Russian Wins First PartyPoker.com St. Petersburg OpenPeter Vlasenko of Moscow Wins $84,000 American |
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Not since Teddy KGB has a Russian poker player won so much money.
Peter Vlasenko of Moscow won the inaugural PartyPoker.com St. Petersburg Open in Russia, taking home $84,000 in an event that attracted 127 players. The event generated a prize pool of more than $250,000. He's sitting in the photo while runner-up Mark Vronskiy of St. Petersburg stands. Vronskiy won $46,000.
Although there were plenty of foreign players in the field, the final table featured five Russians and a Brit, David Rudling. The top six finished in this order: Vlasenko, Vronskiy; Nikolay Losev of Moscow, $25,400; David Rudling of Essex, United Kingdom, $20,300; Sergey Feklisov of Moscow, $15,200; and Sergey Pevzner of St Petersburg, $12,700.
The event was held at the Golden Garden Casino.
Out of the field, 35 players qualified at PartyPoker.com and 14 of those were sent to the tournament for free by qualifying through freerolls. Players who qualified through the online site came from all over the world, including the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Norway, Russia and the Netherlands. The buy-in for the tourney was $2,000. The PartyPoker.com packages were worth $4,500.
World Series of Poker bracelet winner Mel Judah was there and says that Russians have the potential to become great players.
"Poker has come on leaps and bounds," Judah says. "I can see the Russian players becoming a real threat in the future just like Scandinavia is now. At the moment, a lot of the players don't have the experience but that will come."
Jon Pallis, an internet qualifier from The Hague in the Netherlands, described the play of the Russians this way:
"A lot of the Russians played very aggressively but sometimes you just think that because they look like mean dudes around the table and you can't understand what they are saying."
The tournament director for the event was Thomas Kremser.
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