Slovenia's Rok Gostisa has taken down the biggest win of his career, coming from behind to win the 2021 WPT World Online Championship's Main Event. Gostisa came from well behind at the final table for his first major win, eventually topping American star David Peters for the title.
Gostisa, a resident of Log Pri Brezovici, near Ljubljana in central Slovenia, earned $959,493, the largest cash of his career, online or live. Gostisa topped an 1,179-entry field in this tournament, which was held on the partypoker global (dot-com) site.
Gostisa's win in the $5 million WPT WOC main event caps the five-week-long World Online Championships series. The series began in mid-August and was a somewhat scaled-down version of the WPT's WOC debut in 2020. Amid a very crowded late-summer global lineup of tourney series, both online and live, both the WPT and partypoker wisely opted for a reduced version of the 2020 series this time around.
Gostisa reels in Darie, Peters for title
Gostisa came from well behind in the later stages of the final table to overtake Peters, who played from Canada for this series, and Austria's Vlad Darie, who arrived at the final table as the chip leader. This finale was dominated by Austrian and Brazilian pros, who filled six of the nine final-table seats.
Darie held the lead early on, though Peters logged a knockout early on to move into the lead, and Peters held that top spot through most of the final's action. Either Peters or Darie logged each of the final's first six knockouts, leaving Gostisa as the only other contender for the win. Gostisa eventually pulled ahead of Darie as Peters built a hefty three-handed lead, and Gostisa eventually busted Darie to set up heads-up play.
Peters held roughly a 5:3 edge over Gostisa as their title duel began. However, the big breaks all went Gostisa's way, including a two-pair-versus-two-pair hand that gave Gostisa the lead, and a rivered two-outer that finally sealed the win. After giving up the double-through to Gostisa, Peters appeared ready for the return double, when he flopped top set and got his stack in against Gostisa, who held an overpair (pocket tens). Gostisa, though, rivered one of the two remaining tens to win the pot and the tourney in set-over-set fashion.
Gostisa's near-million-dollar triumph in the 2021 WPT WOC dwarfs the entirety of his live poker career, where he's won just over $200,000. Gostisa's best live poker finish came in 2017, when he won one of the preliminary events in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas.
Final Results
- Rok Gostisa (Slovenia) - $959,493
- David Peters (Canada) - $660,482
- Vlad Darie (Austria) - $453,677
- Bruno Volkmann (Brazil) - $296,185
- Philipp Hofbauer (Austria) - $202,734
- Talal Shakerchi (United Kingdom) - $156,421
- Manuel Fritz (Austria) - $123,182
- Rodrigo Sirichuk (Brazil) - $97,472
- Joao Simao (Brazil) - $76,713
Featured image source: partypoker
