Justin Vaysman Survives the Brink to Win Poker Masters Event #6
Justin Vaysman produced one of the wildest comebacks of the 2026 Poker Masters schedule, rallying from just 20,000 chips with five players left to win Event #6, a $10,500 No-Limit Hold’em tournament, for $192,000 at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. The victory is Vaysman’s first title of this year’s Poker Masters series and comes on the heels of several near-misses that had put his short-stack survival skills to the test long before the final table even got short-handed.
The PokerGO Tour staple has built its reputation on exactly these kinds of swings. With buy-ins that regularly run from $10,000 to $50,000 and a condensed, star-studded field playing for points toward the season-ending Purple Jacket, Poker Masters tends to produce dramatic, high-variance final tables, and Event #6 delivered in full.
Down to the Felt With Five Players Left
Vaysman entered the business end of the tournament as the shortest stack at the table, sitting on roughly 20,000 chips while his opponents built commanding stacks around him. Rather than fold his way to a min-cash, he found the double-ups he needed at the exact moments he needed them. His ace-nine held up through a three-way all-in, a result that kept him alive and immediately signaled he was not going quietly.
From there, Vaysman kept finding spots. He tripled his stack by eliminating Brandon Wilson in fourth place, a result that would have seemed unthinkable just a few hands earlier when he was staring down a elimination. The chip lead he had surrendered without ever really holding it was suddenly back within reach, built one all-in confrontation at a time rather than through any one monster pot.
Gregg’s Set and Livschitz’s Collision With Pocket Kings
The carnage continued around him. Tony Gregg flopped a set of jacks in a crucial pot against eventual runner-up Sean Winter, only to watch Winter complete a runner-runner flush on the turn and river, sending Gregg out in fifth place for $48,000. It was the kind of cooler that defines elimination tournaments and a reminder of how quickly fortunes change once stacks compress at a Poker Masters final table.
Victoria Livschitz fell in third after running her hand into Winter’s pocket kings, a cash of $86,400 that nonetheless left her short of the title. By the time the dust settled, it was Vaysman, the player who had been closest to the rail just a few levels earlier, who had fought his way to heads-up play against Winter. For readers newer to these spots, understanding how a flopped set loses to a backdoor flush, or why pocket kings so often hold up against a random ace, comes down to basic poker hand rankings and the way hand strength shifts across the flop, turn and river.
Heads-Up: Small Ball Beats the Big Stack
Winter arrived at the heads-up stage with a commanding advantage, roughly 60 big blinds to Vaysman’s 19. On paper, that kind of chip disparity should have been enough to close out the title comfortably. Instead, Vaysman leaned on a patient, small-ball approach, keeping pots manageable, avoiding unnecessary coin flips, and picking his spots to avoid giving Winter the chance to grind him down with pure chip pressure.
The strategy paid off. Vaysman won the key all-in confrontations when they mattered most, clawing back the deficit and eventually closing out Winter to secure the $192,000 first-place prize. Winter settled for $124,800 as the runner-up, a strong result in its own right but one that will sting given the size of his heads-up chip lead. Brandon Wilson ($64,000), Tony Gregg ($48,000) and Joey Weissman ($35,200) rounded out the rest of the official final table payouts, while Sam Laskowitz fell in seventh.
What the Win Means for the Purple Jacket Race
Beyond the six-figure score, the win vaults Vaysman into contention for the Purple Jacket, the trophy awarded to the Poker Masters Player of the Series based on points accumulated across every event on the schedule. With Vitalijs Zavorotnijs having already claimed Event #4 for $224,000 and Adrian Mateos adding Event #5 for $229,500 after enduring three straight money bubbles, the points race remains tightly contested heading into the series’ closing events.
Speaking after the win, Vaysman did not hesitate to rank it among the best results of his career. “It’s got to be up there,” he said. “Maybe my biggest ever win, honestly, all things considered.” Given how far behind he was with five players left, it is hard to argue with that assessment.
Vaysman has not yet finalized the rest of his 2026 schedule, though he mentioned WSOP Paradise and the Wynn Las Vegas as possible stops before the year is out. For now, the Event #6 title stands as a reminder that in a series as top-heavy and unforgiving as Poker Masters, stack size with five players left means very little once the cards start running hot. Players looking to sharpen the short-stack survival skills Vaysman leaned on can start with the fundamentals in our how to play poker guide, which breaks down starting hand values and all-in decision-making for exactly these situations.
As always, poker remains a game of skill and chance best enjoyed responsibly. Players must be 18 or older (21 in many jurisdictions) to participate in real-money poker, and no result here should be read as a guarantee of income.
