2024 WSOPC Tallinn Day 7: Riku Koivurinne Wins €1K PLO Ring

Olympic Park Casino and the Hilton Tallinn Park were buzzing with tournament and cash game action on Day 7 of the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Tallinn.

Finland’s Riku Koivurinne rose to the occasion to win the sole WSOP Circuit Tallinn gold ring and the €41,200 top prize on Thursday after defeating Norway’s Jan Holte heads-up.

Meanwhile, the €1 million guaranteed WSOP Circuit Tallinn €1,500 Main Event completed the final two of six opening flights on Thursday. The event thus far has attracted 693 entries, with more to come. Late registration is open until the start of the fifth blind level of the day, and new players start with a healthy stack of 25 big blinds.

Four players also won side event trophies on Thursday, including Finland’s Xuan Truc Tran shipping Event #38: €150 NLH Deepstack for €6,065, Sweden’s Bjorn Lindberg, who has a decent stack in the Main Event, winning Event €39: €250 PLO 4&5 Hi-Lo for €6,800, Lithuanian poker podcaster Andrius Bielskis winning Event €40: €555 NLH Deepstack for €18,600, and Norway’s Tarjei Forus binking Event #41: €150 PLO 4&5 for €5,451.

Riku Koivurinne Puts on a Dominating Display

Finland’s Riku Koivurinne navigated through a record-breaking field of 198 entries in the two-day Event #7: €1,100 PLO 4&5 Cards at Olympic Park Casino.

While Koivurinne didn’t start the day with many chips, he quickly moved up the ranks before eventually capturing the chip lead from runner-up Jan Holte. He displayed aggression at the correct times for a commanding performance en route to winning the WSOP Circuit Gold Ring and the free ticket to the $1 million guaranteed WSOP Tournament of Champions next summer, where he will play for a matching WSOP gold bracelet to go along with his newly earned ring.

Koivurinne had a 4:1 chip advantage to start heads-up play against Holte. Holte battled back before nearly evening the stacks before the duo agreed to a deal guaranteeing Koivurinne €33,700 and Holte at least €32,500 with still €7,500 to play for. Koivurinne went on a tear to quickly close things out from there to win his first taste at WSOP gold.

The action was live-streamed with WSOP Circuit commentator George Sandford shared his wisdom of four and five-card poker alongside entertaining guests throughout the quick affair. Norway’s Lars Romundstad (third – €20,800), Finland’s Jussi Mattila (fourth – €15,400), Lithuania’s Stanislovas Vinicenka (fifth – €11,900), Finland’s Sami Paananen (sixth – €9,280), Latvia’s Renars Stepins (seventh – €7,350), and Denmark’s Gisle Olsen (eighth – €6,000) also all cashed at the final table.

Holte began the final table with the chip lead with more than double the stack of his nearest opponent in fellow Norwegian Romundstad. Eventual winner Koivurinne was near the bottom of the pack with 12.5 big blinds to start the day.

The action was hot and heavy from the start, with several short-stacked players making moves. The first six times a short stack committed their stack resulted in a double-up, with the seventh time resulting in a triple-up. From there, the eliminations began flying as the next double-up didn’t occur to heads-up action in this high-octane affair.

Main Event to Be Live Streamed From Day 2

Get ready for some fun and excitement as the Main Event reaches past late registration at around 3:20 p.m. Once the action resumes, the live stream commences at OlyBet.tv with WSOPC Tallinn commentator George Sandford once again taking the reigns, providing expert commentating alongside many guests. The OlyBet reporting team led by this author will also provide updates on the side tables, along with frequent top chip count updates, stories, and more.

Aleksei Vandyshev was the only player to push his 50,000 starting stack past 400,000 and will start Day 2 with a chip-leading stack of 430,500. Finland’s Tom Arovaara (365,500), former OlyBet Poker Manager from Estonia Martin Pick (316,500), Ukraine’s Vitalii Zimkovskyi (314,000), and Finland’s Kyosti Isberg (300,500) all advanced with more than 300,000.

The final prize pool and payouts will be set late afternoon on Friday. Check out the top 10 chip counts from the Main Event below:

WSOP Circuit Tallinn Day 8 Schedule (July 26)

The Main Event gets hot and serious on Friday, with Day 2 kicking off at noon and the live stream at OlyBet.tv beginning after the first break. We will also report all of the action at OlyBet.tv on our live reporting blog.

A new ring event in the two-day Event #8: €1,100 NLH Mystery Bounty begins on Friday at 5 p.m. and will play down to the money. The following day of this event becomes even more exciting as mystery bounty envelopes are pulled.

Also taking place on Friday are three side events and two satellites.

Head to OlyBetEvents.com for the full schedule of the 2024 WSOP Circuit Tallinn, and check out Friday’s schedule below: