Yevgeniy Timoshenko Wins WPT Championship

The $25,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Championship was indeed another exciting tournament that was heavily stacked with notable professionals, but a huge drop-off in the turnout put a damper on one of the marquee events of the year.

With an unsteady economic climate and competition from the European Poker Tour event in San Remo, Italy (which drew 1,178 players), the formally titled Five-Star World Poker Classic could muster a field of only 338 players, down 207 from the previous year and 301 from its peak in 2007.

Yet, what this field lacked in quantity, it more than made up for in quality. Despite the reduced numbers, those who did play were excited about the 100,000 in starting chips and slow-moving structure. Tournament Director Jack McClelland instituted the quadruple stacks to give the players more bang for their buck after receiving only 50,000 in chips last year.

The eight-day affair proved to be a marathon rather than a sprint, as many of the early chip leaders faltered in later days. Players such as Nenad Medic, Mark Seif, Phil Ivey, Jeff Madsen, and Steve Billirakis all looked dominant at one point, only to find themselves on the rail well before the final table.
As play neared the final-table bubble, a few young guns separated themselves from the pack, making a push past veterans Freddy Deeb, Jennifer Harman, and Bruno Fitoussi in the process. The hand that set up the final table was so huge that it ended up being the largest pot of the tournament, even though the final six had yet to finish up.

Online phenom Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko raised from under the gun to 300,000 and Christian Harder reraised to 850,000. The extra action in front of him caused Brian Rast to move in for his last 5,720,000. Timoshenko made the call, and Harder got out of the way. Rast showed the A K, but it failed to outdraw Timoshenko’s pocket kings. The massive pot gave Timoshenko a big chip lead; with more than 13 million heading to the televised final table, he had nearly twice as much as his nearest opponent.

The Final Six Make Their Stand

After seven exciting days of deep-stack poker, the final table was set. Seat assignments and starting chip counts were as follows:

Entering final-table action fourth in chips, Nguyen was hoping for more than his eventual sixth-place finish. He was crippled when he doubled up Shannon Shorr as his pocket sixes went down to pocket tens. On his final hand, he was all in and called by two players preflop. He ended up making trip aces, but Harder’s higher kicker eliminated him. The $285,985 that he picked up was enough to move him into third place in all-time tournament winnings, behind only Daniel Negreanu and Jamie Gold.

Nguyen’s year has been incredible, to say the least, but his accomplishments have taken place on a full-time poker schedule. Shannon Shorr has earned $1.2 million while spending the past year finishing up work on his degree at the University of Alabama. Using an entry that he won during the summer, Shorr tore through the field on his way to the final table, albeit lacking a large amount of chips. At one point, it looked like Shorr’s short-stack comeback was a strong possibility, but his tournament came to an end in fifth place after he lost a race to Timoshenko. Shorr had lost a big pot earlier and was looking to get it back quickly when he pushed from the small blind with the 7 6. Timoshenko made the call with pocket fours, and they held up when the board ran out A 9 3 J K. The always likeable Shorr banked $408,550 before heading back to Tuscaloosa for tests of a less stressful nature.

Back at the final table, Timoshenko still had his massive chip lead, although he put the brakes on his aggression for a bit once the table got four-handed. Not wanting to double up the two most dangerous players remaining at the table, he continued to run well when the lone amateur, Azor, took out both Harder and Grospellier.

Harder opened the action by moving all in for his last 1.9 million with the A 8, and Azor called from the small blind. The action moved to Grospellier, who decided to put it in over the top for his last 2.8 million with the A J. Azor was forced to call that, as well, but could turn over only a dominated A 7. The flop brought a 7, however, and both Harder and Grospellier were shown the exit.

“I was very fortunate to have Ran hit the seven,” Timoshenko later confessed. “I’d say of all three players left, he was the player I wanted to go heads up with the most, because he’s an amateur.”

Harder, who has made two EPT final tables, was making his first appearance on the WPT’s biggest stage, and was rewarded with a $571,965 payday for his performance. The player known simply as ElkY is coming off one of the most successful tournament runs in poker history. The $776,245 that he won for third place brought his lifetime tournament earnings to $5,750,498, which puts him in 33rd place on the all-time winnings list, despite being just 28 years old.

Closing it Out

With such a large chip disparity and lack of experience, Azor simply had no chance against the 21-year-old Timoshenko, who picked the amateur apart at will, never letting up or allowing him to gain any sort of momentum. On the final hand, Azor outflopped his opponent with the worst of it, but the river straightened things out, giving Timoshenko Broadway.

Azor parlayed the only cash of his tournament career into a seat in this event. Certainly making the most of it, he banked $1,446,265 for his runner-up finish.

Although he has been eligible to play in the States for only two months, due to his age, Washington resident Yevgeniy Timoshenko won the third tournament of his career and added $2,149,960 to his already impressive poker resume. He became the youngest player to win a WPT title since Nick Schulman won the World Poker Finals in 2005.

Although he remained modest throughout, his peers and adversaries are well aware that his emergence was a long time coming. “I wasn’t expecting to win,” he said humbly. “I hoped to win, but in tournaments you can’t expect anything — especially at a final table as tough as this one. I just hoped to play my best and come out ahead, and luckily that’s what happened.”

Making it Look Easy

Yevgeniy Timoshenko Breaks Down His Final-Table Strategy

It’s rare for any player to stroll to a World Poker Tour televised final table and dominate it from start to finish. Even the fastest wins in history showcased a setback or two, but Yevgeniy Timoshenko outright took over his table, making every decision come through him as he dictated the pace of play and forced the others to bend to his will. More impressively, he did it without nerves or anxiety, sporting a calm, business-as-usual attitude throughout. Simply put, the kid made it look easy.

Perhaps it’s because, despite being just barely old enough to play, this was the third live win of his career. The Mukilteo, Washington, resident began traveling abroad for his tournament fix in 2007, when he made the final table of a tournament in Paris for his first cash. A few months later, he earned $166,302 for a win at the Irish Poker Open. After a couple of stops in Australia, he ventured over to Macau for the Asian Poker Tour main event. There, he outlasted the field for his second victory, earning $500,000. And he continued to push on, picking up two more six-figure scores in Barcelona and London before heading home for his 21st birthday.

Now, just two months after turning 21, Timoshenko is a WPT champion; not just any champion, but the proud owner of one of the most respected tournament titles in the poker world. Throughout it all, the Ukranian-born Timoshenko has continued to crush games online, playing under the names “Jovial Gent” and “atimos.”

Although he headed to the final table with the benefit of having a big chip lead, Timoshenko didn’t opt to sit on his chips until a few players had busted out. Instead, he hammered away from the outset, raising nearly every other hand regardless of position, and putting in a continuation-bet whenever anybody built up the courage to take a flop with him. Although it looked wild and maniacal to the untrained eye, there really was a method to his madness, as it turns out that the relentless aggression was the safest course of action.
“My aggression allowed me to increase my stack without too much of a problem,” said Timoshenko. “I chipped away slowly without ever having to risk too many chips or play any high-variance pots.”

This was especially true for Christian Harder, the player to his left and the second-biggest stack at the table. “I actually didn’t love my seat draw, to be honest,” he admitted. “If Christian were to get ahold of chips and bust a few players, I would’ve been in a bad spot, having him on my left. That’s why I went out of my way to play more aggressively against him. I wanted to put the pressure on him early, knowing that he might be looking to move up a few spots in the money and not want to play for his entire tournament with the chip leader. There were a couple of short stacks to wait out, and I didn’t think he’d play back at me or make too many moves against me without a real hand. It was the perfect opportunity to go after him.”

Timoshenko continued to fire away when appropriate, but slammed on the brakes when he had stolen so much that his opponents were in the danger zone. “When it got four-handed, their decisions got a lot easier,” revealed Timoshenko. “Earlier, when each player had between 20 and 30 big blinds, I could put pressure on the table, forcing someone to make tough decisions for his tournament life. But once it got four-handed, the blinds had become so big that it put each player in the all-in-or-fold mentality. If I had continued to raise with such a high frequency, I would’ve been played back at more often and probably been forced to call an all-in move or two, possibly giving back much of my chip lead. So, I definitely scaled back the aggression and tightened up my range considerably at that point. I never would have imagined that both Christian and ‘ElkY’ would go out on the same hand. It really was a dream situation.”

Timoshenko was equipped with a 2-1 chip lead on the much greener Ran Azor going into heads-up play, but he wasn’t about to throw his small-ball strategy out the window in an effort to get it done quickly. “I tried to feel him out a little bit and keep the pots small at first,” he said. “I didn’t want to get out of line and race for all the chips. I preferred to use my edge, take pots in position, and chip him down a bit.”

The 21-year-old then elaborated on just how important his position was during the heads-up match. “I decided to raise small on the button because I didn’t want to blow up pots preflop, especially since I was the one raising more often than not. He started to play his button more aggressively later on in the match, and I was careful to be selective when out of position, to avoid any mistakes. Position is the most important factor in heads-up play, so I was very happy that he gave me so many walks. Because I was able to win the majority of my hands on the button and because he gave up his position so often, I had no problem in just picking away at his stack, a few blinds at a time.”

By the time Azor made his stand, it was too late. Without ever drawing too much attention to himself, the innocent-looking Timoshenko had stolen the tournament, playing perfect poker from start to finish without so much as ever breaking a sweat. Easy game.