In the spring of 2023, Lautaro Guerra ran away with the series champion honors in the inaugural PokerGO Tour Pot-Limit Omaha Series. The Spanish PLO specialist and online high-stakes cash game player came out on top in three of the nine titles offered during that series, cashing for $967,150 including $518,750 as the champion of the festival-ending $25,000 buy-in event.

Now, Guerra is off to the best possible start in the 2024 PGT PLO Series II which kicked off midway through October. He emerged victorious from a field of 155 entries in the $5,100 buy-in kickoff event, earning $178,250 and his fourth career PGT PLO Series title.

This was the fifth-largest score of his career, bringing his lifetime tournament haul to more than $2.4 million.

Guerra also earned 576 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win. This was his sixth final-table finish of the year, and third title. He took down a pair of events at the Spring Big Wrap PLO Series back in April, and made two final tables at the 2024 PGT PLO Series I in March. With 2,108 total points, he now sits inside the top 150 in the 2024 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.

This was Guerra’s fifth cash in an event awarding PokerGO Tour points. With the 178 PGT points he secured for this title running bringing his total to 455, he now sits in first place in the series points race and inside the top 100 in the season-long rankings.

This tournament played out over the course of two days inside the PokerGO Studio at
ARIA Resort & Casino Las Vegas. The top 23 finishers made the money, with big names like five-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman (20th), four-time bracelet winner and three-time World Poker Tour champion Anthony Zinno (18th), bracelet winner Jose ‘Nacho’ Barbero (17th), two-time bracelet winner Dylan Linde (12th), Dan Shak (11th), current second-ranked POY race contender David Coleman (9th), and bracelet winner Allan Le (8th) all running deep.

The final day began with Guerra in the lead and six players remaining. Two-time WPT champion and Card Player columnist Jonathan Little was the first to fall, being sent to the rail with $38,750 as the sixth-place finisher.

Guerra scored his first knockout of the day by making a flush to eliminate Johnson Phanyaseng (5th -$46,500). It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Spaniard, though. He quickly lost a big pot during four-handed play with his ace-high flush running into jacks full of nines for six-time bracelet winner Josh Arieh.

Arieh extended his newfound chip lead when his 9-8-7-7 double suited outran the pocket queens with king-high diamonds of Christopher Costa (4th – $58,125). Arieh flopped a wrap draw and turned a nine-high straight. The river was a blank and Costa headed to the payout counter.

Guerra soon doubled back into the lead, calling all-in with top set against the pair and multiple gutshot straight draws of Arieh. The river changed nothing and Guerra surged back in front. He added to his advantage when his AA108 held against the AQ86 of three-time bracelet winner Sean Troha in a preflop showdown. Guerra flopped a flush draw and turned both the flush and top set, leaving Troha drawing dead. Troha earned $77,500 as the third-place finisher.

Guerra held roughly a 3:1 chip lead over Arieh when heads-up play began. It didn’t take long for him to convert that advantage into the title. The final hand of the tournament began with Arieh limping for 250,000 total from the button with Q1073. Guerra checked with J865 and the flop came down 1062. Guerra check-called a bet of 600,000 and the turn brought the 8. Guerra bet pot (1,950,000) and Arieh moved all-in for 2,375,000. Guerra called with his two pair and held through the J river.

Arieh earned $112,375 as the runner-up. He now has nearly $13 million in career cashes to his name.

Photo credits: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego.