Cup and US Poker Open, and Mateos recently captured the overall Poker Masters title despite bubbling half of that festival’s events.
Daniel Negreanu was inside the top 40. His season included an eighth bracelet, won in a $100,000 PLO High Roller for $2.3 million, plus a runner-up finish in a $26,000 Poker Masters no-limit hold’em event worth $262,500.
The standings are still not final. The PGT Sprint festival was underway when the Championship was announced, and January’s Last Chance festival will offer another five Dream Seats. As we reported Oct. 1, the RunGood Dream Factory Festival also has two separate PGT Championship-seat routes for eligible RunGood ring winners.
PokerGO CEO Brent Hanks called the Championship the culmination of poker’s toughest year-round competition, saying the freeroll gives players who have competed through the season a final chance at a signature win.
The new event carries half the prize money of the previous season’s Championship Freeroll, which drew 54 players for a $1 million prize pool. Chad Eveslage won that event’s $500,000 first prize, ahead of Andrew Lichtenberger, Michael Wang and Negreanu.
