Cesar Garcia defeats Onyx HRS $50,000 PLO Grand Slam Title

Garcia reached the final table as a huge chip leader and used his stack to the fullest, intimidating the rest of the table on his way to claiming the trophy and the $1,200,000 first prize after defeating Gruffudd Pugh-Jones Attention.

“It means a lot. At the moment I’m super tired, because it’s a long journey. I reached the final table as chip leader. I did really well in the tournament. So it’s like a dream. It’s my highest score, and now I’m super happy,” Garcia said after hitting a straight river in the last hand to secure the title.

Grand Slam Onyx High Roller Series $50,000 PLO Final Table Results

Garcia’s strategy at the beginning of the day was simple: he would put maximum pressure on the rest of the table. He raised preflop in about 80% of hands in the early levels, winning countless pots with little resistance. Table companion Danielle Noja said he was a “Spanish matador” and a “bull in a Chinese shop.” He held more than 60 percent of the chips in play while there were still five players remaining and threatened to leave the rest of the table as he closed in on the trophy.

“My strategy, of course, because there were some short stacks, so I had to put a lot of pressure on the middle stacks. And, yes, my plan was to open most of the hands. I know in the first three, four hours I was opening about 80 percent. Someone told me that they said that on the live broadcast,” Garcia said. “So yeah, I think it works. I think I play my best. I try to put a lot of pressure and it works, so I’m really happy.”

The award was the biggest of Garcia’s career, which dates back more than a decade. He won a WSOP bracelet in a $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event in 2016 and has made two EPT final tables, including an eighth-place finish in Barcelona last August. Garcia has accumulated $2.3 million in live earnings prior to this event, and that score will bring him to the brink of breaking the all-time top 10 among Spanish players.

Most of his first big results, however, came in No-Limit Hold’em. It was only in recent years that Garcia began focusing on PLO tournaments and quickly built a record of mastery in the four-card game. He won a €10,000 PLO event at EPT Monte Carlo last year and made the final table of the $50,000 PLO event at the Triton Series in Jeju, South Korea in September. He also finished fifth in the €10,000 Diamond Poker Series Championship in Prague in December.

Garcia has seen the surge in PLO tournaments in recent years and thinks the game will only continue to grow. “So when I started playing poker, I started playing No-Limit. But, like, I don’t know, eight years ago I transitioned. But I was just playing for cash, and right now, PLO tournaments are really growing,” he said.

“So, yes, since a year and a half or something like that, I started playing a lot of tournaments. I really like it. I like the competition, the emotions that you experience in a tournament, and I think it’s a good time to start playing PLO tournaments because it’s growing more and more. And I hope it stays like that for a long time.”

“I really love Merit. The hotel is incredible. The organization is incredible. The tournament too. Even the structure. It was a super good structure. We were super deep in the final table, which is, for me, great. Everything was perfect, and I have nothing but good words for them. I hope to be back,” he said.

Garcia’s festival was not yet over. He quickly walked down the stairs of the Onyx Club to the main tournament room, trophy in hand, to register for Day 1c of the tournament. $25,000 PLO Main Event. Coming off his dominant position here today, he proved he will be a tough man to beat.