The middle pin of the nine PGT Mixed Games Series events was a Triple Stud tournament costing $10,200 to play. With 40 entrants, the winner was Nick Schulman, who, after a day extra being added to the schedule got a comeback win against John Racener. That earned Schulman the top prize of $144,000, and more importantly, elevated him into 39^th on the 2023 PGT Leaderboard for the season-ending million-dollar freeroll.

Yu and Rast Bust Before the Bubble

With only six players of the 40 entries being paid, the tension was highest when only eight players were left and hand-for-hand play began. Ben Yu was the first victim of that period, losing a big pot to John Racener in Stud before the same format sealed his exit. Playing three-way against both Racener and the Serbian Damjan Radanov, Yu’s hand was no good against Radanov’s queens and jacks, meaning that Yu missed the money by two spots.

The direct bubble was in effect, and it was the 2023 Poker Hall of Fame inductee Brian Rast who was eliminated on it. Starting the final table of seven with only 300,000 chips, Rast took on Racener in Razz. So successful was Rast in the same format during the summer in the WSOP Poker Players Championship, that his peers nicknamed him ‘Brian Razz’, but this time it all went wrong.

Needing to draw to improve his queen-eight in order to top Racener’s ten-nine, Rast announced that his chances were “fifty-fifty”, as he squeezed. An eight appeared and that was enough to doom him, putting everyone into the money places… and John Racener in the lead.

Radanov Hits the Rail

Six players made the final table, and with fewer chips than anyone else, Ryan Miller was always likely to be the first to exit. That played out when the American lost in Stud Hi-Lo to Radanov, as seventh street brought the Serbian a seven and meant he grew his stack to over a million chips and Miller saw his time in the tournament ended for a min-cash of $20,000.

Despite winning that hand, Radanov was by no means strong in chips and the only non-American of the final five was the next to bust for a score of $32,000. Playing Razz against Nick Schulman, Radanov couldn’t improve beyond an eight-draw, a ten on seventh street meaning Schulman’s nine-seven was good enough as he claimed a vital scalp.

Four players remained, but only three of them had seven-figure stacks. The odd man out was Chino Rheem, and the Event #2 winner who finished in fourth place in Event #1 mirrored that finish in the fifth event of nine too. Playing Stud Hi-Lo, Rheem went for the low draw, but with king-nine couldn’t make it and when Racener bagged aces and eights for the upper end of what he needed too, Rheem hit the rail for a score of $44,000.

Schulman Takes Time but Beats Racener

Three-handed, there were mixed games specialists in every seat. Adam Friedman has made not only a living but put his name up in lights in mixed games, but after suffering a massive beat in Stud to the rising Racener, could feel that his time was up. Left with only one big bet, he lost that in the next hand, as Schulman peeled for a flush on seventh street, leaving Friedman on the rial with a $64,000 cash in third place.

With Racener leading by approximately 3.5 million chips to Schulman’s 2.5 million, the stacks were too tight to conclude the event on Day 2. They returned the next day at high noon for a shootout to the title. Two early hands for Racener gave him a 2:1 chip lead, and after getting Schulman to fold another hand, this time in Stud Hi-Lo, took a controlling 6:1 lead.

Nick Schulman is a battler, however, and down but not out, he bounced off the canvas and came up swinging, taking pots in Stud to more than double-up from his position at the start of heads-up. Winning a hand in Razz, Schulman moved into the lead. In Razz, he drew two and ended with a nine-seven low. Racener needed a lot of help but drew two kings and it was all over. John Racener collected $96,000 for his runner-up result as Nick Schulman celebrated with his latest PGT trophy and the top prize of $144,000.