Martin Raus Takes Down WSOP Paradise Event #4: $1,000 Mini Main Event ($334,380)

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Dec 09, 2023 4 min read

The final day of Event #4: $1,000 Mini Main Event of the 2023 World Series of Poker Paradise ended Friday night at the Atlantis Resort in the beautiful Bahamas with Martin Raus standing alone to hoist the gold bracelet and the first-place prize of $334,380.

The event drew a massive field of 2,234 entries and created a staggering $2,234,000 total prize pool. When the day began, 23 hopefuls returned for the final day of play, all of whom had one goal in mind; to navigate their way to the winner's circle and claim the most coveted prize in all of poker and to say that everyone came to play would be an understatement as the field reduced itself from 23 to the final table in just over two hours.

WSOPP Event $4 Final Table Payouts

Raus wasn't shy about his excitement, immediately planning to go get a very nice bottle of red wine with a few friends who were ready to celebrate his massive achievement.

He had been overheard earlier talking about having won an online tournament a while back that had over 62,000 entries and was quick to point out that this victory was, "Way better because people can see this one. The other one I was sitting on my couch in my underwear when I won it, so this one is way better!"

Final Table Action

With the start time being pushed back by two hours due to the late hour of play the night before, one might think that this event could have run pretty late into the evening, but that notion was torched pretty quickly as players started falling left and right. During one short 10-minute period, the pace of play saw three eliminations happen in quick succession. When the field reached the unofficial final table of 10, there wasn't much waiting as it only took about 20 minutes of play for the field to boil itself down to the official final table of nine.

From there, Guoliang Wei was the first to fall when he got his short stack in and couldn't improve to win a flip, putting an end to the last bracelet winner in the field's day. Liviu Bartha was the next to go when he made it to the flop only to get all in and absolutely coolered with a bottom set versus top set situation.

It wouldn't even be 15 minutes before there was another preflop all in when Yuzhou Yin jammed from the button with only the big blind to beat. He'd ultimately get called and remain unimproved through five cards to exit the tournament in seventh place. Next to find the rail was Ami Barer who was all in preflop in what turned out to be a three-way pot with a massive side pot being played for, but when the cards were turned up, he'd finish last among the three and head toward the door in sixth place.

Following Barer out the door a level or so later was Seyoon Lim who jammed from the small blind in a steal attempt that led to him getting called and flopping the best hand before busting to an unfavorable runout that forced him out of his chair and over to the payout window with a fifth place finish. Next up on the chopping block was Jackson Santos who, immediately after finding a huge triple up to get back in the game, got aces cracked to bust in fourth.

Michael Acevedo was next to the hit the payout desk and pave the way for the heads up battle to follow when he was on the losing side of a classic flip that sent him home with a third place finish that gave him his biggest career live cash by a multiple of well over 10x.

When heads up play got underway, Raus held just about a 3:2 chip lead and while his opponent Josef Snejberg did put up a fight, Raus would never relinquish the lead and used his chip position to force Snejberg into tough decisions until eventually, Snejbergfound a jam from the button only to watch Raus wake up with a big hand in the big blind that would spell the end of the tournament for Snejberg.

Holding onto his sense of humor even in a moment as big as this, he said, "I did the math two days ago and realized that if I don't lose the last hand of the tournament, I'm gonna do okay and I didn't lose the last hand I played."

In his parting words, he expressed gratitude to the World Series of Poker for putting on a bracelet series in such a beautiful location and already plans to return when the WSOP heads back down to Paradise next year.

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