The poker ladies dominate the High Roller events at the US Poker Open (USPO) powered by PokerGO in the PokerGO studio. After Cherish Andrews’ success the day before, it was Kristen Foxen-Bicknell on Wednesday who was able to receive the fifth PGT trophy of her career. The Canadian, who gained international fame online as “KrissyB24,” left behind 66 mostly male entries in the $10,100 No Limit Hold’em (Event #4). – Cherish Andrews could also claim this once again. The American made it to another final table in the $10,100 No Limit Hold’em PokerGO Tour tournament (Event #5) at the ARIA!
Read more Artemis 2 Poker – Why the Moon Mission Almost Didn’t Fly Because of a Poker Game!
Event #4: $10,100 No-Limit Hold‘em – Final Day
5 of 66 entries remained after Day 1. With a secure $49,500, they went on the hunt for the $198,000 first prize, a coveted USPO trophy, and plenty of points for the USPO overall ranking. As the mega chip leader, jeremy ausmus (4,060,000 chips) was set to race ahead of Sam Soverle (1,905,000 chips) and Kristen Foxen (1,315,000 chips). The mid-stacks felt significant ICM pressure due to the short stack Michael Rossitto (210,000 chips). Brock Wilson (765,000 chips) also faced a challenging comeback.
Short stack Michael Rossitto was able to double up once against Brock Wilson with his 7 BBs but was eliminated in 5th place ($49,500) after losing a pre-flop all-in (A9s<KT) to Sam Soverel. Then Soverel did the same to Brock Wilson ($66,000), leaving Jeremy Ausmus, who started with nearly half the chips, and the hot-running Sam Soverel neck and neck, while Kristen Foxen was the short stack by a clear margin.
However, Kristen Foxen turned the tide when she flopped an open-ended straight draw with T8 against Ausmus, who held top pair top kicker with AK. After a check-raise on the flop, she hit the OESD on the turn and was able to double up on the river. From then on, she was the chip leader and Ausmus was short.
But Ausmus also made a comeback when he caught a bluff from Soverel, leaving his opponent with only one big blind and then finishing in 3rd place ($89,100) a hand later. This set up a heads-up match between Kristen Foxen and Jeremy Ausmus with almost identical stacks of 70 BBs, competing for the last $69,300 pay jump.
The heads-up battle featured some action-packed moves not usually seen with much smaller effective stacks in PGT heads-ups. Despite the deep chip stacks, the final duel did not last very long: In the final hand, all chips went in on the river after “KrissyB24” flopped a set of sixes, while Ausmus held an overpair of nines. He could not improve significantly and thus secured his second runner-up finish in the first four USPO events, along with a $128,700 payout in Event #4.
Read more BCPoker spins the wheel – daily! Spin up to $1,000 every day!
The victory along with the $198,000 prize and PokerGO Tour trophy went to Kristen Foxen on Wednesday. In the fight for the Golden Eagle, awarded for the USPO win along with a $25,000 PGT Passport, the Canadian moved up to 4th place. According to her own statement, the PGT points to be earned motivate her greatly in the battle for the prestigious Golden Eagle and the PGT annual ranking.
| Place | Player | Nat | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | Kristen Foxen | CAN | $198,000 |
| 2 | Jeremy Ausmus | USA | $128,700 |
| 3 | Sam Soverel | USA | $89,100 |
| 4 | Brock Wilson | USA | $66,000 |
| 5 | Michael Rossitto | USA | $49,500 |
| 6 | Brandon Wilson | USA | $36,300 |
| 7 | Nate Silver | USA | $26,400 |
| 8 | Cherish Andrews | USA | $26,400 |
| 9 | Jesse Lonis | USA | $19,800 |
| 10 | Vladas Tamasauskas | LIT | $19,800 |
The PokerGo Livestream VoD of Event #4 Day 2:
Go here for the PGT live blog of Event #4 Day 2!
Event #5: $10,100 No-Limit Hold‘em – Day 1
The usual suspects were at the tables in the second USPO event with a $10k buy-in. 80 entries generated a prize pool of $800,000 for the top 12 with a first prize of $224,000. MTT crushers like Jeremy Becker, Justin Saliba, or Brock Wilson, a hot candidate for the USPO overall win, were eliminated shortly before the final table and could console themselves with prize money and leaderboard points.
On the final table bubble, Nick Schulmander lost a bad beat with pocket queens against Justin Zaki’s pocket eights and thus “only” collected $32,000. The same amount was cashed or had to be cashed by tournament sensation Jesse Lonis after he lost two flips and then his remaining chips also to Zaki.
So today we will see 6 high rollers in the final. Chip leader is Brandon Wilson with 72 BBs ahead of Qinghai Pan with 44 and Justin Zaki with 32 big blinds. Short stack is Cherish Andrews, who after her win in Event #3 secured her next final table. With a good result, she could possibly move from her current third place in the USPO overall ranking ahead of her partner Brandon Wilson and the current leader Jeremy Ausmus.
Read more US Poker Open – «krissy_b» wins PGT Title No. 5 in 10k NLH!
The PokerGO Livestream VoD of Event #5 Day 1:
Chip counts at the end of Day 1:
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Brandon Wilson | United States | 3,585,000 | 72 |
| 2 | Qinghai Pan | United States | 2,175,000 | 44 |
| 3 | Justin Zaki | United States | 1,585,000 | 32 |
| 4 | Peter Placey | United States | 1,375,000 | 28 |
| 5 | Anil Jivani | United States | 825,000 | 17 |
| 6 | Cherish Andrews | United States | 455,000 | 9 |
The previous and remaining payouts:
| Place | Player | Nat | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | $224,000 | ||
| 2 | $144,000 | ||
| 3 | $104,000 | ||
| 4 | $76,000 | ||
| 5 | $56,000 | ||
| 6 | $40,000 | ||
| 7 | Jesse Lonis | USA | $32,000 |
| 8 | Nick Schulman | USA | $32,000 |
| 9 | Brock Wilson | USA | $24,000 |
| 10 | Justin Saliba | USA | $24,000 |
| 11 | Jeremy Becker | USA | $24,000 |
| 12 | Adam Weinraub | USA | $20,000 |
Go here for the PGT live blog of Day 1!
2026 US Poker Open Leaderboard (after Event #4)
| Rank | Player | Points | Wins | Cashes | Winnings |
| 1st | Jeremy Ausmus | 262 | 0 | 3 | $217,675 |
| 2nd | Brock Wilson | 247 | 1 | 2 | $186,900 |
| 3rd | Cherish Andrews | 242 | 1 | 2 | $143,807 |
| 4th | Kristen Foxen | 219 | 1 | 2 | $211,950 |
| 5th | Clemen Deng | 208 | 1 | 2 | $139,025 |
| 6th | Peter Mugar | 155 | 0 | 3 | $103,975 |
| 7th | Yifu He | 146 | 0 | 2 | $97,550 |
| 8th | Michael Rossitto | 138 | 0 | 2 | $108,300 |
| 9th | Adam Hendrix | 134 | 0 | 1 | $115,468 |
| 10th | Sam Laskowitz | 95 | 0 | 2 | $63,575 |
US Poker Open Schedule:
