One trend in live poker that has gathered some steam over the last few years is smaller tournament series running events within larger poker festivals. In fact, there are some live event operators who solely run their events this way, passing on the opportunity to run their own standalone festivals.
The HendonMob Championship is one such event that mostly operates in this way, as does the PLO Masters, an Omaha focused series, run by UK player and entrepreneur Jeraint “JJ” Hazan.
Who is JJ Hazan?
“I’ve played poker for nearly 50 years now, I was brought up playing with friends, five card draw and seven card stud. I played mixed games, usually home events with friends. I love getting my head around new variants. A new game is a challenge”
As a master of all trades and a jack of none, Hazan has several small business interests, of which the PLO Masters is just one. His other endeavours include live-stream commentating and operating guided walking tours in his hometown, London.
In the past he’s also run a portable coffee-shop business and participated in various forms of performance art. He’s not a poet, but you’d never know it; and there’s absolutely no truth in the false rumour that I’m making up now that JJ Hazan got a clue what he’s doing at the poker tables.
In fact, he’s a pretty skilful player, who has notched up almost $800,000 in live cashes. Although he had played poker for many years, it was not until 2006 that JJ branched out from local games to play in festival events. He started off well, securing what is still his biggest cash to-date, as his first entry in the Hendon Mob’s live poker results database.
Hazan finished runner-up in the 2006 Dutch Open, the Main Event of the Amsterdam Masters Classic, one of the most prestigious poker events in Europe at the time. He cashed for €355,000 and followed it up with a win in the £500 side event at the very first GUKPT Grand Final festival in 2007, for a further £23,300. So far in 2025, he’s made ten final tables, including two victories.
As an industrious person, JJ is not afraid to stand up and be counted. He once famously and fearlessly faced the Dragon’s Den, when he pitched an idea for a poker staking business. We’ll get to that that later in the article.
Hazan discovered poker in his childhood, playing mixed game formats, before gravitating a little towards Hold’em during the boom years of the early 21st century. However he eventually got bored of playing with just two hole cards and nowadays tends to stick to his preferred game Omaha, and all its variants.
I spoke to JJ to learn more about the PLO Masters and although he’s someone I’ve known for over two-decades, to find out a little more about the man himself as well.
What is the PLO Masters and How Did it Begin?
The first question I asked JJ was not about himself, but to explain exactly what the PLO Masters is? Jeraint explained that as a player, he prefers Omaha to Hold’em, but is disappointed that the majority of poker festivals only give lip service to the variant.
“A lot of existing poker festivals kind of have PLO tacked on. It’s kind of like (they say to themselves) oh well, we better do a PLO, or two even. There’s kind of a hole in the market where you can have a weekend of mixed Omaha based events, have a lot of fun and travel as well.”
What JJ wanted was for there to be a wider range of Omaha tournaments at poker festivals, so that he and the many like him, who prefer to play with more than two hole cards, can combine travel and poker, playing the formats they most enjoy.
JJ was already working with Banco Casino in Bratislava, as a commentator for their live streams during the Banco Masters and other series they run. Like many other poker festivals, the Banco Masters didn’t have much Omaha on its schedules, prompting him to devise the concept of running an Omaha series within their existing schedule. They liked the idea, saw the benefit of widening the target market for their events and the PLO Masters was born.
“We integrated the PLO Masters into the Banco Masters, which is where the name comes from.”
The first PLO Masters event took place in July 2024, with a €350 Main Event, attracting 95 entrants and generating a prize pool of over €28,000. It was won by British actor Allen Evangelista. There were also two side events at the inaugural stop of the series. It returned to Banco Casino in May 2025 with a slightly reduced Main Event buy-in of €250, which saw 136 players take part.
There are now usually five tournaments that form the backbone of a PLO Masters schedule, including a €250 Main Event, sometimes a €550 High Roller, a 4/5/6 Card side events and others, including a round of each format: Omaha and Hold’em.
“The strategy was to create a player focused PLO event and by integrating it with existing mainly No Limit Hold’em based festivals, you create an entity in its own right for PLO players to travel to. But also, there are cheaper side events for Hold’em players that want to dip their toes in the water.”
On switching from the player side to the operator side of things JJ commented
“I’ve loved playing poker. It’s been a passion and a hobby and I guess I’m now turning it into some business. I’m not looking to dominate the world in anything at my age. I’m interested in having an enjoyable lifestyle business around poker.”
Expanding the PLO Masters into New Locations
In 2025 the PLO Masters branched out beyond its beginnings in Bratislava. The first UK PLO Masters took place in Glasgow in May, as part of the Party Poker Tour. That association continued in Birmingham in October and the PLO Masters is again on the schedule at the final leg of the year, in London in December.
One of the benefits of positioning the PLO Masters within the Party Poker Tour is that it enabled online satellites to run. Together with live qualifiers, this has helped generate 15-20 qualifiers for each Main Event. The satellite structure is similar to the one used for the Party Poker Main Event qualifiers, with two £500 packages guaranteed in weekly satellites that run for several weeks prior to each of the live events.
Players can begin their journey to qualify for £5, with winners gaining entry to the next stage, which costs £25 to enter directly. From there players win their ways into the weekly £100 final, but there’s a catch, players cannot buy-in directly to the £100 finals.
The PLO Masters was also integrated into the Genting Autumn Series at Genting Stratford, the same venue where the Party Poker Tour will take place in December.
Looking ahead to 2026, JJ is still busy making plans for several events that he is not yet able to reveal details of, but one is already announced, taking place at the Banco Masters in Bratislava from 12-19 January. He also revealed that the PLO Masters will expand to Bulgaria, with an event in the capital Sofia in March.
While all of the PLO Masters held so far have taken place within other poker festivals, the Bulgarian event will be the first standalone version, run in conjunction with the Smart Poker Tour.
Is Omaha’s Popularity Growing?
Omaha is actually a younger game than Hold’em, however it was the game of choice in most UK casinos until poker rose in popularity at the end of the 1990s. Omaha never really lost its popularity amongst those who played it, but Hold’em overtook it as the game that most of the new players discovering poker wanted to play.
But with so many new players and money flowing into poker at the beginning of the 20th century, many Omaha players found it hard not to pivot into Hold’em during this time and JJ was no exception. As the industry has matured, Hold’em remains the dominant format, however there has been a renewed interest in Omaha. Its core consists of old-timers who prefer it to Hold’em, but also Hold’em players who are interested in branching out.
JJ noted that the Omaha community is quite a tight knit one, you tend to see the same players, no matter where it’s taking place. There is a core of around 350 Omaha aficionados in a UK What’s App group, plus a further 250 in a similar European one.
“I’ve played as many as I can in the UK and where possible in Europe and at least 50% of the field are the same players”
JJ estimates that in PLO Masters tournaments, 60% of the field are core Omaha players, whereas 40% are Hold’em players intrigued by trying a different format of poker.
While there is an increased interest in Omaha, it’s not meteoric. Speaking about how well the PLO Masters events have been attended, JJ noted
“It’s kind of steady, but slow growth. The guarantees have been between €15k-€20k, with €25k on some of them. We’ve hit them all.”
The PLO Masters is not the only poker series that caters specifically to non- Hold’em players. There’s a thriving mixed game scene in Malta and most poker festivals held there make sure to include several Omaha and mixed game tournaments. The Festival Series, run by Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk is another example and while not exclusively a mixed game series, it’s very much at the core of the offering.
While Omaha may be too complex to ever attain the level of popularity that Hold’em once reached, it has enduring appeal to a lot of poker players. Those who like the craziness of its volatility and like a gamble, but also those who see it as more of an intellectual challenge, given the wider range of possibilities that having four hole cards brings.
Enter The Dragon
JJ’s biggest moment in poker is still his runner-up finish in the 2006 Master Classics, but he also had a rather big moment away from the tables. In 2009, JJ made an appearance on the UK TV show Dragons’ Den, asking for an investment of £65,000 in a staking business.
Essentially he was asking the Dragons to back him to play poker, with plans to expand it to become a stable backing other +EV players. One by one, the Dragons all said “I’m Out” and JJ left empty handed. I asked JJ about his appearance on the show and whether he thought they would bite.
“No, I didn’t. I think I had a 10% chance, so in poker terms very little.”
He explained that he wanted to deliver his pitch in a more serious manner, but due to the stage managing of the production company, he ended up stereotypically sitting behind a poker table, wearing sunglasses.
“My original plan was to prove that you could earn money backing a poker player. Having proven that in the following year (had I got the 65 grand), I had a plan to have a £1m fund and run it a bit like a football team”
While he didn’t get the gig, there’s a clip of it on YouTube, which has done the rounds on social media several times and JJ has been widely mocked for his appearance on it. I asked him about it and whether he had any regrets.
“I think the majority of people mock me or make quite strong negative comments. I don’t give a f***! I’m comfortable with who I am in life and my poker ability.”
It did help to get JJ noticed however and his name has broken into the top 10 on the Hendon Mob’s popularity chart on more than one occasion.
“You get a rerun of Dragons’ Den and everyone looks me up”
Knock Knock! Who’s There?
JJ is perhaps a little more touchy about this subject than he would care to let on, but he has a humorous side to him as well.
“I did stand up comedy for two years in London as research for my plans to spend my later years running a comedy business in Bali. But that’s the only reason I did stand up comedy, not ‘cause I think I’m funny.”
However, that business idea didn’t come to fruition, as JJ explained
“But any business in Bali is really dangerous because if someone takes against a joke you made, or your face or whatever is is and reports you, you can literally be thrown out the next day.”
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
JJ didn’t rise to my suggestion that he tell me a joke during the interview, as in his own words, he’s not really a stand-up comedian. For a while he also had me fooled that he was a poet too.
He was on the bill for a poetry and story-telling show during the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe and as I was there at the time, I attempted to attend the show. However, after sitting through a session of random poets, none of whom spoke about poker, it became apparent that I had mixed-up the dates and arrived at the theatre 24 hours too late.
Having missed his show, I was still under the misapprehension that he had been there to tell a series of poems. Being far too clever for my own good, I brought it up with JJ during the interview, asking him why he had decided to become a performance poet and whether there was any rhyme or reason for it?
Ignoring my failed attempt to be both poetic and comedic at the same time, JJ explained that he was actually on the bill as a story-teller, not a poet. And while I missed the show and was disappointed not to have heard his non-existent poetry, l feel I might have heard some of those stories before.
The next PLO Masters series takes place at Genting Stratford, during the Party Poker Tour, from 14-21st December. JJ will be there to school you, outdraw you, sign autographs and regale you with his colourful and legendary tales of the felt.
Photos Courtesy of Party Poker, The Festival Series, PLO Masters, Banco Casino & Jonathan Raab
