An elegant velvet blazer can really class up an outfit. Just ask David Coleman, who spruced up a casual look with the Poker Masters Purple Jacket, which he earned with an impressive run at the PokerGO Tour tournament series.
Coleman cashed three times for a total of $657,700 across the 10-event schedule. The series ran from Sept. 19 to Oct. 2 inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino.
Along with the money came 492 points, which gave him a 63-point margin of victory over second-ranked Alex Foxen. In addition to the jacket, Coleman also took home a $25,000 PGT Passport.
The Vegas-based poker pro, originally hailing from New Jersey, has made 11 final tables in 2025, putting him inside the top 40 in the Card Player Player of the Year race standings presented by CoinPoker.
His run this year includes four consecutive runner-up showings in high-stakes events at the European Poker Tour Barcelona stop. He cashed for nearly $2.3 million in those events alone, and has almost $3.9 million in total earnings across 26 total cashes this year. The upshot is that Coleman, who came into 2024 without a live title to his name, now has more than $12.7 million in lifetime earnings, with seven titles won since the start of last year.
Coleman kicked off his Poker Masters campaign in the best way possible, taking down the $5,000 buy-in $1 million guaranteed showcase event at the start of the schedule for his latest addition to his burgeoning trophy cabinet. He outlasted 239 entries to earn $270,000. His second cash came nearly a week later, with an 11th-place finish worth $32,700 in event no. 6, a $10,000 buy-in.
Heading into the $25,000 finale, Coleman was sitting in fifth place in the series standings. Alex Foxen had the lead in the clubhouse thanks to his win in event no. 6 and runner-up finish in event no. 8, worth a combined $468,000, but Coleman’s run would unseat him at the top.
The event drew 63 total entries, with seven making day 2. Coleman needed to finish inside the top three, and he did one better by taking second for $355,000, plenty enough to pass Foxen.
Coleman is the 10th player to win the jacket since this series first debuted in 2017, with two champions crowned online during the live poker shutdown of 2020. Notable winners have included Steffen Sontheimer (2017), Sam Soverel (2019), Michael Addamo (2021), Sean Winter (2022), Stephen Chidwick (2023), and now, David Coleman.
Coleman And Zulker Triumph In Early $5,000 Events
Coleman And Zulker Triumph In Early $5,000 EventsA total of 1,077 entries were made across the ten events that made up this festival, resulting in $10,540,000 in prize money shared by the 85 players who recorded cashes along the way. Coleman was one of 36 players to rack up six figures in earnings.
Coleman’s spree began in the $5,300 buy-in $1 million showcase, which drew 239 entries across two starting days and resulted in a final prize pool of $1,195,000. Coleman earned $270,000 for the win.
The last few eliminations of the event all came at Coleman’s hands, giving him roughly a 3:1 chip advantage heading into heads-up play with bracelet winner Mitchell Halverson. Coleman soon converted the lead into the title, sending Halverson packing with $185,000 as the runner-up.
The second event was another $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em affair. It attracted 130 entries, creating a prize pool of $650,000. The biggest chunk of that money was ultimately awarded to champion Mike Zulker, who ran away with the title down the stretch to secure the trophy and $157,000. This was
the second-largest score of his career, trailing only the $929,688 he earned as the runner-up in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha event at this summer’s World Series of Poker. He now boasts more than $2.1 million in lifetime earnings.
The Usual Suspects Find The Winner’s Circle
The next five scheduled events were all no-limit hold’em events with $10,000 buy-ins, which were all won by highly accomplished pros with lengthy résumés.
Event no. 3 was won by Andrew Moreno. The 42-year-old based out of Texas outlasted a field of 101 entries, earning $252,000 as the champion. This was the fourth-largest score yet for Moreno, who now has more than $6.2 million in recorded winnings. His largest payday remains the $1.46 million he secured as the champion of the 2021 Wynn Millions main event.
Moreno has been having quite the year on the live tournament circuit. The longtime poker pro has won three titles and made 10 final tables in 2025, including his windfall in this event. His 5,108 POY points are good for 20th in the overall standings.
Darren Elias looked to be cruising to another big win on the circuit when he entered the final day of event no. 4 as the chip leader. He then made it down to heads-up with a sizable advantage over his lone remaining opponent. That is when his road to victory took a wild detour. Less than an hour after seeming to have David Chen on the ropes, Elias was the one who was all-in, at risk, and in need of help.
The bracelet winner and four-time WPT champion was able to find some key cards when his tournament life depended on them, though, and eventually surged back in front and closed out the victory. Elias earned $280,000 for the win, bringing his lifetime haul to nearly $15.1 million.
Elias was not the only multi-time WPT main event winner to take down a title at this series. Three-time WPT champ Chino Rheem surged across the finish line in event no. 5, scoring the final three knockouts to close out the victory. Rheem earned $280,000 for topping the field of 112 entries, growing his career earnings to $17.2 million in the process.
The 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure winner now has 18 recorded titles. He is also a two-time PGT Mixed Games series champion. Rheem cashed four times during this festival, earning $367,300 as he went. As a result, he finished fourth in the series standings.
Alex Foxen won the penultimate $10,000 event on the slate. Foxen has proven to be one of the most consistent players on the live tournament circuit for much of the last decade. The 34-year-old poker pro has finished inside the top 10 in the final Card Player Player of the Year standings for seven straight years.
Foxen is now on track to extend that incredible run even further in 2025, as he currently sits in second place in the POY standings presented by CoinPoker, having won four titles and made 18 POY-qualified final tables this year.
Foxen’s latest title run saw him defeat a field of 109 entries to earn $272,000. The three-time bracelet winner was not yet done padding his stats, though, as he would make another podium showing just a few days later to temporarily propel him into the lead in the race for the Purple Jacket.
Rounding out the $10,000 event champions was Cary Katz. The PokerGO founder earned $223,300, his seventh career PokerGO Tour trophy, and his first-ever Poker Masters win. Katz, who finally captured his first bracelet this summer, beat out 77 entries to secure his 31st overall tournament title. His career haul now sits at more than $41.3 million, with $329,450 added across four total cashes during this series.
Le And Saliba Take Down $15,000 Titles
Nguyen Le entered this year with about $233,000 in recorded poker tournament earnings under his belt. The Vietnam-born resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts now has more than $4.6 million in cashes after one of the most impressive breakouts in recent memory. The latest addition to his rapidly expanding list of accomplishments saw him top 67 entries in the first $15,000 buy-in event at the Poker Masters to earn $301,000.
Le has cashed 17 times so far this year, accumulating more than $4.4 million. He’s made eight final tables and won three titles in this stretch, including taking down a $50,000 high roller at the WSOP for his first gold bracelet and $2.7 million. A week before that win, he took down the Aria Poker Classic BetMGM Championship $3,500 main event for $777,777.
Le had plenty of tough competition to contend with down the stretch on his way to securing this latest title, including current POY race leader Jesse Lonis (6th – $55,500), six-time bracelet winner and reigning PGT Player of the Year Jeremy Ausmus (3rd – $135,500), and Foxen (2nd – $196,000). With $468,000 in total earnings, Foxen officially claimed the top spot in the points race heading into the final two events.
Foxen now boasts $55.4 million in lifetime earnings, which puts him just outside the top 10 on poker’s all-time money list. He also moved into first place in the season-long PGT standings, with three qualified wins and 19 cashes so far totaling nearly $5.7 million.
The second and final $15,000 buy-in saw Justin Saliba overcome a star-studded final table to earn $301,000 as the champion. This was the 24th cash for six figures or more by the two-time bracelet winner, who now boasts nearly $11.4 million in career earnings.
This event drew a field of 67 entries, making for a prize pool of $1,005,000 that was split amongst the top 10 finishers, which included Kristen Foxen and Jesse Lonis. Foxen, a five-time bracelet winner, was able to outlast Lonis, who earned $135,000 for third place.
The 30-year-old poker pro from New York has made 23 final tables in 2025, accruing more than $10.6 million across those scores, with seven titles won. His 9,681 points keep him in front of the POY pack heading into the final few months of the race.
The $196,000 payout for second place grew Foxen’s career earnings to nearly $14.2 million. She now sits almost $3.3 million ahead of second-ranked Vanessa Selbst on the women’s tournament earnings leaderboard.
Brandon Wilson Crushes $25,000 Finale
Brandon Wilson has taken his tournament poker game to a whole new level in the past couple of years. He has cashed for over $6.8 million since the start of 2024, including winning seven titles, including the $25,000 buy-in finale at this series. All those triumphs have come in events with buy-ins of $10,000 or higher.
“I prepare hard for this. I’m not perfect, but I prepare hard, I try hard, and sometimes you get rewarded with results. When it happens, it does mean a lot,” Wilson told PokerGO.
Wilson’s latest win saw him outlast 63 entries for $464,000 in prize money. He now boasts lifetime earnings of nearly $8.1 million. This was his fourth title and 12th final-table finish of 2025 alone. The 504 POY points that came with the trophy grew his total to 6,712, placing him sixth on the leaderboard.
Five of Wilson’s top 10 most significant tournament scores have been made in 2025, including his first seven-figure payday. A few weeks before this win, he finished runner-up in a $50,000 buy-in at the Triton Jeju stop for $1,150,000.
The top nine finishers earned a share of the $1,575,000 prize pool in this event, with Vinny Lingham eliminated on the bubble. Chino Rheem (9th) and his fellow WPT champion Aram Oganyan (8th) bowed out inside the money by the end of day 1.
The second and final day began with seven players remaining, all of whom had locked up at least $63,000 by reaching that point. David Chen (7th) ultimately took home that sum, ending his long-shot hopes of securing the series championship.
Jason Koon was eliminated in sixth place for $86,600. This score grew his career earnings to more than $69.3 million, putting him third on the all-time money list.
Nick Schulman (5th – $118,100) now sits in fourth place in the PGT season-long standings, with one title and 13 final-table finishes. He also climbed inside the top 20 in the POY rankings after this performance.
Three-time bracelet winner Dylan Linde finished fourth for $157,500, surpassing $15 million in career earnings.
Doug Lee has been hot on the tour recently, parlaying a satellite into a third-place finish in the PGT Venetian Classic before placing sixth in the kickoff event and second in event no. 6 at this festival.
His third-place finish in the finale was worth $220,500, the third-largest score of his career. The $462,500 he secured across his four cashes at this festival grew his career earnings to more than $2.7 million.
Heads-up play began with a 2:1 chip advantage for Wilson over Coleman. The final two contenders soon hashed out a deal to redistribute the remaining prize money, locking up $355,000 for Coleman while Wilson assured himself of at least $395,000. That left $69,000 and the trophy to play for.
The final hand of the tournament saw Wilson make two pair against Coleman’s top pair to collect the rest of the chips. With that, Wilson locked up the final trophy of the festival while Coleman got his hands on the Purple Jacket thanks to his clutch finish in the finale.
- Photos by PokerGO – Antonio Abrego