2025 Pure Poker Tour Series #1 – Event #13: $1,100 Main Event

In just his second entry on Hendon Mob, Tien Shen has now booked a win, and it was a pretty big one. He got heads up against Alex Liu in the Main Event today with a 3:2 lead and the final two decided to chop it up, ICM style. Phung got $56,669 along with the trophy and the PPT swag while runner-up Liu got $54k.

There was no heads-up play tonight as Alex Liu and Tien Phung agreed to an ICM deal. Liu was the shorter stack by about 3:2 and got $54k from the deal and second place.

It was quite a run for Greg Wood today. He was nursing a short stack for much of the final table but still managed to ladder up to 3rd place. He shoved the shorty with king-jack but ran into queens for Alex Liu. The queens held and Wood was out for almost $30k.

The heads up players are on a short break with Tien Phung playing 6.085 million against 4.042 million for Liu.

The game went three ways after Nathan Masih flopped top-top and got his money in but ran into a straight to hit the rail for 4th place tonight.

Greg Wood was on life support with 245k after he paid his big blind. It all went in after Tien Phung raised to 75k and Nathan Masih called. Both players called the shove, then checked down the 5♣9♠10♣3♠4♥. Wood let out a yell as he rolled over pocket fours for the rivered set, ahead of eights for Masih and the busted flush and straight draws for Phung with queen-jack of clubs.

DJ Sharma ran into the red-hot Tien Phung to end his run today in 5th place. He shoved his button with pocket fives, but Phung woke up with queens in the small blind and called it off. There was no Sharma Time as the queens held and the happiest guy at any poker table hit the cage for 5th place

There are just 5 players left after Jeffrey Weiss hit the cage for 6th place tonight. He flopped a nine and looked to be in good shape in the race against the sevens of Nathan Masih, but Masih hit his set for the win.

They are down to 6 left now after Andy Truong couldn’t win a race. Tien Phung raised under the gun to 75k before Truong shoved 875k from the button. Phung made the call with ace-jack over tens for Truong, then flopped his jack on the K♣6♠J♣Q♠2♥ board to send Truong out in 6th.

They are down to 7 left now after Ryan Smith lost a race with deuces into king-jack to end his Main Event run in 8th place tonight.

Thomas Taylor just hit the cage in 9th place in a brutal cooler. Both he and Alex Liu flopped a straight when the flop was trey-four-five, but Taylor’s ace-deuce was on the low end with Liu’s seven-six hitting the top end.

Tien Phung started a limpfest under the gun with 4more players following him to the 8♣A♦3♠ flop. It checked around to the 6♥ turn where small blind Ryan Smith fired out 25k. DJ Sharma called from the big blind, as did Greg Wood from the button.

On the Q♠ river it checked around to Wood who fired 60k. Smith got out of the way quickly but Sharma put in the call, mucking when Wood turned over Sharma’s favorite hand, pocket sixes for the turned set.

Nathan Masih bet 50k under the gun, then called when Greg Wood raised it to 130k from the middle. The flop was Q♥J♥9♣ and after a check from Masih, Wood shoved.

Masih snap-called with pocket jacks for the flopped set against the top-top ace-queen for Wood. The 5♣7♠ didn’t help Wood and he was down to about 400k with Masih rocketing up to about 725k.

DJ Sharma limped in early and Thomas Taylor and Nathan Masih both came along from the blinds to the A♦A♣J♠ flop. It checked around on both the 5♥J♣ turn and river.

“I think I have it,” Sharma said. “King-high.”

Taylor quietly said “Ace” as he tossed out the ace-king for the flopped trips and riverboat. It seemed clear Taylor was looking to trap, but no one else was taking the bait.

Tien Phung has about twice as many chips as second-place Alex Liu. Liu has 1.67 million to 3.31 million for Phung while no one else at the table has 1 million.

Tien Phung is on a roll with the big stack now. I’ll get exact counts for everyone at the break, but Phung has been taking chips over the last few minutes. In the most recent hand, he was blind on blind with Jeff Weiss when he raised the small blind to 60k and got the call.

Both players checked the A♠10♦J♠ flop and Phung fired 40k on the 6♣ turn. They both went back to checks on the A♣ turn and Phung showed 10♣2♣ for two pair with the suited Doyle.

They are about 20 minutes from the next break and I’ll grab full chip counts while they are away from the table, but it looks like Tien Phung is the leader right now with about 3 million in front of him. There are just over 10 million in play, so he has close to 1/3rd of them.

The final table is now set after David Devere bubbled the FT in 10th place tonight for a score of $5,640 while I was out of the room using the washroom.

Shen Liew is out on the soft bubble to the final table after running his sevens into the aces of Alex Liu. Lie turned open-ended on 5♥4♦J♠6♦4♠ but then bricked the river to hit the rail.

They are down to 11 left now, 2 off the final table, after the exit if Sharmark Mohamed after a hand that I missed while I was in the washroom.

They are down to 12 left now after Naleen Narayan couldn’t find any help for his dominated king. He was up against king-queen with a suited king-seven and, with two kings on the K♥A♣K♣4♦J♥ runout, the bigger king of Tuen Phung held for the win and the bust.

Sharmark Mohamed opened it up to 30k from the cutoff and Nathan Masih called from the big blind. They both checked the 9♣3♥4♥ flop and Masih check-called for 40k on the Q♣ turn. He check-called again for 100k on the K♦ river and showed down queen-jack for the win against ace-five of diamonds for Mohamed.

Cody Goulet was the 14th-place finisher tonight, though I missed the action while I was having some dinner. There are now just under 30 minutes to play in Level 20.

Ian Alvarado hit the cage just before the end of Level 19 for 15th place. See below for the remaining 14 stacks with Alex Liu in a slight lead over Thomas Taylor and David Devere, all of whom have more than 1 million in play right now.

Nathan Masih raised the cutoff to 25k, then asked for a count when Kyle Hartree shoved the small blind. The count was 192k and Masih made the call for a race between Hartree’s pocket fives and ace-six for Masih.

The turn brought a six and nothing else on the K♥J♠2♠6♣10♠ board helped Hartree.

David Devere just got a double-plus through Ryan Smith and Tien Phung. The flop was already out reading 10♥5♠J♥ and Devere was all in with Smith reshoving more. That left Phung in the tank and he finally mucked his hand, letting out a shout of glee when the other two hands turned over.

Smith flopped a set of jacks while Devere was drawing to hearts with [invalid notations] runout, but the river sunk him with an unpaired heart.

Meanwhile, on the other table, Chris Symesko hit the rail for 17th place tonight.

Alex Liu opened the cutoff to 26k and got calls from Shn Liuw and Sharmark Mohamed in the blinds. They all checked the 9♣8♠2♣ flop and Liuw bet 30k on the 5♠ turn.

Both players called to the 7♦ river and they all checked it again. Liuw showed ace-nine from the small blind and the other two players mucked with Mohamed commenting “I thought my 8 was good.”

Meanwhile, Shane Cutinha was the first player off the final two tables tonight in 18th place.

They are down to 18 left now on the final two tables of the Main Event. See below for the recent cashes.

Place	Player	Prize
19	Alexander Richmond	$3,020
20	Abdul Zahir	$3,020
21	Glenn Tarasoff	$3,020

They are down to 21 players left as Level 17 is drawing to a close. They’ll go on a break at the end of this level and I’ll get full chip counts then. Below is a look at the recent cashers.

Place	Player	Prize
22	Jason Pelletier	$3,020
23	Julius Roque	$3,020
24	Holly Berry	$3,020

They are down to 24 left now in the Main Event. See below for the recent cashouts.

Place	Player	Prize
25	George Broumas	$3,020
26	Denis Halvadzija	$3,020
27	Johnny Dalphond	$3,020

With the Global Poker INdex awards being announced recently, I am honoured to announce that Poker Pro picked up some hardware from the event. Our writer Jonathan Raab put together an excellent look at botfarms emerging from certain markets and the article was recognized by the industry as the best of the year for written media content.

Good job to Jonathan, and TY to the GPI and all the voters who recognized the importance of the piece.

They are down to 27 left on the final three tables now after three exits. Among the players to bust recently was start-of-day chip leader David Ko. See below of the recent cashers.

Place	Player	Prize
28	Brenda Robertson	$2,290
29	Chris Lahey	$2,290
30	David Ko	$2,290

Level 16 has just kicked off and this is the first official level on the Day 2 schedule. The field is down to 30 players remaininging

Greg Wood now looks to be the big leader with close to 1 million. He’s been having a lot of fun late last night and today with one of his signature phrases, heard multiple times last night, being “I just bluffed my GRAMMA!”. Abdul Zahir is playing about 900k for what looks like the second stack.

Wood picked up the lead in a hand that saw him turn a straight to send Ryan Parungao and Leo Brouwer to the cash cage on the same hand. See below for the recent cashing players.

Place	Player	Prize
31	Jay Tran	$2,290
32	Leo Brouwer	$2,290
33	Ryan Parungao	$2,290

The field is down to 33 remaining at the first break with Colten Yamagishi ending his day in 34th place. I missed a name on the previous payout list, so below is a look at all payouts so far from today.

Place	Player	Prize
34	Colten Yamagishi	$2,290
35	Bowen Leung	$2,290
36	Lonnie Hallett	$2,290
37	Ryan Cairns	$1,800
38	Joseph Anderson	$1,800
39	Shawn Taghavi	$1,800
40	Jerry Li	$1,800
41	Kurtis Antoniuk	$1,800
42	Jeff Forester	$1,800
43	Dj Sharma	$1,800

They are down to 34 left in the Main Event now with 10 minutes to play in Level 15. Full payouts are listed under the Payouts tab with recent cahsers below.

Place	Player	Prizes
35	Bowen Leung	$2,290
36	Lonnie Hallett	$2,290
37	Ryan Cairns	$1,800
38	Joseph Anderson	$1,800
39	Shawn Taghavi	$1,800
40	Jerry Li	$1,800
41	Kurtis Antoniuk	$1,800
42	Jeff Forester	$1,800
43	Dj Sharma	$1,800

The final day of play is now underway in the Main Event. The action is scheduled to finish tonight but depending on how late things go, they may bring a few players back on Monday to finish it out.

They;ve lost one player since the start of play about 20 minutes ago with Jeff Forester hitting the rail for 42nd place (DJ Sharma bagged the 43rd place min-cash for his second stack).

The first Main Event of 2025 on the Pure Poker Tour was a pretty well-attended affair. By the time registration closed on Saturday night, there were 338 entries with a total prize pool of $317,720.

The leader going into Day 2 is Burnaby’s David Ko who bagged more than 150k more than anyone else on his Day 1a run. Ko is the founder of the UBC Poker Club and has been on fire since he burst onto the scene in 2023 with multiple WSOP-C Rings and a WPT title already.

Chris Symesko, who won an EPT event back in 2016 in Dublin, will be a dangerous #2 on Day 2 with just shy of 600k. Lonnie Hallett, who won the Seniors Bracelet in Vegas in 2023, bagged a bit more than 550k so there’s a lot of hardware and talent at the top end of the list.

Tien Phung, newcomer to the local scene, and Kyle Hartree, who won the 8-Max here at the 2024 version of this series, round out the top five for Day 2 with just over 500k each. While there were scheduled to be 43 players returning, DJ Sharma managed to Sharma Time himself into two bags this time around, so he’ll min-cash the smaller one tomorrow to start the day with 42 players in their seats.

Day 2 action kicks off at noon, with players asked to be in the room by 11:45 to get the bags open and get ready to play. Play will begin with a few minutes left in Level 14 with Level 15 played at 40 minutes and Level 16 moving to official Day 2 levels of 60 minutes.

Day 2 Players by Seat

Day 2 Players by Name

In just his second entry on Hendon Mob, Tien Shen has now booked a win, and it was a pretty big one. He got heads up against Alex Liu in the Main Event today with a 3:2 lead and the final two decided to chop it up, ICM style. Phung got $56,669 along with the trophy and the PPT swag while runner-up Liu got $54k.

There was no heads-up play tonight as Alex Liu and Tien Phung agreed to an ICM deal. Liu was the shorter stack by about 3:2 and got $54k from the deal and second place.

It was quite a run for Greg Wood today. He was nursing a short stack for much of the final table but still managed to ladder up to 3rd place. He shoved the shorty with king-jack but ran into queens for Alex Liu. The queens held and Wood was out for almost $30k.

The heads up players are on a short break with Tien Phung playing 6.085 million against 4.042 million for Liu.

The game went three ways after Nathan Masih flopped top-top and got his money in but ran into a straight to hit the rail for 4th place tonight.

Greg Wood was on life support with 245k after he paid his big blind. It all went in after Tien Phung raised to 75k and Nathan Masih called. Both players called the shove, then checked down the 5♣9♠10♣3♠4♥. Wood let out a yell as he rolled over pocket fours for the rivered set, ahead of eights for Masih and the busted flush and straight draws for Phung with queen-jack of clubs.

DJ Sharma ran into the red-hot Tien Phung to end his run today in 5th place. He shoved his button with pocket fives, but Phung woke up with queens in the small blind and called it off. There was no Sharma Time as the queens held and the happiest guy at any poker table hit the cage for 5th place

There are just 5 players left after Jeffrey Weiss hit the cage for 6th place tonight. He flopped a nine and looked to be in good shape in the race against the sevens of Nathan Masih, but Masih hit his set for the win.

They are down to 6 left now after Andy Truong couldn’t win a race. Tien Phung raised under the gun to 75k before Truong shoved 875k from the button. Phung made the call with ace-jack over tens for Truong, then flopped his jack on the K♣6♠J♣Q♠2♥ board to send Truong out in 6th.

They are down to 7 left now after Ryan Smith lost a race with deuces into king-jack to end his Main Event run in 8th place tonight.

Thomas Taylor just hit the cage in 9th place in a brutal cooler. Both he and Alex Liu flopped a straight when the flop was trey-four-five, but Taylor’s ace-deuce was on the low end with Liu’s seven-six hitting the top end.

Tien Phung started a limpfest under the gun with 4more players following him to the 8♣A♦3♠ flop. It checked around to the 6♥ turn where small blind Ryan Smith fired out 25k. DJ Sharma called from the big blind, as did Greg Wood from the button.

On the Q♠ river it checked around to Wood who fired 60k. Smith got out of the way quickly but Sharma put in the call, mucking when Wood turned over Sharma’s favorite hand, pocket sixes for the turned set.

Nathan Masih bet 50k under the gun, then called when Greg Wood raised it to 130k from the middle. The flop was Q♥J♥9♣ and after a check from Masih, Wood shoved.

Masih snap-called with pocket jacks for the flopped set against the top-top ace-queen for Wood. The 5♣7♠ didn’t help Wood and he was down to about 400k with Masih rocketing up to about 725k.

DJ Sharma limped in early and Thomas Taylor and Nathan Masih both came along from the blinds to the A♦A♣J♠ flop. It checked around on both the 5♥J♣ turn and river.

“I think I have it,” Sharma said. “King-high.”

Taylor quietly said “Ace” as he tossed out the ace-king for the flopped trips and riverboat. It seemed clear Taylor was looking to trap, but no one else was taking the bait.

Tien Phung has about twice as many chips as second-place Alex Liu. Liu has 1.67 million to 3.31 million for Phung while no one else at the table has 1 million.

Tien Phung is on a roll with the big stack now. I’ll get exact counts for everyone at the break, but Phung has been taking chips over the last few minutes. In the most recent hand, he was blind on blind with Jeff Weiss when he raised the small blind to 60k and got the call.

Both players checked the A♠10♦J♠ flop and Phung fired 40k on the 6♣ turn. They both went back to checks on the A♣ turn and Phung showed 10♣2♣ for two pair with the suited Doyle.

They are about 20 minutes from the next break and I’ll grab full chip counts while they are away from the table, but it looks like Tien Phung is the leader right now with about 3 million in front of him. There are just over 10 million in play, so he has close to 1/3rd of them.

The final table is now set after David Devere bubbled the FT in 10th place tonight for a score of $5,640 while I was out of the room using the washroom.

Shen Liew is out on the soft bubble to the final table after running his sevens into the aces of Alex Liu. Lie turned open-ended on 5♥4♦J♠6♦4♠ but then bricked the river to hit the rail.

They are down to 11 left now, 2 off the final table, after the exit if Sharmark Mohamed after a hand that I missed while I was in the washroom.

They are down to 12 left now after Naleen Narayan couldn’t find any help for his dominated king. He was up against king-queen with a suited king-seven and, with two kings on the K♥A♣K♣4♦J♥ runout, the bigger king of Tuen Phung held for the win and the bust.

Sharmark Mohamed opened it up to 30k from the cutoff and Nathan Masih called from the big blind. They both checked the 9♣3♥4♥ flop and Masih check-called for 40k on the Q♣ turn. He check-called again for 100k on the K♦ river and showed down queen-jack for the win against ace-five of diamonds for Mohamed.

Cody Goulet was the 14th-place finisher tonight, though I missed the action while I was having some dinner. There are now just under 30 minutes to play in Level 20.

Ian Alvarado hit the cage just before the end of Level 19 for 15th place. See below for the remaining 14 stacks with Alex Liu in a slight lead over Thomas Taylor and David Devere, all of whom have more than 1 million in play right now.

Nathan Masih raised the cutoff to 25k, then asked for a count when Kyle Hartree shoved the small blind. The count was 192k and Masih made the call for a race between Hartree’s pocket fives and ace-six for Masih.

The turn brought a six and nothing else on the K♥J♠2♠6♣10♠ board helped Hartree.

David Devere just got a double-plus through Ryan Smith and Tien Phung. The flop was already out reading 10♥5♠J♥ and Devere was all in with Smith reshoving more. That left Phung in the tank and he finally mucked his hand, letting out a shout of glee when the other two hands turned over.

Smith flopped a set of jacks while Devere was drawing to hearts with [invalid notations] runout, but the river sunk him with an unpaired heart.

Meanwhile, on the other table, Chris Symesko hit the rail for 17th place tonight.

Alex Liu opened the cutoff to 26k and got calls from Shn Liuw and Sharmark Mohamed in the blinds. They all checked the 9♣8♠2♣ flop and Liuw bet 30k on the 5♠ turn.

Both players called to the 7♦ river and they all checked it again. Liuw showed ace-nine from the small blind and the other two players mucked with Mohamed commenting “I thought my 8 was good.”

Meanwhile, Shane Cutinha was the first player off the final two tables tonight in 18th place.

They are down to 18 left now on the final two tables of the Main Event. See below for the recent cashes.

Place	Player	Prize
19	Alexander Richmond	$3,020
20	Abdul Zahir	$3,020
21	Glenn Tarasoff	$3,020

They are down to 21 players left as Level 17 is drawing to a close. They’ll go on a break at the end of this level and I’ll get full chip counts then. Below is a look at the recent cashers.

Place	Player	Prize
22	Jason Pelletier	$3,020
23	Julius Roque	$3,020
24	Holly Berry	$3,020

They are down to 24 left now in the Main Event. See below for the recent cashouts.

Place	Player	Prize
25	George Broumas	$3,020
26	Denis Halvadzija	$3,020
27	Johnny Dalphond	$3,020

With the Global Poker INdex awards being announced recently, I am honoured to announce that Poker Pro picked up some hardware from the event. Our writer Jonathan Raab put together an excellent look at botfarms emerging from certain markets and the article was recognized by the industry as the best of the year for written media content.

Good job to Jonathan, and TY to the GPI and all the voters who recognized the importance of the piece.

They are down to 27 left on the final three tables now after three exits. Among the players to bust recently was start-of-day chip leader David Ko. See below of the recent cashers.

Place	Player	Prize
28	Brenda Robertson	$2,290
29	Chris Lahey	$2,290
30	David Ko	$2,290

Level 16 has just kicked off and this is the first official level on the Day 2 schedule. The field is down to 30 players remaininging

Greg Wood now looks to be the big leader with close to 1 million. He’s been having a lot of fun late last night and today with one of his signature phrases, heard multiple times last night, being “I just bluffed my GRAMMA!”. Abdul Zahir is playing about 900k for what looks like the second stack.

Wood picked up the lead in a hand that saw him turn a straight to send Ryan Parungao and Leo Brouwer to the cash cage on the same hand. See below for the recent cashing players.

Place	Player	Prize
31	Jay Tran	$2,290
32	Leo Brouwer	$2,290
33	Ryan Parungao	$2,290

The field is down to 33 remaining at the first break with Colten Yamagishi ending his day in 34th place. I missed a name on the previous payout list, so below is a look at all payouts so far from today.

Place	Player	Prize
34	Colten Yamagishi	$2,290
35	Bowen Leung	$2,290
36	Lonnie Hallett	$2,290
37	Ryan Cairns	$1,800
38	Joseph Anderson	$1,800
39	Shawn Taghavi	$1,800
40	Jerry Li	$1,800
41	Kurtis Antoniuk	$1,800
42	Jeff Forester	$1,800
43	Dj Sharma	$1,800

They are down to 34 left in the Main Event now with 10 minutes to play in Level 15. Full payouts are listed under the Payouts tab with recent cahsers below.

Place	Player	Prizes
35	Bowen Leung	$2,290
36	Lonnie Hallett	$2,290
37	Ryan Cairns	$1,800
38	Joseph Anderson	$1,800
39	Shawn Taghavi	$1,800
40	Jerry Li	$1,800
41	Kurtis Antoniuk	$1,800
42	Jeff Forester	$1,800
43	Dj Sharma	$1,800