The day after the 2023 PokerGO Tour season officially wrapped up with the PGT Championship, the new season got underway with the 2024 PGT Kickoff. The five-event series features four $5,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em events and one $10,500 buy-in affair, all held inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. The first three tournaments are already in the books, and the top performer so far has been recent Card Player Poker Tour Venetian champion David Coleman. The former online grinder from New Jersey has made the final table in all three of the events that have played down to a winner so far, accumulating $221,000 and 442 PGT points along the way to take the early lead in the PGT standings for both the series and the season. Below is a look at the full results from the first trio of results.
PGT Kickoff #1 – $5,300 No-Limit Hold’em
The first event of the new season drew 89 entries, creating a prize pool of $445,000 that was split amongst the top 13 finishers.
Coleman began his dominant performance at this festival with an outright win, converting his start-of-day chip lead on day 2 into the title and the top prize of $120,150. He now has nearly $4 million in career tournament earnings to his name.
This was only the second live tournament title of his career, with his first coming in the aforementioned CPPT Venetian $1,600 buy-in just a handful of days before he closed out this victory. That win and his hat trick of final-table finishes in this series have seen Coleman earn $336,989 so far in 2024. With 1,564 Card Player Player of the Year points and 442 PGT points, he currently sits atop the leaderboards of both points races heading into the second half of January.
Coleman overcame plenty of stiff competition on his way to hoisting the trophy, including two-time bracelet winners John Riordan (11th) and Eric Baldwin (9th), 2013 World Series of Poker main event champion Ryan Riess (8th), six-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus (4th), two-time Card Player POY award winner Stephen Chidwick, and bracelet winner Aram Zobian (2nd).
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points | PGT Points |
| 1 | David Coleman | $120,150 | 384 | 240 |
| 2 | Aram Zobian | $77,875 | 320 | 156 |
| 3 | Stephen Chidwick | $55,625 | 256 | 111 |
| 4 | Jeremy Ausmus | $40,050 | 192 | 80 |
| 5 | Nikita Kalinin | $31,150 | 160 | 62 |
| 6 | Clemen Deng | $22,250 | 128 | 45 |
| 7 | Viktor Ustimov | $17,800 | 96 | 36 |
| 8 | Ryan Riess | $17,800 | 64 | 36 |
