You don’t get to $33M in recorded tournament earnings without covering a lot of ground, and Sam Soverel’s impressive tourney career is a good example of that.
Florida’s all-time #2 has a resume that includes wins at the WSOP, the WPT, the British Poker Open and the North American Poker Tour, among others. Yet nowhere seems more like home than the PokerGO Tour (PGT).
And it was there, on Monday night, that Soverel picked up his record-extending 18th PGT win — and his 5th of this calendar year — in the first $10,500 buy-in event of the PGT Sprint series.
Topping this field of 61 put $195K in Soverel’s pocket, but also moves him into the top 10 on the 2026 PGT leaderboard ahead of the season-ending PGT Championship.
Sam Soverel is having a $1M+ year.Winter is coming
That championship event runs January 11-12, 2027, and takes the form of a freeroll with $500K in prize money up for grabs.
Participation is open to the top 40 players on the PGT leaderboard — plus a few ‘dream seat’ winners — and this series of single-day Sprint events at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas provides a great opportunity to rack up points as the Championship grows closer.
Sean Winter is in pole position at the top of the PGT leaderboard.Sean Winter — the only player above Soverel on Florida’s all-time money list — currently leads the field by almost 300 points.
With his $195K payday, Soverel adds 195 points to his score to take the 8th spot on the leaderboard.
Here’s the latest top 10:
| Place | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sean Winter | 2,223 |
| 2 | Brock Wilson | 1,942 |
| 3 | Jeremy Ausmus | 1,836 |
| 4 | Eelis Parssinen | 1,783 |
| 5 | Alex Foxen | 1,777 |
| 6 | Adrian Mateos | 1,760 |
| 7 | Yuri Dzivielevski | 1,602 |
| 8 | Sam Soverel | 1,590 |
| 9 | Brandon Wilson | 1,556 |
Flopping the world vs A-K
9 players made the money — and picked up points — en route to Soverel’s latest victory, including the likes of Sam Laskowitz, Victoria Livschitz, Jeremy Becker and 2025 Purple Jacket winner David Coleman, who finished runner-up for $122K after losing a heads-up phase that lasted all of two hands.
In fairness to Coleman, by the time they were the last two survivors Soverel had amassed a dominating chip lead, entering the brief duel with a 4:1 edge.
Much of that stack was due to a crucial moment during 5-handed play that ended up with Jeremy Becker hitting the rail.
Jeremy Becker couldn't get away from top pair, top ticker.It’s been said that, to win a tournament, at some point you’ll need to win with A-K, and at another to beat A-K, and Soverel did the latter in style.
It was a blind-vs-blind clash, and Soverel opened from the small with 
. Becker, in the big, 3-bet with 
and confidence on his side. Soverel called and the flop of 
left Becker drawing stone-dead, barring an unlikely chop.
Becker called Soverel’s small c-bet, but the 
on the turn improved him to top pair, top kicker and made the hand even harder for him to let go. Soverel cannily checked the turn, then called Becker’s bet, only for the 
on the river to improve his flopped straight to a flush.
Again he checked, again Becker bet out, and when Soverel came over the top to set him all-in he made the crying call to see the bad news.
2026 appears to have been little but good news at the tables for Soverel, however. In addition to his five PGT wins he made two final tables at the summer WSOP and has racked up over $1M in live tournament winnings. And all this after registering a career-high payday of almost $2.6M in the $100K WSOP Paradise Triton PLO Main Event last December.
With the 2026 WSOP Paradise series fast approaching, he’ll be one to watch.
PGT Sprint Event #5 — $10,500 NLH: Final results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam Soverel | $195,200 |
| 2 | David Coleman | $122,000 |
| 3 | Kuan Han Lee | $85,400 |
| 4 | Nick Seward | $61,000 |
| 5 | Jeremy Becker | $45,750 |
| 6 | Michael Berk | $33,550 |
| 7 | Kent Stephens | $24,400 |
| 8 | Victoria Livschitz | $24,400 |
| 9 | Sam Laskowitz | $18,300 |
