Schulman Ships PGT 8-Game for $235K
Poker Hall of Famer Nick Schulman won his 8th PGT title, taking down the $10,200 8-Game event for $235,500. The mixed-game king dominated a stacked 84-player field at PokerGO Studio.
By Card Shark McGee
Nick Schulman just reminded everyone why he's in the Poker Hall of Fame. The mixed-game assassin took down PGT Mixed Games Series Event #4—the $10,200 8-Game—for $235,500 at PokerGO Studio on the Las Vegas Strip. It's his eighth PGT title. Eight. Most players would sell a kidney for one.
The Quick Hit
- What happened: Nick Schulman won PGT Mixed Games Series Event #4, the $10,200 8-Game
- The damage: $235,500 first-place prize from an 84-player field
- Why you should care: Schulman's 8th PGT title, 7 WSOP bracelets, over $25.4M in career cashes
- The move: If you think you can beat a Hall of Famer at 8-Game, go sit down and find out
The King of Games Nobody Watches
Mixed games are the cockroach of poker—unkillable, deeply unsexy, and beloved only by the hardest of hardcore degenerates. While the rest of the poker world obsesses over No-Limit Hold'em and its infinite solver outputs, the mixed-game community is over in the corner playing Stud Hi-Lo and Razz like it's 1997. And Nick Schulman is their god.
8-Game rotates through eight different poker variants: No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Limit 2-7 Triple Draw, Limit Razz, Limit Seven Card Stud, Limit Stud Hi-Lo, Limit Hold'em, and Limit Omaha Hi-Lo. You have to be competent at all of them and elite at several. It's the decathlon of poker, and Schulman runs it like he's got the cheat codes.
The field was 84 entries—small by Hold'em standards, but for a $10K mixed-game event, that's a packed room. Every person who sat down knew what they were getting into. There are no tourists in $10K 8-Game. It's professionals, semi-professionals, and delusional semi-professionals who think they belong. The buy-in alone filters out 99% of the poker world.
The Final Table Carnage
The final table was stacked with names that would make any poker nerd's heart race:
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Nick Schulman | $235,500 |
| 2nd | Qinghai Pan | $151,200 |
| 3rd | Dzmitry Urbanovich | $109,200 |
| 4th | Nicolas Milgrom | $79,800 |
| 5th | Scott Seiver | $58,800 |
Scott Seiver going out fifth is almost insulting given his resume, but that's 8-Game. One bad Razz round and you're drawing dead. Dzmitry Urbanovich—a man who was a poker prodigy at age 18—couldn't crack the top two. Qinghai Pan, who has been on an absurd heater in mixed events all year, ran into the buzzsaw that is Schulman with momentum.
The key moment came three-handed, when Schulman controlled over 60% of the chips and essentially dared his opponents to outplay him across all eight games simultaneously. The finishing blow landed in an Omaha Hi-Lo hand where Schulman hit his flush draw and scooped a pot that ended the tournament.
The Schulman Resume
Let's just lay it out: seven WSOP bracelets, eight PGT titles, over $25.4 million in career tournament cashes, and a 2024 Poker Hall of Fame induction. Schulman isn't padding stats in soft fields. He's winning the hardest events in the game against the best players alive.
His edge in mixed games is consistency. In Hold'em, variance can bury even the best players for months. In 8-Game, the skill gap widens because most opponents have weak spots in at least two or three of the rotations. Schulman doesn't have weak spots. He grinds edges in Stud that other players don't even realize exist.
What's Next in Vegas
The PGT Mixed Games Series continues at PokerGO Studio with more events through February. Meanwhile, the Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza kicks off February 9 with over $4 million in guarantees across two weeks. If you're in Vegas and you play poker, you're eating well right now.
And if you think mixed games are boring, you're wrong. Watching Schulman dismantle a field of world-class players across eight different formats is like watching a chef cook a nine-course meal without breaking a sweat. It's art. Weird, nerdy, Razz-fueled art—but art nonetheless.
The Bottom Line
Nick Schulman is the best mixed-game player walking the earth right now, and this $235,500 win just adds another line to a resume that already belongs in a museum. Eight PGT titles. Seven bracelets. Hall of Fame. The man doesn't play poker—he collects trophies in formats that most players can't even spell. If you ever get the chance to watch him play 8-Game live, do it. You'll learn more about poker in one rotation than you will in a month of grinding your bankroll at the local card room.