Photo Finish: Alex Foxen Wins 2025 PGT Player Of The Year Award

The PokerGO Tour Last Chance series was aptly named. The festival not only gave several players a final shot at qualifying for the season-ending PGT $1,000,000 Championship, it also resulted in a buzzer beater in the PGT points race that locked up the tour’s Player of the Year award for Alex Foxen.

The New York native took down the title in the very last points-awarding event of the 2025 PGT season, earning 232 points for the win to beat out eventual runner-up Sam Soverel by a margin of 155 points.

The latest win saw the 34-year-old Foxen outlast a field of 83 entries in a $10,000 buy-in single-day turbo no-limit hold’em affair that closed out the PGT Last Chance festival, earning $232,400 and his fifth PGT title of the season. It was a back-and-forth affair down the stretch, as Soverel had only moved ahead in the race in late December thanks to a podium showing in Super High Roller Bowl X.

All told, Foxen accumulated almost $6.3 million in earnings across 27 in-the-money finishes in PGT-qualified events, with 10 top-three showings. With seven titles during previous PGT seasons, his career count now sits at 12, which is the highest total of any player.

“It definitely means a lot to me,” Foxen told Card Player. “I think that any of the long term leaderboards definitely carry more meaning to me. I think they’re kind of a more accurate barometer of performance than any individual score, series long score, or anything like that. So, yeah, it definitely, definitely feels really good to get that one.”

Consistency has been a pillar of Foxen’s game, having finished in the top 10 of the Card Player POY race in eight of the last nine years. In addition to his success in PGT events in 2025, he also cashed for another $5 million on other high-stakes tours. The three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner now has over $56.4 million in lifetime earnings to his name, putting him just inside the top 10 on poker’s all-time money list.

“I love poker, for one, and I like what they do at PokerGO,” Foxen said. “I love supporting this endeavor. And, above all else, I just love the competition. It’s always been my number one driver, to be able to compete with the best.”

While Foxen and Soverel traded the lead in the final days, Chino Rheem also made an impressive push across the finish line. He recorded four cashes during the six-event PGT Last Chance series, bringing his total in-the-money finishes on the season to 35.

Foxen Heats Up In The Spring

Foxen’s PGT POY campaign got off to a bit of a slow start. He had no cashes in January and only two small in-the-money finishes during the PokerGO Cup in February totaling just over $50,000.

Things picked up in the spring, however. He cashed five times during the first of two PGT PLO Series held in 2025, including winning a $15,000 event for $315,000. He also managed two second-place showings and a third-place finish. All told, he cashed for $647,185 during the festival, and fell just short of securing series champion honors.

The former Boston College football player followed that up with his second win of the month, coming out on top in a U.S. Poker Open $15,000 no-limit hold’em event for $340,200. That win came one day removed from a fifth-place finish in another event at the same price point, which added another $102,900 to his tally.

Foxen’s most impactful result of the year came in the WSOP $250,000 super high roller, an event he won back in 2022. This time he finished second from a field of 63 entries to earn $3,060,314 and 600 PGT points. He cashed in eight PGT-qualified WSOP events overall during the summer series, earning nearly $4.1 million along the way.

Finishing Strong

Foxen maintained his momentum heading into the fall months. He earned his third title of the year in a PGT Poker Masters $10,000 event in September, taking home $272,000 and an eye-catching purple jacket trophy. Just a few days after that triumph, he made it down to heads-up play in a $15,000 event. He fell just short, earning $196,000 as the runner-up.

Foxen’s fourth win of the year came at the PGT PLO Series II in October. He kicked off the series with cash in the $5,000 opening event, then beat out 133 entries in a quattro bounty event the following day. That win came with $87,000 in prize money and $90,000 in bounties. He wound up cashing in half of the 10 PLO events offered, accumulating $231,850 for the festival.

While he failed to log any PGT cashes in November, Foxen still had plenty of gas left in the tank for the sprint to the finish. His final push began with a 115th-place finish in the WSOP Paradise $25,000 super main event.

He closed out the season with two cashes during the PGT Last Chance series that ran in early January. After an eighth-place finish in event no. 3, with POY honors hanging in the balance, Foxen finished strong. Needing fourth place or better in the last tournament of the festival to pass Soverel, Foxen came up clutch in the closing moments, winning the tournament outright to lock up the 2025 PGT Player of the Year award.

Foxen’s 10 Best Scores From The PGT Season

Final PGT POY Standings

While Alex Foxen narrowly secured the PokerGO Tour Player of the Year honors, he was far from the only player to put together an incredible PGT performance. In fact, he wasn’t even the only player from his family to have done so, as his wife Kristen finished 10th in the standings with 18 cashes across the season.

Sam Soverel took the lead in the standings with a final-table appearance in the Super High Roller Bowl X roughly a week before 2025 came to a close, finishing third for $350,000. He was looking good for the title, until Foxen passed him during the Last Chance series. Soverel had 32 PGT-qualified cashes, the second-most of any of the more than 2,600 players that earned PGT points during the year. Along the way, the Florida native made 14 final tables and finished inside the top three eight times. His four outright victories included a pair of ARIA high roller triumphs, his fourth career World Series of Poker bracelet via a win in the $10,000 six-max championship, and a North American Poker Tour Las Vegas title at Resorts World.

The only player to top Soverel in the PGT cashes column was Chino Rheem with 36. The European Poker Tour main event champion and three-time World Poker Tour winner showed off the versatility of his game, with PGT victories in an eight-game event, two pot-limit Omaha tournaments, a $5,100 progressive knockout event, and straight-up no-limit hold’em. Rheem was crowned the series champion in both the PGT Mixed Games series and the PGT PLO Series II, becoming the first to ever win three PGT series championships, having previously also taken down the 2023 PGT Mixed Games II.

Both Soverel and Rheem helped cement their spots in the top three with impressive runs at the PGT Last Chance festival, with Soverel cashing three times while Rheem made three final tables during the six-event series.

Michael Mizrachi was the next-closest contender on the list. He recorded just four qualified scores, but his incredible one-two punch of winning both the WSOP $50,000 Poker Players Championship (for a record-extending fourth time) and the $10,000 main event. Mizrachi was, understandably, inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame on the spot after becoming the world champion. The $10,000,000 payday that came with his eighth bracelet pushed his lifetime earnings to over $29 million.

Card Player POY winner Jesse Lonis finished seventh on this leaderboard, with $2.4 million of his $13.3 million in earnings for the year coming on the PokerGO Tour. He won three times on the PGT, and made 13 final tables overall.

• Photos by PokerGO