Boris Smuskevicius Wins Merit Poker Cup for $217,000
Lithuanian player turned a three-way ICM deal and quad queens against Ekrem Sanioglu into his biggest live score.
Lithuania’s Boris Smuskevicius won the $3,500 Merit Poker Cup at the 2026 Mediterranean Poker Party in Northern Cyprus, taking $217,000 after a three-way ICM deal and a final-hand finish with quad queens.
The tournament was held at Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino and drew 418 entries for a prize pool of about $1.27 million. The score was Smuskevicius’s largest live cash by a wide margin, surpassing his previous best of $39,800 at Aria Las Vegas in 2023.
Smuskevicius, Ekrem Sanioglu and Joseph Mouawad agreed the ICM deal with three players remaining. PokerNews reported that Smuskevicius received only $3,000 less than the advertised $220,000 top prize, while SpadePoker said the subsequent play for the trophy carried a $46,000 bonus.
The deal’s payout structure left Mouawad in third for $124,000, ahead of runner-up Sanioglu’s $118,000. Vyacheslav Kardash collected $74,000 for fourth, while Darko Svesko, who began the final table as chip leader, finished fifth for $58,000 after Mouawad flopped a wheel against his pair of sixes.
The decisive hand came heads-up when Sanioglu moved all-in with king-six and Smuskevicius called with ace-queen. The board ran queen-queen-ten-queen-six, giving Smuskevicius quad queens to close the event.
His path to the title included a pivotal all-in against Mehmet Dalkilic, when Smuskevicius called with pocket jacks while Dalkilic held pocket queens. A jack on the turn gave Smuskevicius a set and a lead he did not relinquish.
Sixty-three players returned for Day 2, with 24 eliminated in the first two hours. Chenxu Zhang, the only woman still in the field, finished 10th after a king on the flop gave Dalkilic a better pair than her pocket tens.
Smuskevicius said he had been visiting Merit for about 10 years, having learned poker at Olympic Casino in Lithuania roughly two decades ago before also playing in Berlin and Tallinn. He praised the tournament’s structure and said the enlarged bankroll could lead him to play Triton One events at Merit Diamond in November.
