Beizaks Hoists the Trophy While Noviks Leads OlyBet Riga Showdown Voodoo Bounty Main Event

Olympic Voodoo Casino, located in the heart of the Latvian capital of Riga, has boasted a hotbed of poker action the past five days, with players enthusiastically battling in the 2024 OlyBet Showdown Riga Voodoo Bounty.

The €350 Main Event Mystery Bounty kicked off the first of its three opening flights with 88 entries getting into the mix with 40 players surviving after nine levels of 40 minutes each. Thursday will boast the final two opening flights, with players still allowed to late register or re-enter for the first three blind levels of Friday’s Day 2 before an eventual winner is crowned on Saturday’s final day. Seven of those players came from a €20 satellite hosted earlier in the day.

The top end of the leaderboard was cluttered with players calling Latvia their home, led by Mihails Noviks, who transformed his 30,000 opening stack into 138,500. The 2024 WSOP Circuit Tallinn ring winner Eriks Krumins, already won a trophy this week and is hoping that his second-place finish on Day 1a with 121,500 sets him on the path to adding the most prestigious trophy of the festival to his ever-growing collection.

Yaniv Peretz (120,500), 2024 WSOP Circuit Tallinn winner, who also already won a trophy like Krumins, Harijs Erglis (111,000), and Aris Rozentals (102,000), all ended the day with a six-figure stack with Nikita Zarovs just missing the mark with 96,500.

Meanwhile, there was a home game feeling in the €150 NLH Wednesday Rush with good friends battling it out until the finish. This author nearly had a fun “Poker Journalist Wins Trophy” title as he had the chip lead most of the way until a bad beat changed the course of the event. Meanwhile, his friend Edgars Beizaks got the job done to win the €2,301 top prize and the coveted trophy.

Edgars Beizaks Wins Trophy and Bragging Rights

The €150 NLH Wednesday Rush attracted a turbo-charged 62 entries to create a €7,738 prize pool. Eventual champion Edgars Beizaks joined at the very last second after two unsuccessful attempts at the Main Event before heading on a break with this author, Jason Glatzer, and two other players who managed to hit the final table in Nils Veipans and Harijs Erglis.

“Let’s all four of us be the final four players,” we all hoped for while having full intentions to play hard at each other with tons of pride on the line in addition to the trophy and the money from the prize pool.

Glatzer was cruising along and earned a significant chip lead on the field with two tables remaining. This author still held a substantial lead to start the final table with Beizaks starting as one of the short stacks. It was nearly over before it began for Beizaks, but he managed to win an early flip to double his short stack with treys against ace-queen.

Belgium’s Geert Leerman (eighth – €320) and Latvia’s Olegs Bulko (ninth – €280) were the first two players to hit the rail in the money before Erglis’s dream of winning a second trophy this festival vanished soon later, finishing in seventh place for €388. Erglis hung around to rail until the end, witnessing the likes of Ingus Arajs (fifth – €578) and Askolds Uldrikis (sixth – €475) lose their stacks.

Shortly after, fireworks flared as Veipans called off his second-place stack with king-queen and got there against this author’s ace-jack to take a commanding chip lead.

“It’s good Nils won, as it would have been over if you took down the hand,” Beizaks commented after the hands.

Despite the short stack, this author held on as Arturas Dauksevic (fourth – €791) headed to the cashier one player shy of the podium. A deal was briefly discussed, but we were all hungry for the trophy and opted to play on.

Moments later, Veipans called off against with king-queen—this time against Beizaks’s ace-jack. No magic came for Veipans. He was down to fumes after bricking the board. Moments later, Veipans hit the rail leaving Beizaks with one of the most commanding leads possible with nearly ten times the chips.

Handshakes and hugs were exchanged shortly after Beizaks sealed the deal to win the title and, of course, bragging rights between his friends.

Day 6 Schedule (Sept. 19, 2024)

Thursday will focus on the festival’s highlight in the €350 Main Event Mystery Bounty, with its final two opening flights kicking off on Thursday at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. The earlier flight mirrors the same structure as Wednesday’s Day 1a, while the later flight boasts 30-minute blind levels instead of a 40-minute clock.

While there are no side events, the festival offers players a chance to get into the Main Event for a fraction of its €350 buy-in with the €20 Last Chance Satellite to the Main Event beginning at 4 p.m.