The Festival Weekend Riga delivered its biggest day yet on Friday at Olympic Voodoo Casino, in partnership with OlyBet Poker. Latvia’s Kristaps Renga won the €350 PLO4/PLO5 PKO and Sweden’s Daniel Samuelsson claimed the €150 OmahaJack.
The room got a star turn when “Prince of Poker” and five-time WSOP bracelet winner Scotty Nguyen arrived with Teddy.poker and fired both Day 1B and Day 1C of the €555 Main Event Mystery Bounty, with poker host and commentator Andreas “Wiseguy” Höglund joining him at the tables for Day 1C. Neither bagged, but the vibe felt exactly like a festival day.
A total of 19 players bagged into Saturday’s Final Day, with Sweden’s Mark Twin leading the way on 658,000 and fellow Swede Björn Samuelsson close behind on 635,000. A combined €72,675 in prizes and mystery bounties is at stake, with the full breakdown confirmed before noon.
- Read more: Three Champions Crowned at The Festival Weekend Riga Opening Day
- Read more: Riga, You’re Next: The Festival Weekend Arrives at Olympic Voodoo Casino September 10-13
Kristaps Renga Wins €350 PLO4/PLO5 PKO
The €350 PLO4/PLO5 PKO drew 27 entries for €7,952 in total prizes: €5,252 in the standard prize pool and €2,700 in bounties. The PKO format keeps the top two prize pool payouts identical, with the real separation coming from the bounty accumulated by the tournament winner. Latvia’s Kristaps Renga navigated the full field for the €1,941 top prize, with Juris Bonders matching that prize pool payout in second and Kaspars Kalnozols taking third.
The result was all-Latvian from start to finish, all three cashers flying the same flag in a tournament played on home soil. For Renga, it adds another title to a résumé that already includes a WSOP Circuit ring. He won a ring event at the 2023 WSOP Circuit Tallinn at Olympic Park Casino, defeating Alexandrs Karlins heads-up for €4,356. His name now appears in the chip counts of the Main Event heading into Saturday’s Final Day. More on that below.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st |  Kristaps Renga | €1,941 |
| 2nd | Juris Bonders | €1,941 |
| 3rd | Kaspars Kalnozols | €1,370 |
Daniel Samuelsson Wins €150 OmahaJack
The €150 OmahaJack drew 29 entries for a €3,582 prize pool, with Sweden’s Daniel Samuelsson taking the title and the €1,440 top prize. It is the second Swedish title at The Festival Weekend Riga, following Robert Kjellström’s winner-takes-all Casino Blackjack Tournament victory on opening day. Kjellström himself finished fourth here for €500.
OmahaJack is one of The Festival Weekend’s most distinctive formats: a split-pot game combining Five-Card Pot-Limit Omaha with Blackjack. Each player receives five hole cards and plays standard 5-card PLO, using exactly two hole cards and exactly three board cards for their Omaha hand. The three remaining hole cards form the player’s Blackjack hand. Half the pot goes to the best Omaha hand, the other half to the player closest to 21 without busting. The critical rule: you must make your best possible Omaha hand first; you cannot choose a weaker Omaha combination to improve your Blackjack cards. A player who wins both halves scoops the pot.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st |  Daniel Samuelsson | €1,440 |
| 2nd |  Matas Sketerski | €1,002 |
| 3rd | Joris Serva | €640 |
| 4th | Robert Kjellström | €500 |
Mark Twin Leads 19 Survivors Into the Main Event Final Day
Friday completed the Main Event’s opening flights. Day 1B drew 83 entries and produced 10 survivors. Day 1C, the turbo flight at 19:00, drew 29 entries and produced four more. Combined with the 42 who entered and the five who bagged from Day 1A on Thursday, the full field stands at 153 entries with 19 players surviving into Saturday’s Final Day.
The prize pool stands at €42,075 with €30,600 in mystery bounty prizes, for a combined €72,675. All 19 survivors are already in the money. The winner takes €9,850 from the prize pool, with a minimum cash prize of € 630 for 18th and 19th place. On top of that, each player carries a sealed mystery bounty envelope worth somewhere between €600 and €6,000, revealed only when they are eliminated. Nobody knows what they are carrying until they are busted.
Sweden’s Mark Twin leads the 19 survivors into Saturday with 658,000 chips, with fellow Swede Björn Samuelsson close behind on 635,000. Finland’s Mikko Heikkala sits third with 621,000. Kristaps Renga, fresh from his PLO title earlier in the day, bagged seventh with 371,000. Joris Serva, who finished third in the OmahaJack, also bagged ninth with 313,000. Matas Sketerski, the OmahaJack runner-up, is 15th with 175,000.
2026 The Festival Weekend Riga Main Event Prize Pool Payouts
| Position | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | €9,850 |
| 2nd | €6,555 |
| 3rd | €4,740 |
| 4th | €3,700 |
| 5th | €2,880 |
| 6th | €2,250 |
| 7th | €1,760 |
| 8th | €1,430 |
| 9th | €1,150 |
| 10th-11th | €960 |
| 12th-13th | €850 |
| 14th-15th | €750 |
| 16th-17th | €690 |
| 18th-19th | €630 |
Mystery bounty envelopes range from €600 to €6,000. Revealed at elimination on the Final Day.
2026 The Festival Weekend Riga Main Event Final Day Chip Counts
| Position | Player | Chips | Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Mark Twin | 658,000 | 54 |
| 2nd | Björn Samuelsson | 635,000 | 52 |
| 3rd |  Mikko Heikkala | 621,000 | 51 |
| 4th | Juris Liepiņš | 506,000 | 42 |
| 5th |  Dmitri Dudakov | 451,000 | 37 |
| 6th | Vladislavs Petrovs | 403,000 | 33 |
| 7th | Kristaps Renga | 371,000 | 30 |
| 8th | Artjoms Skvarkovskis | 343,000 | 28 |
| 9th | Joris Serva | 313,000 | 26 |
| 10th |  Baptiste Caim | 244,000 | 20 |
| 11th | Mykolas Guiga | 216,000 | 18 |
| 12th | Juris Bonders | 194,000 | 16 |
| 13th | Raimonds Ozoliņš | 190,000 | 15 |
| 14th | Viktors Čaikins | 175,000 | 14 |
| 15th | Matas Sketerski | 175,000 | 14 |
| 16th | Aleksandrs Krumins | 172,000 | 14 |
| 17th |  Andrzej Wanclaw | 172,000 | 14 |
| 18th | Ņikita Žarovs | 158,000 | 13 |
| 19th | Martynas Zaremba | 123,000 | 10 |
Saturday at The Festival Weekend Riga
Saturday is the final competitive day before Sunday’s closing events. The Main Event Final Day fires at noon, with all 19 survivors returning and the mystery bounty envelopes ready to be opened. Two more events also run during the day, giving players who are not in the Main Event something to play for while the Main Event unfolds.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 12:00 | Event #3: €555 Main Event Mystery Bounty Final Day |
| 15:00 | Event #9: €350 NLH Progressive Bounty |
| 20:00 | Event #10: €200 NLH Deepstack Turbo |
And Then Riga Keeps Going
The Festival Weekend closes Sunday with the €200 NLH Sunday Brunch at 1 p.m., featuring an added package to The Festival Tallinn 2026 (November 20-29 at Olympic Park Casino). A €30 satellite at 3 p.m. guarantees two €550 tickets directly into The Festival Tallinn Main Event.
Then six days later, the OlyBet Showdown Riga Voodoo Autumn Edition opens September 19 at this same Olympic Voodoo Casino: nine days, 26 events, a €1,100 NLH Main Event, and a €555 NLH Championship. All coverage published daily at poker.pro and at OlyBetEvents.com in partnership with OlyBet.
- Photos courtesy of The Festival Series
- Article originally produced at poker.pro.
