This Week's Big Winner: Paulius Plausinaitis Wins WSOP Circuit Online Main Event For $1.2 Million

The most recent World Series of Poker Winter Online Circuit $1,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event hosted on GGPoker attracted a massive field of 6,395 total entries, just surpassing the $10 million guarantee to create a final prize pool of $10,327,925. In the end, Lithuania’s Paulius Plausinaitis emerged victorious with the WSOPC gold ring and the first-place prize of $1,236,361.

This was the second major score on this particular online site for the high-stakes cash game player, having placed eighth in the $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em bracelet event during the 2020 WSOP Online series for $210,079.

This tournament featured several starting flights to choose from, with 1,112 players surviving to day 2. The top 700 finishers made the money, with a min-cash being worth $4,107. It took over seven hours to narrow the field from over a thousand players down to a final table of nine competitors. When the dust settled, Plausinaitis sat in the chip lead with Artem Prostak and WSOP bracelet winner Joseph Cheong having the next-largest stacks.

Here are five key hands from the final table.

The Action

With seven players remaining, 2017 WSOP bracelet winner Alexandru Papazian was the second shortest stack left at the final table. It folded around to him in the small blind and he moved all-in for just over 22 big blinds with A-5 offsuit. 2019 WSOP bracelet winner and 2010 main event third-place finisher Joseph Cheong made the call from the big blind with pocket jacks, having started the hand in second chip position behind Artem Prostak. Cheong flopped a set and held from there to eliminate Papazian in seventh place and overtake the lead, growing his stack to over 76 big blinds. Papazian earned $218,917 for his deep run in the tournament.

The Action

Artem Prostak slid down to fourth chip position during six-handed action, having held the outright lead less than half an hour earlier. He picked up pocket aces and min-raised to 2,800,000 from the hijack. A player known only by their screen name ‘likeboy’ three-bet to 10,150,000 from the big blind with their pocket jacks. Prostak four-bet shoved and ‘likeboy’ called all-in, leaving Prostak with 11,332,032 behind as the pot grew to over 75 million. The superior pair remained ahead through the flop and the turn, but a jack on the river gave ‘likeboy’ a full house on the end to double up into second place. Prostak was left with just eight big blinds after the hand, and was eliminated in sixth place shortly afterwards to earn $291,931.

The Action

Fresh off of eliminating Joni Jouhkimainen in fifth place to retake the lead, Cheong found himself involved in another big hand. He raised to 7,000,000 from the button with Q-J offsuit and found himself facing an all-in for just shy of nine total big blinds from ‘likeboy.’ Cheong made the call, only to find that his hand was dominated by A-J. The flop turned the tables in a hurry, though, with Cheong hitting two queens and a jack for a full house. That left ‘likeboy’ in need of hitting running aces to stay alive in the event. Cheong was a 99.7 percent favorite after the flop, according to the Card Player Poker Odds Calculator, and the K on the turn left ‘likeboy’ drawing 100 percent dead. ‘Likeboy’ earned $519,134 as the fourth-place finisher, and Cheong extended his lead over Plausinaitis and short stack ‘turkey1.’

The Action

Cheong came into three-handed action in the lead, but Plausinaitis hammered away at that advantage by winning a lot of early pots without showdown. Short stack ‘turkey1’ then doubled through Cheong to send him to the bottom of the leaderboard. Cheong picked up A-4 offsuit in the small blind and shoved for just shy of 12 big blinds, only to run into the pocket queens of Plausinaitis. The Lithuanian hit a set of queens on the turn to lock up the pot and eliminate Cheong in third place. He took home $692,276 for his strong showing in this event, bringing his career tournament earnings to more than $15.4 million.

The Action

Plausinaitis took more than a 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play against ‘turkey1.’ The shorter-stacked player found some key double-ups and was able to overtake the lead briefly, but Plausinaitis was able to regain a big chip advantage by the time the final hand was dealt. The last eight or so big blinds of ‘turkey1’ went in preflop with Q-9 suited. Plausinaitis called with A-10 of the same suit. The flop gave ‘turkey1’ the lead with nines and threes, but an ace on the turn put Plausinaitis in a dominant position. The 8 on the river secured the pot and the title for Plausinaitis, who banked a massive $1,236,361 payday. ‘turkey1’ earned $923,165 as the runner-up finisher.

Final Table Results