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Justin Zaki won the eighth and final event of the 2025 PokerGO Cup — $25,200 No-Limit Hold’em — on Thursday. But Joey Weissman, who finished in second place, was the star of the series.
Weissman began the series last week by losing heads-up to Michael Moncek in the first event and then getting revenge against the same player heads-up in Event #2. His run was far from over as he’d book two additional second place finishes, marking one of the best series performances in PokerGO Tour history.
There wasn’t any suspense at the final table as to who was going to win the PokerGO Cup as Weissman, who finished with 758 points, already had that locked up. But Eric Blair (568 points) and Moncek (484 points) both won multiple events. Weissman also took over the 2025 PGT leaderboard, holding a slight lead over Kristen Foxen.
Zaki Finishes it off with a Dub
Seven players out of the 59 entrants in the series finale returned to the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas for Day 2 on Thursday. Weissman held the chip lead but it was a tight race against a few other players, including Zaki and Sam Soverel.
Jesse Lonis, a small stack, quickly busted in seventh place ($59,000) when he lost a 60/40 to Clemen Deng. Michael Berk wasn’t fortunate enough to have his AxQx hold up against the Kx3x Christian Roberts had in the hole. So, he was out in sixth place ($81,125).
2025 PokerGO Cup Event #8 Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Justin Zaki | $417,000 |
| 2 | Joey Weissman | $350,000 |
| 3 | Clemen Deng | $206,500 |
| 4 | Sam Soverel | $147,500 |
| 5 | Christian Roberts | $110,625 |
| 6 | Michael Berk | $81,125 |
| 7 | Jesse Lonis | $59,000 |
Weissman would begin to slowly chip up and pull away from the rest of the table. But then Roberts tried to bluff into Zaki’s straight, and that created a tighter race at the top of the chip counts.
Zaki took over the chip lead as the beneficiary of Roberts nearly doubling through Weissman on a cooler flop. He’d begin to pull further ahead after winning an all-in bet with Jx10x against AxQx. Roberts had the worst of it and was eliminated in fifth place ($110,625).
Weissman then coolered Soverel with pocket aces against pocket queens, sending the latter player home in fourth place ($147,500). Deng was Weissman’s final victim in third place ($206,500). That led to heads-up play beginning with Zaki out in front, but not by much.
Both players chasing that final 2025 PokerGO Cup title agreed to a heads-up deal with the winner to receive $417,000 and the runner-up getting $350,000. Weissman quickly jumped ahead before Zaki went all in with A♥10♦ and was snap-called by 10♥10♣. The board ran out K♦J♣8♥Q♦4♥, giving Zaki a straight, and leaving his opponent down to crumbs.
The tournament would end shortly after, as did the PokerGO Cup. Zaki, who has 74 World-Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet event cashes, now has over $6.6 million in live tournament cashes, according to The Hendon Mob.
2025 PokerGO Cup Final Results
*Images courtesy of PokerGO.