Patrik Antonius is the man to beat on Friday at the Onyx High Roller Series Main Event final table, where nine players will play it out on the island of Cyprus for a top prize over $1,150,000.
Antonius has the top stack in the $25,000 buy-in after he hit an early double through Daniel Rezaei to move from the bottom of the leaderboard for good. He's joined at the final table by international high-stakes regulars Boris Kolev, Ottomar Ladva, Jessica Teusl, and more. They'll return on Friday at 1pm Cyprus time to play down to a winner.
The Finnish pro is one of poker's original final bosses, and he'll enter the finale with over $31 million in lifetime earnings. Antonius was last seen at WSOP Paradise, where he cashed three times and finished just outside the final table of the Triton $125K. Let's take a look at the finalists.
Can anyone stop Patrik Antonius?
Patrik Antonius - 9,660,000 (81bb)
- Career earnings: $31,387,194
Patrik Antonius has been doing this since November of 2003, when he hopped in the St. Maarten Open's $220 PLO event and finished fourth. Within months he was finishing 12th at the PCA final table in 2005 and by October he was an EPT Main Event champion.
Antonius has picked up seven different seven-figure scores over his career, most recently his best: a win in the $210K Triton Invitational in November of 2024 for $5,130,000. He ran one of the smaller chip stacks up to the lead on Thursday before he jumped straight into Johan Guilbert's $200/400 cash game.
Geoffrey Mooney - 8,380,000 (70bb)
Geoffrey Mooney- Career earnings: $1,056,076
Geoffrey Mooney recently passed the $1,000,000 mark in career earnings after his last trip to Cyprus, where he cashed five times at the WSOP Circuit stop on the island. The Australian can lock up a new high score with a sixth place finish, which would replace his runner up finish in the €10K at EPT Barcelona for €144K.
Boris Kolev - 7,500,000 (63bb)
Boris Kolev- Career earnings: $6,383,385
International high-stakes regular Boris Kolev is on a recent tear, having won back-to-back tournaments at the WPT stop at Seminole Hard Rock in November and December. Kolev picked up $226K for a win in the $10K DeepStack before he grabbed another $465K a day later in the $25,500 High Roller.
The two-time WSOP bracelet winner has a best finish of $1,000,000 from a $10K at the Merit Poker Classic in April of 2025. He can beat that with a win on Friday.
Mikalai Vaskaboinikau - 5,040,000 (42bb)
- Career earnings: $14,408,228
One of the more accomplished players you'll find at Merit or anywhere else, Mikalai Vaksaboinikau is returning to the island after cashing for five figures four different times during the WSOP Circuit stop in October. Vaskaboinikau is no stranger to seven-figure scores either, with three of them since November of 2024. His best, a win in the Triton Main Event at Montenegro, was good for $4.7 million.
Matthias Lipp - 4,920,000 (41bb)
Matthias Lipp- Career earnings: N/A
Matthias Lipp returns in the middle of the pack with an impressive resume of success in Cyprus. He cashed in Merit Poker's Mediterranean Poker Party Main Event in 2022 and had a final table finish in the $3K Mystery Bounty at EPT Cyprus in 2024. Lipp also cashed in the 2025 Super Main Event for $80,000 and the 2024 edition for $50,000.
Daniil Kiselev - 4,850,000 (40bb)
Daniil Kiselev- Career earnings: $394,606
Daniil Kiselev already locked in a new career high when the tournament hit its final 20 players, passing an eighth-place finish last March in the Merit Poker Carmen Series Main Event. The Russian cashed three times at the WSOP Circuit stop in October and his poker resume dates back to 2015, where he got his start on the Russian Poker Tour in Minsk.
Ottomar Ladva - 4,265,000 (36bb)
Ottomar Ladva- Career earnings: $4,245,037
Ottomar Ladva is trying to pick up where he left off at the Brazilian Series of Poker, where he picked up three six-figure wins on three final table finishes. A win and a runner-up finish in two separate Super High Rollers and then a fifth place run in the Super High Roller Main Event sent him home with well over $800K.
Two runner-up finishes at EPT Prague have filled the gap since, and now he's in Cyprus to chase a career high. His previous best finish, a $486K win in a high roller at EPT Barcelona in 2024, can be shoved aside if he wins third or better.
Kirill Shcherbakov - 4,135,000 (34bb)
Kirill Shcherbakov- Career earnings: $1,527,002
Kirill Shcherbakov will have to do a little better to set a new high watermark, as his second-place finish at the MPP Main Event in 2024 still reigns a $680K. A runner-up run will do the trick and add $717K, further pushing a career that started in only 2021. Shcherbakov also had a great WSOP Circuit stop in October, where he won the High Roller event for $410K.
Jessica Teusl - 3,005,000 (25bb)
Jessica Teusl- Career earnings: $1,307,831
Jessica Teusl's last trip to Cyprus was a good one, and she cashed three different times, including a $200K finish in the Super High Roller Series Invitational. The Austrian pro has never won a million dollars, in fact, she's never won more than $200K. But that can all change with a fifth-place finish. The aforementioned SHRS score was her best, but she has a host of five-figure finishes throughout the world and a WSOP bracelet from the 2022 Ladies Event.
All nine players will return at 1pm Cyprus time on Friday, where they will play down to a winner on the Onyx Live YouTube.
Images courtesy of Merit Poker.
