WSOP Online 2020: Lithuania’s Vladas Burneikis Wins Event #49 on GGPoker For $192,523

The 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online series had three bracelet events running on GGPoker and Natural8 on Sunday. Two of them played down to a winner, and the first of the two to name a champion was Event #49: $500 Turbo Deepstack No-Limit Hold’em.

The event registered 2,978 entries to garner a prize pool of $1.414 Million. After six hours of play, Lithuania’s Vladas Burneikis playing under the moniker ‘apuokos’ held all the chips in play after defeating Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin heads-up. The victory brought him his career-first WSOP bracelet, $192,523 in prize money, and a WSOP Europe package valued at $15,000.

Burneikis dominated the final table and eliminated five of his last eight opponents within 38 minutes on the FT to take down the title.

According to Burneikis’s Hendon Mob profile, he sits with $208,714 in live tournament winnings. He had $10,815 in WSOP cashes to his name before this victory.

Dara ‘OriginalDoke’ O’Kearney went out on the money bubble, bringing the remaining 368 players into the money.

Danny Tang, Pascal Hartmann, Ali Imsirovic, Pascal Lefrancois, Steve O’Dwyer, Alex Foxen, Kahle Burns, Juha Helppi, Adrian Buckley, Mustapha Kanit, Shawn Buchanan, Jack Sinclair, and Asi Moshe were the notables who finished ITM.

Among Indians, poker coach Abhishek Goindi posted a 35th place finish for $3,904.

Anonymous user ‘Heisenbrum’ went out in tenth place for $10,503, before the final table was set.

Leading the way heading into the final table was Vladas ‘apuokos’ Burneikis, with a stack of 33,615,621. His closest competitor was Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin, with 21,984,166, while Zhewen ‘Polkadot’ Hu held the next top stack of 20,249,711.

Ezequiel ‘lafiera8’ Waigel (5,015,239) and Brendan ‘doji’ Sheehan (3,980,888) were the shortest two stacks at the start of the final table.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Vladas ‘apuokos’ Burneikis – 33,615,621
2. Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin – 21,984,166
3. Zhewen ‘Polkadot’ Hu – 20,249,711
4. Jeffrey ‘allin donk’ Cormier – 12,383,140
5. Boris Kolev – 8,193,662
6. Jimmy ‘KOBE_BRYANT8’ Guerrero – 8,057,956
7. Guillaume Nolet – 5,638,617
8. Ezequiel ‘lafiera8’ Waigel – 5,015,239
9. Brendan ‘doji’ Sheehan – 3,980,888

Final Table Recap

Jimmy ‘KOBE_BRYANT8’ Guerrero was the first to fall on the final table after his pocket kings got cracked by Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin’s Ace-three off-suit.

Eight minutes later, Guillaume Nolet was sent packing in eighth place by Vladas ‘apuokos’ Burneikis.

Burneikis claimed his next victim in Zhewen ‘Polkadot’ Hu, who fell out in seventh place after his pocket eights lost the flip to Burneikis’ . Two minutes after eliminating Hu, Ezequiel ‘lafiera8’ Waigel got the boot from Burneikis.

Not long afterward, Jeff ‘allin donk’ Cormier got busted in fifth place in a blind vs. blind encounter. Cormier’s ace-ten got dusted by Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin`s pocket aces.

Brendan “doji” Sheehan was the shortest stack at the start of the FT and managed to ladder up five places to finish fourth. Like the majority of the final table, he too was eliminated by Burneikis.

On the very next hand, Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin moved all-in from the small blind with . Boris Kolev called from the big blind with and was the player at risk. The board blanked out, ending Kolev’s deep run in third place.

Burneikis and Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin entered the heads-up fairly evenly stacked. But luck was not on Merlin`s side, who took his first big hit after losing a monster pot with his turned two pair getting shattered on the river. Next, he was denied a double up with pocket sixes against Burneikis’s as the pot got chopped with the board opening two pairs.

On the final hand of the day, Merlin shoved his 5 BB stack with . Burneikis made the call with . A queen, on the turn, won Burneikis the bracelet.

Final Table Results (USD)

1. Vladas ‘apuokos’ Burneikis – $1,92,523
2. Pierre ‘Malaska’ Merlin – $1,47,052
3. Boris Kolev – $1,05,732
4. Brendan ‘doji’ Sheehan – $76,022
5. Jeff ‘allin donk’ Cormier – $54,660
6. Ezequiel ‘lafiera8’ Waigel – $39,301
7. Zhewen ‘Polkadot’ Hu – $28,258
8. Guillaume Nolet – $20,317
9. Jimmy ‘KOBE_BRYANT8’ Guerrero – $14,608

Content & Images Courtesy: WSOP.com and PokerNews.com

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