Player of the Year

Major Tournaments Around the Globe Round Out 2008
By Ryan Lucchesi

Chino's Redemption at Bellagio

David "Chino" Rheem overcame the disappointment he felt when finishing seventh in the World Series of Poker main event in November by winning the first major title of his career (and the final one up for grabs in 2008) at the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic on Dec. 19, 2008. The WPT main event attracted a field of 497 players, laden with professionals, who bought in for $15,000. The final table consisted of professionals Rheem (first place), Hoyt Corkins (sixth), Amnon Filippi (fifth) and Steve Sung (fourth), who were eliminated on the same hand, and WPT final-table rookies Evan McNiff (third) and Justin Young (second). It took Rheem almost three hours to defeat Young heads up for the $1,538,730 in first-place prize money. This score was actually less than the $1,772,650 that Rheem took home in November, but the title was worth much more than the money to Chino. He also earned 2,400 Card Player 2008 Player of the Year (POY) points, giving him 4,194 points for 2008 and moving him into ninth place in the final standings, which is by far his highest finish ever.

The WPT event was one of the 14 tournaments that took place at Bellagio's Five-Diamond World Poker Classic tournament series, which has become the last great poker gathering before the holidays each year. There were four $5,000 no-limit hold'em events, and the preliminaries were spiced up by the final sprint to capture Player of the Year points. No player was able to catch 2008 Player of the Year John Phan, but David "The Dragon" Pham and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier gave Phan a scare when they made final tables.

First Italian Win on the EPT

Italians took over the final table at the PokerStars European Poker Tour stop in Prague. Francesco Cirianni (fifth), Massimo Di Cicco (second), and eventual champion Salvatore Bonavena all represented Italy at the final table, and the €774,000 win for Bonavena marked the first time an Italian has won an EPT title.

Rounding out the final eight were Canadian Andrew Chen (third), Greek player Konstantinos Alexiou (fourth), Finnish player Fredrik Nygard (sixth), German Nasr El Nasr (seventh), and Spanish player Raul Mestre (eighth). German star Sebastian Ruthenberg just missed making his third EPT final table when he finished on the bubble in ninth place out of a field of 570 players.

Brent Roberts Wins Final WSOP Circuit Stop of 2008

The $5,000 no-limit hold'em main event at the WSOP Circuit event at Harrah's Atlantic City concluded in mid-December, and Brent Roberts outlasted 179 players to take home a first-place prize of $280,040. Roberts defeated an impressive final table that included professional players Allen Bari, Kyle Bowker, Robert McLaughlin, and Scott Zakheim. The first 2009 WSOP Circuit event will take place when Harrah's in Tunica hosts the next stop, Jan. 20-Feb. 4. The $5,000 no-limit hold'em championship will run Feb. 2-4.

A Russian Invasion at Bellagio
By Ryan Lucchesi

As the global growth of poker has taken place, it has become customary to see European faces in the tournament fields of North America. At Bellagio's Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, it was common to see the names of Russian players on the payout list, and to see their faces at final tables. Moscow and St. Petersburg were represented time and time again at the tournament series, as young Russians won close to $500,000 in prize money. The murmur of cashes began small, as Sergey Petrov, Vadim Bondarev, and Liya Gersimova cashed in early preliminary events.

Then the Russians began to storm final tables. Andrey Zaichenko finished in eighth place in event No. 5 ($5,000 no-limit hold'em) to take home $10,760. Sergey Rybachenko captured a tournament title by winning event No. 6 ($1,500 no-limit hold'em), for $130,070. In event No. 8 ($2,000 no-limit hold'em), Stanislav Alekhin made the final table and finished in eighth place, while Ivan Bryshkin cashed, as well. Event No. 9 ($5,000 no-limit hold'em) saw the largest win by a Russian player when Evgeny Serebryakov won the tournament and $239,275 in prize money. Artem Ivanenko joined him at the final table, where he finished in seventh place and took home $20,040. Sergey Altbregin stepped up after that to make the final table in event No. 10 ($5,000 no-limit hold'em), where he finished in eighth place for $14,430, and he just missed making the next $5,000 no-limit hold'em final table two days later when he busted out in 11th place to take home another $14,070.

This success by young Russian players at Bellagio came right after PokerStars announced that it will sponsor the Russian Poker Tour in 2009, which includes a stop in St. Petersburg ($5,000 no-limit hold'em), Jan. 25-Feb. 1, and a championship event in Moscow ($10,000 no-limit hold'em), Feb. 22-28. While a lot of people point to the success of Alex Kravchenko and Ivan Demidov as the inspiration for the RPT, the performances of all of these young Russian players at Bellagio proves that Russia is on the rise in tournament poker. "There are a lot of good young Russian players. They're mainly cash players, but if they convince themselves to switch to live tournaments and play them for a little while, I think they will have great results. A lot of them are still under 21, so they can't travel and play here in the U.S. We'll have to see in a couple of years, but the Russian poker scene is really growing," said Demidov, when asked about his countrymen.

Brent Roberts Wins Final WSOP Circuit Stop of 2008

The $5,000 no-limit hold'em main event at the WSOP Circuit event at Harrah's Atlantic City concluded in mid-December, and Brent Roberts outlasted 179 players to take home a first-place prize of $280,040. Roberts defeated an impressive final table that included professional players Allen Bari, Kyle Bowker, Robert McLaughlin, and Scott Zakheim. The first 2009 WSOP Circuit event will take place when Harrah's in Tunica hosts the next stop, Jan. 20-Feb. 4. The $5,000 no-limit hold'em championship will run Feb. 2-4.

Look Out: Jack Schanbacher
By Julio Rodriguez

Becoming the bubble boy is one of the most dreaded feelings in tournament poker. You put in hours - and in some cases, days - of work with nothing to show for your efforts. Bubbling the Card Player Player of the Year (POY) top 10, however, is evidence of a pretty amazing year and a lot of great results to back it up.

Jack Schanbacher finished the year with 3,855 points, just 63 points out of the POY top 10, and he did so almost completely under the radar, despite rattling off six final tables from April to December.

More than a year removed from a cash, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, resident got back to his winning ways with a second-place finish in a $2,000 no-limit hold'em preliminary tournament at a WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas that put him on the board in 2008 with $62,992. He would go on to add $758,500 in prize money before the end of the year.

Five months later, he nearly went back-to-back at the Borgata, with a win and a runner-up performance that netted him more than $470,000 combined. At Foxwoods, he finally received a bit of attention with a high-profile final-table appearance on the World Poker Tour.

While everyone's attention was on Bellagio, with the major POY contenders present, Schanbacher stayed closer to home to compete in another WSOP Circuit event at Harrah's in Atlantic City. This decision turned out to be fortuitous, as he went on to win a $2,000 no-limit hold'em preliminary event and score yet another six-figure payday of $101,736.

Although he has gained the respect of numerous East Coast professionals, Schanbacher has pocketed $821,492 without ever really drawing attention to his consistency. He cashed a total of seven times in 2008, with an astounding six final-table appearances. Thus, the summation of his work on the year cannot be ignored.