Super High Roller Bowl Europe Event #7: $100,000 saw Antanas "Tony G" Guoga take down his second event of the series. With 26 players to beat, and the nice round buy-in amount, the prize pool came to $2,600,000. First place was due just a few thousand bucks under $1.2 million.
Guoga spent a decade outside of poker, representing Lithuania first in the European Parliament, then in the Seimas. During that time, he also got into cryptocurrency. But it seems he hasn't lost his edge on the felt. As well as winning two of these events in Cyprus, he's also been mopping up on the live-streamed cash games. These stream on PokerGO in parallel with the tournament final tables.
With the buy-in as high as it was, the field was small but strong. Just to make it to a min-cash, Tony G would have had to outlast Stephen Chidwick (14th), Seth Davies (12th), Timofey Kuznetzov (10th), and at the final table Ivan Leow (7th) and Phil Ivey (6th).
With Cary Katz's elimination on the money bubble in 5th, Day 1 came to a close.
On Day 2, Guoga would be facing Paul Phua, Danny Tang, and Santi Jiang. All three of these players had a lot more experience with short-deck hold'em than Tony. Phua and Jiang were both running hot over this series with multiple final tables each. Jiang had just won Event #5. This didn't stop Tony G from plowing through the field on Day 2 and coming out the winner.
"Amazing to win two high stakes NLH ShortDeck tournaments in one week," he tweeted right after his victory.
In the money, to the top
Day 2 play resumed with Tang absolutely dominating the table with 3.5 million in chips to Tony's 1.7 million. Jiang was a little behind Tony and Phua had about 1.0 million in front of him. Tang was the man to beat.
However, after Jiang doubled up through Tang, the stacks started looking a little more even. After that, Jiang passed his chips on to Guoga and Phua before busting. Tang then followed shortly, and heads-up play began.
With the ante at 40k and Phua's stack at 2.1 million, he picked up the two red aces (A♦️A❤️). He raised and Tony G shoved with the A♣K♣. It was a classic cooler with Tony holding about 12% equity in the hand.
The board ran out Q❤️Q♦️8♣7♣ by the turn giving Tony outs to the flush draw.
Phua called for a red card, adding "I'll give you a king."
"Don't worry," Tony G replied. "I've never seen a flush like this. It would be a miracle."
The last card came up Guoga though as the 9♣ filled him up and gave him the hand. Looking a little sick, Phua stood up and shook Guoga's hand as Tony issued condolences.
Tony G stood up and looked into the camera. "I'm the champ!" he said, pumping his fists. "Lucky champ. Lucky, lucky, lucky."
There's still some of the old Tony G in there, but age has clearly mellowed him. He tweeted a clip of his victory shortly after it aired with the caption: "I’m the best…and also the luckiest!"
That's our new Tony, long may he keep being both smart and lucky.
Phua took $728,000 for second place. This is his 17th short deck final table, he has yet to come first.
Super High Roller Bowl Europe Event #7: $100,000 complete final table results
| Position | Player Name | Payout |
| 1st | Antanas "Tony G" Guoga | $1,196,000 |
| 2nd | Paul Phua | $728,000 |
| 3rd | Danny Tang | $416,000 |
| 4th | Santi Jiang | $260,000 |
| 5th | Cary Katz | N/A (Money Bubble) |
| 6th | Phil Ivey | N/A |
| 7th | Ivan Leow | N/A |
Featured image source: Twitter
