Eric Blair Tops Red-Hot Joey Weissman To Win Latest PokerGO Cup Event

Joey Weissman has been on fire through the first half of the 2025 PokerGO Cup. The poker pro based out of Las Vegas has made it down to heads-up in three of the four tournaments that have played out so far at the eight-event festival, with one title and two runner-up finishes secured along the way.

The most recent top-two showing saw Weissman navigate his way through a field of 98 entries down to the last two contenders in event no. 4, the third $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event on the schedule. In the end, longtime poker pro Eric Blair came out on top in this event, earning $254,800 as the champion.

This was the largest live score yet for Blair (pictured above), who has now accumulated nearly $3.1 million in tournament earnings across 324 career cashes. His first recorded score came all the way back in 2007.

Weissman secured $161,700 as the runner-up. He finished in the same spot in the $5,000 kickoff event for $123,900, losing heads-up against Michael Moncek. The same two contenders then rematched in event no. 2, which was the first of four $10,000 buy-ins at the series, with Weissman coming out on top the second time around with the trophy and $295,000. Weissman has now cashed for $580,600 so far this series, giving him a big lead in the festival-long points race.

The 98-entry turnout for this event built a $980,000 prize pool, with the top 14 finishers making the money. Only the top six moved on to day 2 action inside the PokerGO Studio, with two-time bracelet winner Justin Saliba in the lead.

Justin Sternberg lost the majority of his stack attempting a multi-street bluff against flopped trip aces for Weissman. He managed one double-up, but was soon all-in and at risk again with K-10 trailing the A-K of Saliba. Neither player connected with the board and Sternberg was eliminated in sixth place ($49,000). This was the largest tournament score yet for the Post Falls, ID resident.

Bracelet winner Aram Zobian was the next to fall, with his pocket fives losing a race against the A-J suited if a surging Saliba. A king-high runout gave Saliba a straight to earn the pot and the knockout. Zobian was awarded $68,600 as the fifth-place finisher. The 2018 WSOP main event sixth-place finisher now has more than $7.6 million in career cashes to his name.

Four-time World Poker Tour main event champion Darren Elias had been hanging around on the short stack for a while, but got his last few blinds in with Q-9 facing the 8-4 suited of Eric Blair, who called from the big blind. Elias flopped top pair, but Blair turned an eight-high straight to end his run in fourth place ($88,200). This payday pushed his career haul past the $13.8 million mark.

A clash of the pocket pairs saw event no. 1 runner-up and event no. 2 champion Joey Weissman take a big chunk out of Saliba’s lead. Weissman’s pocket fives held up against pocket threes for Saliba to considerably narrow the gap between them.

Weissman had all but pulled into a tie for the lead by the time the next big clash arose. With blinds of 40,000-80,000 and a big blind ante of 80,000, Saliba raised to 175,000 on the button with 88 and Weissman three-bet to 900,000 from the big blind with QQ. Saliba called and the flop came down J75. Weissman checked and Saliba bet 350,000. Weissman check-called and the turn brought the 3 and both players checked. The 10 river prompted a 650,000 bet from Weissman. Saliba called and was shown the overpair of his opponent. With that Weissman jumped out into the lead, while Saliba’s stack took a sizable hit.

Saliba’ slide continued as three-handed play progressed. He eventually was all-in with K4 trailing the AJ of Weissman. Weissman made jacks and tens with an ace kicker to win the pot and eliminate Saliba in third place. The $117,600 he secured for his showing in this event increased his lifetime earnings to nearly $9.9 million.

Start-of-day chip leader Justin_Saliba</a> out in third place, and <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeyWeissman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">JoeyWeissman is heads up once again at the PokerGO Cup.

Streaming on PokerGO. https://t.co/CSU1B3YoND pic.twitter.com/4POp0ghhfG

— PokerGO (@PokerGO) February 16, 2025

Weissman entered heads-up play with 7,675,000 to Blair’s 4,575,000. That lead had been narrowed to almost nothing by the time the decisive hand of the tournament arose. Blair raised from the button with KQ and four-bet shoved over the top of Weissman’s three-bet. Weissman called with 88 and the board ran out Q104A5 and Blair doubled into a massive lead. Weissman was left with just a single big blind after the hand, and was eliminated moments later when Blair’s 6-2 suited made a winning pair of deuces.

Weissman was awarded 450 Card Player Player of the Year points as the runner-up. This was his sixth final-table finish of the year, including the three top-two showings he’s managed at this series. With 2,127 total points, he has now moved into first place in the 2025 POY race presented by Global Poker. He’s also surged into the top spot in the season-long PokerGO Tour rankings with 730 total PGT points.

Here is a look at the payouts and rankings points awarded at the final table:

Photo credit: PokerGO / Enrique Malfavon.

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