Image via World Poker Tour
Lithuania’s Gediminas Uselis became the latest poker player to etch their name onto the WPT Mike Sexton Champions Cup, an honor bestowed to those that win a WPT Main Event, after defeating Jacob Ferro heads-up in the 2021-2022 WPT Seminole Rock N’ Roll $3,500 Main Event for $778,490. The event itself was another massive success for the World Poker Tour with 1,566 entries creating a mouth-watering $5,011,200 prize pool.
Up until last year, Uselis wasn’t well known outside of Lithuania. Not much changed other than fellow Lithuanians taking notice even after Uselis won a WSOP bracelet online at GGPoker in 2020 becoming just the second Lithuanian to do so after Vladas Burneikis became the first earlier last year. Two other Lithuanians won a piece of WSOP hardware this year including Vincas Tamasauskas and Karolis Sereika with the latter becoming the first in the country to win a WSOP bracelet on the live felt.
Uselis may still not be the household name as fellow WPT champion Matas Cimbolas or Lithuanian-Australian businessman Tony “Tony G” Guoga, but many will take notice now that he has become the first Lithuanian to win both WPT and WSOP titles.
It has been quite the thrust into the spotlight for Uselis as last month he doubled his live tournament earnings in a big way after winning the MSPT $1,100 DeepStack Championship Main Event at the Venetian for $325,428. The recent WPT victory in Florida has more than doubled Uselis’ earnings again to $1,460,619 according to The Hendon Mob to catapult him from tenth to sixth place on the Lithuanian All Time Money List.
WPT Seminole Rock N’ Roll Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Gediminas Uselis | Lithuania | $778,490 |
| 2 | Jacob Ferro | United States | $573,605 |
| 3 | Harout Ghazarian | Canada | $380,000 |
| 4 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | $282,380 |
| 5 | Clayton Maguire | United States | $211,925 |
| 6 | Anshul Rai | United States | $170,835 |
Timely Bluff Catapult Uselis to Victory
Sometimes players get hit in the head with a deck of cards on their way to victory. Meaning, they get the cards they need in the right spots. As Uselis just proved, this doesn’t always need to be the case as he picked some timely spots to bluff during the final table.
Uselis began the six-player final table in fourth place and was on the bottom of the totem pole with just four players remaining after Clayton Maguire and Anshul Rai both hit the rail before he began to climb the ranks.
The turning point for Uselis may have come when he successfully turned his hand into a bluff with bottom two pair on a paired board against Ferro who was bluffing until having the best hand on the river as follows:
According to updates from the event, Uselis opened from the button with ace-four to 600,000 with blinds at 150,000/300,000 and was called by Ferro from the small blind with nine-eight suited and Selahaddin Bedir from the big blind.
All three players on ten-five-four rainbow flop before Ferro checked again after another five paired the board. Bedir fired out for 850,000 and was called by Uselis. Ferro check-raised with air to 2,100,000. Bedir got out of the way while Uselis called with bottom two pair to see board complete with a nine on the river.
Ferro, who improved to a better two pair on the river, fired out for 1,500,000. Uselis went into the tank before raising to 6,000,000 with just 175,000 behind. We could be talking about a different winner if Ferro made the call. However, he wound up folding the best hand after tanking after being put into a difficult spot by Uselis.
Shortly after, Ferro ousted Bedir in fourth place and cowboys held against ducks for Uselis to eliminate Harout Ghazarian on the podium in third place.
Lucky Ladies Seal the Deal for Uselis
Ferro entered heads-up play with a negligible chip lead against Uselis took control and had more than double the chips of Ferro before the final hand took place. Ferro three-bet jammed with jacks and was called by Uselis with queens. Both a queen and a jack hit the flop to improve both players a set and Ferro was down to just one out after a blank hit the turn. It wasn’t Ferro’s time for a miracle with another blank completing the board on the river to give Uselis his first WPT title.
Uselis shared some thoughts with the World Poker Tour live reporting team after his victory.
"I came here, and this was the first tournament I sat down in. I didn't sleep much, and I just kept going and going. I was playing small pots, big pots, slowly building. Slowly, nothing special," Uselis said. "There was for sure a bunch of action. It was a crazy (final) table, so I just needed to wait. I made a couple of moves because there were a couple of amateurs as well, so I was really lucky to make this final table."
