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Gostisa Becomes First Slovenian to Win WPT Title

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

Last year, partypoker hosted the inaugural World Poker Tour’s World Online Championships, better known as the WPT WOC. The 71-day series offered 12 official WPT events, each with several buy-in levels. And when it was all over, players had taken home $100,746,175 in prize money.

The second iteration of the WPT WOC wrapped this week on partypoker eased up on the overall goal. Not only had some live poker returned for players in various parts of the world, players were not feeling as confined as in 2020 during the pandemic-mandated lockdowns. The 2021 WOC spread the action out over 16 official events – some with more buy-in levels than others – and a halved buy-in Main Event.

Action kicked off on August 12 and wrapped this week. And the finale brought it all home with Rok Gostisa as the Main Event winner, the first WPT champion from Slovenia.

Preliminary Event Results

Let’s just take a look at the main tournament option of each event on the schedule – other than the 2021 WPT WOC Main Event – and their results:

Event 1: $215 NLHE PKO 7-Max Opener (41 flights) = 4,777 entries, $1M prize pool ($44,600 overlay)

-Winner: Luiz Orrico (Brazil) $93,752.46

Event 2: $2,100 Omaha 6-Max Championship (4 flights) = 161 entries, $322K prize pool ($300K GTD)

-Winner: Bengt Sonnert (Sweden) $71,239.79

Event 3: $530 NLHE WPT500 (16 flights) = 2,295 entries, $1,147,500 prize pool ($1M GTD)

-Winner: Pedro Cavalieri (Brazil) $153,503.85

Event 4: $55 NLHE Super50 (38 flights) = 7,246 entries, $362,300 prize pool ($250K GTD)

-Winner: Ovidiu Gigel Rosca (UK) $48,997.81

Event 5: $5.50 NLHE Super5 (38 flights) = 10,398 entries, $51,990 prize pool ($50K GTD)

-Winner: Leopold Ferdinand Dornberger (Germany) $6,382.01

Event 6: $2,100 NLHE PKO 7-Max Championship (4 flights) = 489 entries, $1M prize pool ($22K overlay)

-Winner: Eder Campana (Brazil) $168,958.91

Event 8: $530 NLHE WPT500 Knockout (12 flights) = 2,126 entries, $1,063,000 prize pool ($1M GTD)

-Winner: Alexandros Theologis (Austria) $115,068.45

Event 9: $55 NLHE Super50 Knockout (36 flights) = 8,489 entries, $424,450 prize pool ($250K GTD)

-Winner: Charlie Combes (UK) $32,491.03

Event 10: $5.50 NLHE Super5 (36 flights) = 11,516 entries, $57,580 prize pool ($50K GTD)

-Winner: Marlon Schurr (Brazil) $4,588.67

Event 11: $2,100 NLHE PKO 6-Max Championship (4 flights) = 499 entries, $1M prize pool ($2K overlay)

-Winner: Daniel Colpoys (Mexico) $167,322.18

Event 12: $25,500 NLHE 7-Max Super High Roller Championship = 48 entries, $1.2M prize pool ($1M GTD)

-Winner: Ole Schemion (Austria) $388,708.80

Event 13: $109 NLHE PKO 6-Max Closer (27 flights) = 6,300 entries, $629,987.50 prize pool ($500K GTD)

-Winner: Arold Experience (Canada) $55,802.75

Event 14: $10,300 NLHE High Roller Championship = 114 entries, $1.14M prize pool ($1M GTD)

-Winner: Jonathan Proudfoot (UK) $268,960.20

Event 15: $2,100 NLHE PKO Mix-Max Championship (4 flights) = 590 entries, $1.18M prize pool ($1M GTD)

-Winner: Sami Kelopuro (Finland) $203,246.43

Event 16: $2,100 NLHE PKO 7-Max Turbo Championship = 118 entries, $300K prize pool ($64K overlay)

-Winner: Andrii Novak (Ukraine) approximately $77K (no exact numbers provided)

Three Main Events, One Main Main

Event 7 was the Main Event, complete with the big one, a mini one, and a micro one. The smaller buy-ins resulted in these numbers:

$109 Micro Main = 3,476 entries, $347,600 prize pool ($100K GTD), 517 paid players

-Winner: Kristian Karlsson (Sweden) $45,433.91

$1,050 Mini Main = 1,630 entries, $1.63M prize pool ($1M GTD), 238 paid players

-Winner: Barry Hutter (Mexico) $257,423.10

As for the actual Main Event, it kicked off with the first of several starting days. That Day 1A delivered 390 entries, from which 59 survived with Andras Nemeth atop the leaderboard holding 4,047,290 chips. Day 1B added 292 entries to the mix, though only 44 players made it through. Ole Schemion led that pack with 3,273,638 chips. And Day 1C pulled in 346 entries, resulting in 52 survivors Kevin Macdonald at the top with 3,604,687 chips.

Notably, the leaderboard for Day 1C showed a Slovenian player named Rok Gostisa in eighth place for that flight.

Day 2 set the final numbers and the payouts into motion:

-Total entries: 1,028

-Total prize pool: $5,895,000 ($5M GTD)

-Players paid: 178

-Minimum payout: $10,401.64

As the hours passed and the final table neared, players like Mikita Badziakouski and Steven van Zadelhoff busted. Ultimately, Maxi Lehmanski departed in 11th place for $57,639, and Fabian Quoss took 10th place for the same amount.

That left the final table set with Vlad Darie holding a solid lead over the final nine, followed in a bit of a distance by David Peters, and then an even more distant Talal Shakerchi and Rodrigo Sirichuk. Rok Gostisa was in fifth, followed by Manuel Fritz, Bruno Volkmann, Philipp Hofbauer, and Joao Simao.

Final table play started cautiously, but Peters eventually took out Simao to start the eliminations. Peters then took the chip lead and followed that up with busting Sirichuk in eighth place. Darie took out Shakerchi and Fritz in a single hand, and Peters stepped back in later to bust Hofbauer in fifth and then Volkmann in fourth place. And Gostisa stepped in to bust Darie in third place.

Peters took 151.1M chips into heads-up play against the 84.7M of Gostisa. The shorter stack was aggressive, though, and pushed into the lead. His aggression took him to a significant lead before Peters started to close the gap.

Peters then raised preflop with pocket sixes, and Gostisa reraised with pocket tens. Peters called. The flop of 6-5-4 prompted an all-in move from Gostisa, and Peters quickly called all-in. The turn kept the hopes of a double-up alive for Peters, but the 10 on the river busted Peters in second place.

-1st place: Rok Gostisa (Slovenia) $959,493

-2nd place: David Peters (Canada) $660,482

-3rd place: Vlad Darie (Austria) $453,677

-4th place: Bruno Volkmann (Brazil) $296,185

-5th place: Philipp Hofbauer (Austria) $202,734

-6th place: Talal Shakerchi (UK) $156,421

-7th place: Manuel Fritz (Austria) $123,182

-8th place: Rodrigo Sirichuk (Brazil) $97,472

-9th place: Joao Simao (Brazil) $76,713

The World Poker Tour will soon etch Gostisa’s name on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, and he joins the elite WPT Champions Club.

After the win, Gostisa told partypoker, “It feels so surreal, especially when there were so many situations that had to align in order for me to win. I feel extremely grateful for the support I received from my friends and family. I would also like to thank all the people that were rooting for me on the final table.”

Next up for Gostisa is heading to Las Vegas. He plans to play the World Series of Poker and win a bracelet.

 

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