Gediminas Uselis Wins Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 Main Event

Lithuanian pro Gediminas Uselis earned his second six-figure score of his career last Friday in Las Vegas at the Venetian.

Uselis bested a massive 1,341-entry field to win the Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 Main Event for $325,428. The huge turnout nearly doubled the $1 million guaranteed prize pool.

He defeated Chicago native David McGowan heads-up to best a final table that had quite an international flare, with eight different countries represented at the nine-handed final table.

Uselis added an MSPT title to a resume that already had a World Series of Poker bracelet and a WSOP Circuit ring. Last year, during the WSOP Online series, Uselies won the international $400 no-limit hold’em ‘Forty Stack’ for $211,282 playing under the screen name ‘NeverGambol’ on GGPoker.

At the time, it was the largest score of his career, but he surpassed that milestone with his victory on the Las Vegas Strip. He won the $2,200 no-limit hold’em high roller at the WSOP Circuit in Choctaw for $60,710 in November 2019.

The final table was reached late on Day 2, but Victor Canaple busted in ninth and the final eight players came back on Friday, Oct. 22 to play down to a winner. Uselis came into the day third chips behind chip leader Daan Mulders and established high-stakes pro Barry Hutter.

Uselis set the tone for Day 3 early on as he took the chip lead from Mulders by getting two streets of value with trip queens against Mulders. The Dutch player would get back within striking distance of the chip lead by eliminating Fabian Bernhauser in eighth and Gennaro Proscia in sixth. He was also involved in the three way all in that saw Raul Martinez sent to the rail in seventh place by Proscia.

McGowan eliminated Hutter in fifth, which left Mulders, McGowan Uselis and Benjammin Underwood battling for the trophy.

Underwood drilled a three-outer to put a dent in Mulders’ stack, but couldn’t hang on much longer than that as he lost a race for his tournament life to McGowan with A-K against McGowan’s J-J.

McGowan busted Mulders in third which set up a nearly dead-even heads-up match against Uselis as both players had around 20 million chips.

The two finalists played heads-up for about three levels without many large showdowns as Uselis grinded down McGowan and opened up about a 9-to-1 chip lead. Eventually, with a big blind of 600,000, McGowan moved all in on the button with K-8 and was called by Uselis, who tabled A-5. Neither player made a pair and Uselis earned his second six-figure score with ace-high.

Final Table Results:

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