The fourth day of the 2025 OlyBet Vilnius Showdown featured many delicacies on the menu. Perhaps, the €2,200 High Roller was the event that tickled the most feathers. This was the tournament poker.pro had set out to cover, and considering the rare, entertaining, and astonishing conclusion the tournament had, we’re glad we had the opportunity to stay ’til the end.
Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
The €2,200 High Roller was scheduled to begin at 14:00, and from a spectator’s perspective, the tournament looked very appealing with its deep structure and juicy buy-in. It was hard not to think about the success of the last High Roller event at the Olympic Casino Lithuania, which was played during the 2025 OlyBet Showdown Ace Breaker. The €1,100 tournament attracted 96 entries, and it was hard to estimate how many players would take their shot in a tournament with a twice as large buy-in.
The poker.pro live reporting team started following the tournament around 19:00, about one hour before the dinner break was scheduled. At this point, 11 players remained out of a total of 18 entries. While this number may have been lower than last year, the tournament had attracted some really, really big names. Number two on the Lithuania all-time money list Matas Cimbolas, 2024 Kings of Tallinn winner Edgaras Kausinis, and 2025 Ace Breaker Vilnius winner Rasmus Sihvonen were just a handful of the very competent players still in the mix.
One of the first happenings we were able to cover was the elimination of Artiom Gončarenko. All his chips went the way of Rytis Pranarauskas, and the terminator kept adding to his stack, as it wasn’t long before he eliminated Sihvonen, right before the 45-minute dinner break.
No One’s Hungry
Considering only nine players remained at this point, they collectively suggested to the floor that the dinner break would be shortened. Eventually, it was deemed that the time for supper would be reduced from 45 to 30 minutes, and if no one else registered during this time, the nine-handed final table would be set.
This would be the case as registration closed at 18 entries, creating a €34,560 prize pool and four pay-outs. The nine players took their seats and prepared to fight it out for eternal poker glory and the €13,820 first-place prize.
The first one to go was Cimbolas as his kings were cracked. Presumably, this news was very welcomed by the rest of the tables, considering the successful career of Cimbolas. Rumors has it we will see him return to the €1,100 Main Event later this week.
The next one to fall was the only lady in the tournament. Always with a smile on her lips and bringing nothing but good vibes to the poker table, Iryna Tsikhanskaya displayed some great poker in the tournament throughout, but, eventually, she fell to Rokas Asipauskas.
Worth mentioning is that while all of this went down, Pranarauskas was still the chipleader, and had been such since the second the poker.pro team set foot in the Olympic Casino Lithuania. He was miles ahead of everyone else. Eventually, Kausinis found himself all in against Asipauskas, and with the latter one pulling the longest straw, he closed in on 200,000 which at least in theory could make a dent in the Pranarauskas stack. The charismatic Kausinis was eliminated in seventh place three hands later.
End Game
Eventually, Mantas Bagočius was eliminated in sixth place, and the remaining five players decided to take €500 from every payout position and add a fifth bubble prize. Said and done, Aleksandras Rusinovas got his stack in against the aces of – you guessed it – Pranarauskas, and as he received no help, he was eliminated in fifth place for €2,000.
Then, when four players remained, the most insane thing of the day went down, as Pranarauskas managed to eliminate Mindaugas Kriaučiūnas and Jungevičius in the same hand. This meant that he eventually would commence Heads-up against Asipauskas with 700,000 against 200,000.
Heads-up play didn’t last much longer than perhaps 15 minutes before Asipauskas suggested an all in “in the dark” encounter. Pranarauskas accepted the offer, and as his King High was good on the runout, he eliminated Asipauskas, claimed the title, and the newly-adjusted €13,320 first-place payout.
| Position | Player | Country | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  Rytis Pranarauskas | Lithuania | €13,320 |
| 2. | Rokas Asipauskas | Lithuania | €9,180 |
| 3. | Kęstutis Jungevičius | Lithuania | €5,720 |
| 4. | Mindaugas Kriaučiūnas | Lithuania | €4,340 |
| 5. | Aleksandras Rusinovas | Lithuania | €2,000 |
To sum it all up; Pranarauskas held the chip lead from the moment we set foot in the room until he stood there with the trophy. He displayed great poker throughout the day, and it’ll be a thrill to follow him during the remainder of the week.
Tomorrow, May 21, poker.pro will follow Day 2 of the €555 Championship. The tournament will resume at 12:00, but late registration will be open until the end of Level 14. Thanks to everyone who’ve been following along with the live updates today, and we’ll see you tomorrow.
