Lithuania's Boris Smuskevicius picked up the biggest score of his live tournament career at the 2026 Mediterranean Poker Party, winning the $3,500 Merit Poker Cup at Merit Crystal Cove Hotel & Casino in Cyprus for $217,000 — and he closed it out in about as emphatic a fashion as poker allows, making quad queens against runner-up Ekrem Sanioglu of France to seal the title.
A final table built on big hands
Smuskevicius's run through the final table wasn't a story of careful, patient chip accumulation — it was a story of well-timed monster hands landing exactly when he needed them. Earlier at the final table, he found himself all-in with pocket jacks against Mehmet Dalkilic's pocket queens, a spot where he was a significant underdog. A jack on the turn gave him a set, turning a likely elimination into a double-up and keeping his tournament alive at a critical moment.
That kind of survive-and-advance swing set up the rest of his run, which ended fittingly when he made quad queens in the tournament's final hand against Sanioglu, who took home $118,000 under a negotiated ICM deal. Lebanon's Joseph Mouawad rounded out the top three for $124,000, also under the same ICM arrangement, finishing with a slightly larger payout than the runner-up as final table deals often work out once actual chip stacks and card-dead stretches are factored into the negotiated split.
Why this event matters
The Mediterranean Poker Party has built itself into one of the more significant recurring stops on the European live circuit, and Merit Crystal Cove has become a genuine hub for players from across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa — reflected clearly in this final table's nationality mix of a Lithuanian champion, a French runner-up, and a Lebanese third-place finisher. That kind of geographic spread is exactly what makes Cyprus-based series like this one valuable additions to the international calendar: a genuinely neutral, accessible meeting point for player pools that don't always overlap at bigger US or Western European series, and a market that continues to grow its reputation on the European circuit year after year.
A $217,000 career-best score at a $3,500 buy-in is also a meaningful data point on the value still available in mid-stakes international live poker, especially for players who have built a solid online or regional live résumé but haven't yet taken a shot at a genuinely international field. Big-name high roller series dominate headlines, but events like the Merit Poker Cup — solid five-figure buy-ins, strong structures, and fields deep enough to build six-figure top prizes — remain where a huge amount of the profitable opportunity in live tournament poker actually exists for players who aren't ready to compete at Triton or WPT high roller stakes.
What this means for players
Set survival hands are some of the highest-leverage moments in tournament poker. Smuskevicius's jacks-versus-queens all-in, rescued by a set on the turn, is a reminder of just how often tournaments turn on a single coinflip-adjacent spot. Understanding pot odds and knowing when a shove is correct even as a modest underdog — because the alternative is blinding down to nothing — is fundamental poker strategy that every tournament grinder needs to internalize.
Mid-stakes international series offer real value away from the highest-profile stops. Not every serious live poker trip needs to be built around Las Vegas or the biggest EPT stops. Series like the Mediterranean Poker Party at Merit Crystal Cove offer strong structures and meaningful prize pools at buy-ins accessible to a much wider range of players. Our tournaments guide is a good starting point for players mapping out where to spend limited live poker travel budget.
Quad hands are rare enough to remember — and to study. Making quads to close out a final table is a genuine rarity even across a full career of tournament poker. For players curious about exactly how uncommon a result like this is, our poker hand rankings guide breaks down the relative frequency of every hand category, useful context for understanding just how lucky — and how sweet — a finish like this one really is.
ICM deals reward players who understand the math, not just the vibe. The gap between Sanioglu's second-place money and Mouawad's third-place money — with third actually banking more than second under the negotiated deal — is a good real-world illustration of how ICM equity doesn't always track chip position perfectly once a deal accounts for stack sizes, blind pressure, and remaining structure. Players heading deep in tournaments regularly should understand this math before they're the ones negotiating under pressure.
A breakout moment for a career grinder
For a player without a long track record of major final tables, a $217,000 score at a respected international series is the kind of result that can change a career's trajectory — both financially and in terms of the fields a player gets invited to or feels comfortable buying into going forward. Smuskevicius's run through this final table, built on well-timed big hands rather than a long patient grind, is exactly the kind of story the Mediterranean Poker Party has become known for producing, and one more reason the series continues to draw a genuinely international field year after year.
The wider Mediterranean Poker Party ecosystem
The Merit Poker Cup is just one event inside a broader Mediterranean Poker Party schedule that typically runs multiple weeks at Merit's Cyprus properties, mixing mid-stakes events like this $3,500 buy-in with both lower-stakes side events and higher-stakes headline tournaments later in the series. That structure — a long runway of events at a range of buy-ins, all feeding into the same player pool and the same casino — is part of why series like this one have become such reliable stops for European and Middle Eastern grinders building a live schedule around more than one big tournament. Players who miss the Merit Poker Cup specifically still have a full slate of Mediterranean Poker Party events to target, with Cyprus's relatively low cost of travel and accommodation compared to Western Europe making it an increasingly popular base for a multi-week live poker trip.