Jacob Mitich Wins bestbet Jacksonville Winter Open Main Event$1,500 Buy-In Event Draws 341 Entries, With $93,841 Up Top |
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The 2025 bestbet Jacksonville Winter Open $1,500 no-limit hold’em main event drew 341 entries, easily surpassing the tournament’s $300,000guarantee to create a final prize pool of $448,415.
The top 43 finishers earned a share of that sum, with the largest chunk going to eventual champion Jacob Mitich. The Hanover, MD resident earned a career-best score of $93,841, which brought his lifetime haul to $151,000.
Mitich was also awarded 480 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win, enough to move him within striking distance of the top 100 in the 2025 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.
This was Mitich’s second recorded title, having previously won a $400 buy-in event at the 2023 Potomac Winter Poker Open in his home state of Maryland.
Mitich scored the first knockout of the day at the final table. All the chips went in with his A-6 suited facing the K-8 suited of Jacksonville local Kelly Slay. There was quite the sweat going into the river, with Slay having improved to kings up while Mitich had the nut flush draw and an open-ended straight draw. The river brought a third spade to fill Mitich’s flush, sending Slay home in ninth place ($9,384).
Brian Haas (8th – $11,858) was dispatched by Jason Like ahead of Mitich scoring his second elimination of the day. His pocket sixes held against the pocket fives of Carlos Vizoso (7th – $15,173) to narrow the field to six contenders.
Nicholas Stiles’ (6th – $19,659) run came to an end when his A-9 was unable to hold against the A-2 of Like. Despite earning that knockout, Like was the next to fall. He got all-in with bottom pair trailing the middle pair of Dusty Nelson and was unable to come from behind, finishing fifth for $25,787.
Nelson ran AQ
into the pocket kings of Mitich to finish fourth ($34,238). Nelson is now approaching $1.1 million in recorded earnings after this latest deep run.
Yi Li was the next player to run into the Mitich buzzsaw, with his K-Q clashing against A-6. Mitich finished with a pair of aces to win the pot, sending Li packing with a career-best score of $46,007 for his third-place showing.
Heads-up play began with Mitich holding 7,060,000 to Charles King’s 3,205,000. King had narrowed the gap slightly ahead of the final hand of the tournament. He shoved from the button with 87
for 3,690,000 at 40,000-80,000 with a big blind ante of 80,000. Mitich called with 6
6
and the board came down 10
5
2
Q
4
to bring the event to a close. King earned $62,561 as the runner-up.
Check out a replay of the final table action via bestbetLIVE below:
Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:
Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
1 | Jacob Mitich | $93,841 | 480 |
2 | Charles King | $62,561 | 400 |
3 | Yi Li | $46,007 | 320 |
4 | Dustin Nelson | $34,238 | 240 |
5 | Jason Like | $25,787 | 200 |
6 | Nicholas Stiles | $19,659 | 160 |
7 | Carlos Vizoso | $15,173 | 120 |
8 | Brian Haas | $11,858 | 80 |
9 | Kelly Slay | $9,384 | 40 |
Photo provided by bestbet Jacksonville.