Antanas Guoga, better known to the poker world as Tony G, took down yet another high roller at the Merit Casino in Cyprus. The location is rapidly becoming a lucky sport for Guoga. He's taken down three titles there in the last 13 months.
The event in question was this week's $10,400 buy-in event at the Mediterranean Poker Party. The tourney was hosted by the Merit Hotel and Casino in Cyprus, and attracted 96 players. Once the rebuys were counted up there were 149 buy-ins in the pot for a $1.49 million prize pool.
The first place prize ended up being $257,500 after Guoga and his heads-up opponent Alex Peffly settled a deal. The pair split the prize evenly, leaving an extra $10,000 set aside for whoever took first place.
As a result, Peffly won $247,500 when he came in second.
Tony G's Cyprus hat trick
Although the MPP event was not televised or live streamed, there was at least one cell phone journalist on hand to capture the moment of victory. As the final card of the final hand is placed on the board, Guoga calmly says, "That's it, I'm the champion." Then he gets to his feet and lets his emotions out with an excited shout.
Guoga tweeted the video of his win with the caption, "I’m the champion! Took down the 10k HR."
This victory here rubs out the ignominy of Guoga's defeat in the tortilla slap challenge.
The Lithuanian cryptopreneur, politician, and alpaca farmer took 2014-2019 off in order to run for national office on an anti-corruption ticket. Then he took a second major break from poker in 2019/2020 as COVID drew dust sheets over Europe's poker tables.
Since Europe began to throw off those dust sheets, starting with Russia and Cyprus in 2021, Tony G came back out to play. Almost immediately he took down a pair of high roller events in Cyprus, and now he's come back and managed to fill out his hat trick.
2022 Mediterranean Poker Party $10,400 High Roller complete final table results
| Position | Player Name | Country | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Antanas "Tony G" Guoga | Lithuania | $257,500* |
| 2nd | Alex Peffly | United States | $247,500* |
| 3rd | Andrea Ricci | Italy | $140,800 |
| 4th | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | $100,000 |
| 5th | Danny Tang | Hong Kong | $80,000 |
| 6th | Kahle Burns | Australia | $65,000 |
Featured image credit: Oleg Novruzov
