Alex Foxen Seals Memorable PLO Win for First PokerGO Title in Over 800 Days

The seventh event of the PokerGO Tour PLO Series saw Las Vegas play host to some of the best PLO players in the world as Alex Foxen ended an 803-day hoodoo inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA in Las Vegas to triumph heads-up against Jesse Lonis and bank the $315,000 top prize on the Sin City Strip.

Bumper Field for PLO Series

Each event of this year’s PokerGO Tour (PGT) PLO Series tournaments have been extremely well attended, with bumper prizepools matching the vast number of players from around the world who have travelled to Las Vegas for this series of Pot Limit Omaha events ranging from $5,000 up to $25,000 to play.

The latest tournament, Event #7, had 70 entries each paying $15,000 into a prizepool of over a million bucks and the top prize was a massive $315,000. Only 10 of those original entries would make the money places, however, as the British player Richard Gryko – who had enjoyed a hugely profitable series to this point – bubbled the money, losing his final chips to Arthur Morris as the latter’s pocket kings made top set and Gryko missed the board.

After bust-outs for Ben Tollerene (10^th), and Nick Schulman(9^th) both for $31,500, the popular player Bryce Yockey exited in eighth place for $42,000. Arthur Morris had wielded the axe himself but lost out in seventh for $42,000 before the Argentinian professional Nacho Barbero left in sixth for $57,750. That meant the final five were confirmed, with Alex Foxen in charge.

Rafael Rustled

As the final table began, Alex Foxen’s stack of 2.56 million chips was ahead of Sean Rafael with 1.99m, as others such as Jesse Lonis (1.69m), Josh Arieh (1.57m) and Artem Maksimov (925,000) hoped for an early boost to their stacks. The opening hands saw the passionate PLO player Artem Maksimov double up through Josh Arieh to leave the PokerStake player manager the short stack in Las Vegas.

The next all-in showdown saw Arieh double up through Maksimov, and after a topsy-turvy ride for all five players, Sean Rafael moved all-in with pocket kings in his four-card PLO hand, only to run into Jesse Lonis’ pocket aces. Lonis hit top set on 5^th street to send Rafael to the streets himself, as he left in fifth for $78,750.

Arieh then doubled through Maksimov before beating Alex Foxen with trip sixes to take the lead. Artem Maksimov busted next in fourth place for $105,000, as his pocket queens couldn’t hold against Lonis’ threes, which made a set and took out the American just before the heads up battle to decide the title.

Foxen Ends PGT Drought in Style

Holding the chip lead, Arieh lost it when Alex Foxen saw pocket kings shoot down Arieh’s hand, putting Foxen in the lead instead. Arieh hit a top pair of queens in a subsequent hand and was correct to move all-in, but while he stayed above Jesse Lonis’ pocket tens even after a ten came on the turn after hitting Broadway, Lonis had the last laugh, hitting one of his 17 outs to make a full house. Arieh cashed for $141,750 in third place.

Heads-up, Lonis had grabbed a foothold on the mountain of Foxen’s chips, but with 2.1 million chips to Foxen’s 6.6m, the onus was on Lonis to attempt a big comeback. Pretty soon, it all went wrong in that attempt.

On a flop of T-5-2, Alex Foxen was all-in with 8-8-4-3 and Lonis called it with the hand of Q-T-T-7 which was ahead. Foxen had 14 outs to turn and river and with straight and flush cards all good, hit an ace of diamonds to make the flush on fourth street.

When Lonis missed his 10 outs on the river, Alex Foxen won his first trophy in 803 days  inside the PokerGO Studio, and in doing do, took the lead in the 2025 PGT PLO Series Championship with four events to play.