The World Series of Poker (WSOP) has finally concluded with Lithuanian player Paulius Plausinaitis been crowned the 2020 GGPoker World Series of Poker Winter Online Circuit champion. This win is Paulius’s first WSOP circuit ring win, which earned him his first seven figure income of USD 1,236,360.75. The $17000 buy-in no limit hold’em event saw 6,395 players buy-in, surpassing the predicted $10 million guaranteed amount that would create the final pool prize of $10,327,925.

The GGPoker WSOP winter online circuit event had several levels to choose from, with 1112 players qualifying for the day 2 event. This number dropped to 700 finishers, with the least winning player earning $4,107. After seven hours of intense playing, the table saw its final nine competitors.

How Paulius Came to His Win

With nine players remaining on the field, Plausinaitis’s chances to win first came clear as he led with the largest number of chips, followed by Artem Prostak and WSOP bracelet winner Joseph Cheong. Artem and Cheong did the heavy lifting of eliminating various players. It started with Prostak eliminating BetAddict, who took ninth place with a winning of $123,106. Cheong took over the pace by knocking out a Chinese player, DaiMing141319, who took the eighth position with $164 165.

It didn’t stop there for the WSOP bracelet winner. He continued to climb the leaderboard by eliminating another bracelet winner Alexandru Papazian. Cheong played pocket jacks, a move that has caused most poker players their win, against Papazian’s A-5. Papazian couldn’t rise from the play, leading to his elimination at seventh position with an earning of $218 917.

All this while, Paulius played it safe with his eyes on the prize. Things turned out interesting when Prostak, with the second-largest stack of chips started falling the leaderboard. Prostak had pocket queens while “likeboy’ had A-K. He lost most of his chips when “likeboy’ applied pocket jacks during a preflop, taking the sixth position with $291 931.

Cheong had all signs of winning after knocking out a third player from Finland, Jouhkimainen. At this point, Cheong also had more chips than Paulius Plausinaitis and four times more than the third and fourth players. Joseph continued climbing up the ladder by putting “likeboy’ in the fourth position. Despite “likeboy’ having A-J and Cheong Q-J, the Q-Q-J flop gave Cheong an upper hand, especially after “likeboy’ failed to get an ace from the flop. “likeboy’ earned $519,134.

The Last Two Steps to Paulius’ Win

With three players left, it was time for Plausinaitis to player harder to win the top prize. He started by eliminating Cheong in the battle of the blinds by calling Q spade and Q heart in the big blind while Plausinaitis had shoved A heart and 4 diamond on the small blind. Cheong took third place with a winning of $692, 276 leaving turkey1 to take Plausinaitis.

With the win against Cheong, Plausinaitis already had 5 times more chips against turkey1. However, after a double-ups, turkey1 took the lead briefly before Plausinaitis regained his position a moment before dealing the final hand. After several play exchanges through several blinds, Paulius took the lead with aces and threes, making turkey1 the runners up with $923165.