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Ten Days in Tallinn: The Players Who Left the Autumn Edition With the Biggest Stories

25 minutes ago

Samantha Doyle 25 minutes ago

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Grantas Naujokas led from Day 2 to win the Kings of Tallinn Main Event, earning €104,310.
Noah Rogers secured two titles, and Juha Helppi won soon after arriving at the festival.
Johan Creutz won the €3,000 High Roller, highlighting a week of strong performances and comeback stories.

Kings of Tallinn needed ten days and more than 60 scheduled tournaments to get from its opening hands to Sunday's final trophies, which gave plenty of players the opportunity to leave Estonia with something to remember.

Some of them needed only one tournament. Others kept coming back for more.

Grantas Naujokas built his story almost entirely inside the €1,100 Main Event. Noah Rogers won twice, Juha Helppi sat down and almost immediately added another Tallinn title to a career already full of them, while Johan Creutz followed a deep Main Event run by winning one of the most expensive tournaments on the schedule.

Here is how it all went down.

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Naujokas Goes From Day 2 Leader to Kings of Tallinn Champion

The Main Event began with four starting flights and eventually reached 607 entries after another 145 registrations were added during Day 2, pushing the prize pool to €564,510 and beyond the €500,000 guarantee.

By then, Grantas Naujokas was already beginning to separate himself.

Grantas Naujokas Wins Kings of Tallinn Autumn Edition 2026

The Lithuanian ended Day 2 with 909,000 chips, ahead of Ville-Tapio Mesiranta and David Marfil, before turning that advantage into 5.215 million by the time only nine remained. It gave him the largest stack at the final table, with Finland's Juhani Hassi his nearest challenger on 3.615 million.

One player came from the opposite end of the counts. Latvia's Krisjanis Balodis began the final table with only 715,000 chips but survived long enough to become Naujokas' heads-up opponent, ultimately earning €71,400 for second place.

Kings of Tallinn Autumn Edition 2026 Main Event Table

Naujokas took €104,310, Norway's Samuel Adnoy earned €47,850 in third and Iryna Tsikhanskaya finished fourth for €33,600. The latter had started Sunday sixth in chips, yet still climbed two positions before her run ended.

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Grantas Naujokas	Lithuania	€104,310
2	Krisjanis Balodis	Latvia	€71,400
3	Samuel Adnoy	Norway	€47,850
4	Iryna Tsikhanskaya	Lithuania	€33,600
5	Juhani Ville Hassi	Finland	€25,350

While Naujokas' path was built on maintaining a lead, several of the week's other winners reached their trophies from very different positions.

Rogers Comes Back From 16 Big Blinds for Title Number Two

When the €555 Championship returned with 16 players, Noah Rogers had 640,000 chips and around 16 big blinds. Dennis Zetterman, by comparison, sat on 1.39 million and had a much better chance of making that final push.

Rogers ended up outlasting him anyway.

Noah Rogers Wins €555 Kings of Tallinn Championship

The Norwegian moved through the final table, knocked Zetterman out in third and then faced local player Alger Pissarev heads-up. Although Rogers built an advantage, Pissarev doubled twice and pulled the contest close again before the final pot eventually went the Norwegian's way.

The €30,005 win came from a field of 319 entries and was already Rogers' second title of the festival, following a €200 Turbo victory earlier in the week.

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Noah Rogers	Norway	€30,005
2	Alger Pissarev	Estonia	€20,290
3	Dennis Zetterman	Sweden	€14,830
4	Marek Zigel	Lithuania	€11,130
5	Ben Devers	Belgium	€7,930

Rogers was not the only player to leave Tallinn with two trophies, either. Sweden's Lena Björn later joined that group by winning the €555 8-Game and €200 Open-Face Chinese Pineapple, while Estonia's Erik Põlluveer also collected two titles during the week.

Helppi Arrives, Sits Down and Wins

Juha Helppi's contribution to the festival came a little earlier.

The Finn, whose live career already includes more than $11 million in earnings and two WSOP bracelets, arrived in Tallinn and entered the €350 NLH DeepStack. By the end of it, he had another trophy.

The tournament produced 134 entries and a €38,632 prize pool, with Helppi defeating fellow Finn Jukka Ylitalo heads-up for €9,872. What drew almost as much attention as the result was Helppi's reaction after winning; a player known for being particularly restrained at the table allowed himself to show a little more emotion when the final pot was over.

It was also a return to familiar ground. Helppi won the Kings of Tallinn Main Event in 2018, so his latest result gave him another title at the festival eight years later.

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Juha Helppi	Finland	€9,872
2	Jukka Ylitalo	Finland	€6,650
3	Alfonso Lopez Delgado	Spain	€4,620
4	Rohan Oberoi	Sweden	€3,360
5	Indre Martoviciute-Kasten	Lithuania	€2,590

Creutz Finds a Better Ending in the €3,000 High Roller

Johan Creutz was one of those players who came close to making the Main Event final table without quite getting there.

The 2016 champion was one of the last Swedish players left in the tournament and eventually finished 14th for €6,200, one place ahead of compatriot Lars Kjestrup. Instead of ending his festival there, Creutz moved into the €3,000 High Roller.

Johan Creutz Wins €3,000 NLH High Roller — Johan Creutz, Winner of the €3,000 NLH High Roller

He reached Sunday's five-player finale with 350,000 chips, fourth among the remaining five, while Mikael Haapaniemi led with 650,000. Creutz then worked his way past the entire group and collected €38,550 from the €106,400 prize pool.

It completed a week in which he had already cashed the Main Event and finished runner-up to Dennis Berglin in another €555 NLH event for €3,780.

A decade after becoming Kings of Tallinn Main Event champion, Creutz left another edition with his name attached to one of its larger trophies.

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