As the world deals with everything that has been thrown at it this year it’s nice to see IFMP’s Lithuanian national federation host it’s 11th Sports Poker Championship!
This event is taking place at Du Karaliai (Two Kings) – the first and biggest sports poker club in Lithuania, located in Vilnius.
The championship will last 4 days – from Thursday to Sunday, containing 3 starting days 1A, 1B, 1C, 2nd day and final day.
The 4 day event will consist of the main event in No-Limit Texas Holdem and side events in Pot-Limit Omaha.
The main event is a very deep freeze-out (levels up from 40 to 60 minutes, 30000 starting stack).
The main partner of LSPF (Lithuanian Sports Poker Federation) is Olybet, which, of course, gives the main prize – buy-in to the biggest poker tournament in Baltics – The Kings of Tallinn main event (1100EUR buy-in).
Every player also collects rating points towards top 10 of the year within the federation structure.

The Lithuanian National Match Poker Team, represented by Sportinio pokerio klubas “Du Karaliai”, comprises of:

Skirmantas Tomkevičius – the President of National Federation of Poker of Lithuania.


Mantas Urbonas

Poker professional from Panevėžys, now resides in Vilnius. Mantas is also the owner and manager of the football team Top Kicker’s. He started playing poker 10 years ago, and his best achievement is last year’s 4th place at Battle of Malta winning 120,000 EUR. Ranks 31st in Lithuania by live earnings. Mantas was born on 1987/06/22 and he is the youngest member of the team.


Erikas Zukas

He is the youngest member of the national team, eager to learn and understand other players – once Erikas has won a tournament without even looking at his own cards!


Laimutis Kalvelis

He was born on 1970/06/26. He is pretty successful in federation tournaments and has won two of them since 2012. Works as a CEO in a company taking care of houses in the city. Was born and lives in Vilnius.


Diana Dvelienė

She was born 1976/11/09 in Kaunas. She lives there and together with her husband, who is also a poker player in the federation, runs their own plants growing business. Does not play often in any live tournaments, but if she does, finishes in the money.


Arūnas Valentavičius

He was born on 1975/09/25 and is a retired solder of the Lithuanian army. Plays only in federation tournaments.


Dainius Ulkė

He was born in Biržai, but since early days lives in Vilnius, works in IT sector since 1994. One of the most stable players in the federation.


Qualification structure was the following

Top 6 players of each year from 2013-2018 of the national federation’s annual rankings were able to play in the qualification tournaments to get into the national team. Three tournaments were held (6-max, Turbo, Deep Freeze-out) to determine 6 or 7 winners. Two tournaments were won by Mindaugas Jonuškis and one by Mantas Urbonas. The tournaments took two days to complete and the national team was created.

On 16th – 19th of October, 290 players gathered in sports poker club “Du Karaliai” (city of Vilnius) to participate in the 5th Annual Lithuanian Sports Poker Championship – the biggest sports poker event across the region.

In Lithuania poker is perceived as a sport and a lot of people are enjoying the game without risking any money – all such events in Lithuania are without any buy-in or entrance fee.

This championship was special for several reasons – all main cities of Lithuania were represented as well as very deep tournament structure was employed. More than 20 percent of all participants were women.

The whole tournament had three starting days, second and the final days. In total more than 40 hours of poker has been played during the tournament and the final table took 7 hours. For the first time, two ladies and even a wife and a husband took part in the final table. That has never happened before.

Matas Levanas became 5th champion of Lithuania. He beat very experienced player Mantas Urbonas. Heads up phase took more than 3 hours to complete.

Find out more about the Lithuanian Sports Poker Federation here – https://matchpokerfed.org/blog/member-nation/lithuania/