Paulius Plausinaitis Banks $1.23M and a WSOPC Ring

Poker pro Paulis Plausinaitis is a WSOP Circuit ring winner. The Lithuanian came out on top in the GGPoker WSOP Winter Online Circuit Main Event to bank an incredible prize worth $1,236,361.

This is by far the biggest score of Plausinaitis’ career to-date, which is unsurprising considering its size. He usually plays high-stakes cash games in Macau so isn’t a stranger to money. Who knows what he can turn this huge score into at Macau’s cash tables.

Some 6,395 players bought in for $1,700 and created a $10,327,925 prize pool. The tournament played down to its nine-handed final table last week. The final table took place on January 16 and only took three hours to complete.

Plausinaitis went into the final table as the chip leader, but the victory was far from guaranteed. Incredible players including Joseph Cheong and Alexandru Papazian were at the same final table and both were capable of winning this event.

“BetAddict” busted in ninth place shortly after play commenced. A min-raise to 2,400,000 from Artem “Amsterq” Prostak was met with a 24,000,000 all-in bet from BetAddict. Prostak called and showed Jc-Jh with BetAddict flipping over As-Ks. The board double-paired with nines and eights, and BetAddict crashed out.

Eighth place went to the first of two Chinese grinders at the final table. Cheong opened to 2,400,000 with Td-8d and “DaiMing141319” called all-in from the cutoff with Kc-Qh. A ten on the river gave Cheong the best hand and reduced the player count by one.

Papazian Busts, Plausinaitis Relinquishes Lead

The table lost another player during the same level, Papazian being that player. Everyone folded to Papazian in the small blind and he pushed all-in for around 22 big blinds with Ac-5s. This move should have won the blinds, but not this time because Cheong woke up with Jh-Jd. Cheong flopped a set, Papazian headed for the showers.

Plausinaitis found himself third in chips with six players remaining although he was still 45 big blinds deep.

Prostack was the next player heading for the exits. He lost with aces versus jacks to leave himself short-stacked. The rest of his chips, around 4.5 big blinds, went into the middle with Ah-8h. “turkey1” called in the big blind with the lowly 9h-5c. Two fives landed on the flop to leave Prostak drawing thin. The 2c turn left Prostak drawing dead with the Jh river completing the board.

Fifth place went to partypoker sponsored pro Joni Jouhkimainen. The Finn open-shoved 5.9 big blinds with Kd-Td and Cheong called with the dominating Ah-Kc. Neither player improved their holding, but Cheong didn’t need to. Game over for Jouhkimainen.

Cheong continued running hot when he came from behind to bust “likeboy”. Blinds were now 1,500,000/3,000,000/350,000a and Cheong opened to 7,000,000. Likeboy of China three-bet all-in for 24,881,489 and Cheong called. Likeboy’s Ac-Jd was ahead of the Qc-Js of Cheong, but only until the Qd-Qs-Jh flop! There was no coming back from that.

Eventual Champion Takes Massive Lead Into Heads-Up

Plausinaitis excelled when play was three-handed and soared into a commanding lead. He sent the dangerous Cheong to the sidelines in third-place to bolster his stack further.

Cheong open-shoved 12 big blinds from the small blind with Ah-4d. Plausinaitis snap-called with Qs-Qh, which held to send the tournament heads-up.

The Lithuanian entered heads-up holding a 264,385,238 to 53,917,484 lead over turkey1. Turkey1 cut that lead when his Ad-Qc got there against 4s-4d before he claimed the lead for himself.

Plausinaitis retook the lead and didn’t look back. The final hand saw the chips go into the middle preflop, turkey1 only holding eight big blinds. It was Qh-9h for turkey1 and Ah-Th for Plausinaitis. The 9s-3s-3d flop gifted the lead to turkey1 but the As turn turned the hand on its head. An 8d on the river busted turkey1 in second-place and turned Plausinaitis into a WSOPC champion.

GGPoker WSOP Winter Online Circuit Main Event Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Paulius Plausinaitis	Lithuania	$1,236,361
2	“turkey1”	Turkey	$923,165
3	Joseph Cheong	United States	$692,276
4	“likeboy”	China	$519,134
5	Joni Jouhkimainen	Finland	$389,295
6	Artem “Amsterq” Prostak	Belarus	$291,931
7	Alexandru Papazian	Romania	$218,917
8	“DaiMing141319”	China	$164,165
9	“BetAddict”	Israel	$123,106

Matthew Pitt

If it’s something you can play online for real money, chances are Matthew knows a bit about it. He’s been writing about slots, craps and poker for the better part of the last decade. He’s written for PokerNews, PartyPoker and many other respected online gambling websites during the last nine years.

View Articles