Home / Poker News August 2008 / Russian poker boom in full swing
Russian poker boom in full swing
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2008-08-08 17:57
About a year ago, poker became a fully government-sanctioned sport in Russia. While the US continued struggling with its ill-worded UIGEA, the Russians legalized the game, accepted it as a sport and began attracting high stakes tournament and cash players from all over the world. Is Russia the next poker and online poker superpower? It may well be.
Poker clubs sprung up in Moscow one after another, and some of the stakes that are played for in these clubs exceed any imagination. Tony G usually does a lot of travelling in Russia, and he is a regular presence at the highest stakes tables. He is rumored to have taken down a single pot once, worth $3 million. Some of the biggest online poker rooms are slowly turning their attention towards the Russian market too. Both PokerStars and Full Tilt have signed a couple of Russian pros to represent them with the Russian-speaking public.
With all that in mind, there’s naturally quite a bit of excitement surrounding the Zavidovo event set to start on August 16th in a luxury resort near Moscow. All of Russia’s best high stakes players will be there, plus a whole bunch of big international names like Tony G, Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey.
The event will run over 5 days, and the last day will be televised. The $10,000 Main Event won’t be the only opportunity at Zavidovo though. The Russia Cup’s 4th leg and some $2,000 buy-in tourneys will also be part of the menu.
The Main Event’s structure will be an extremely interesting one. Players start with 20,000 chips, and the first level will feature 50/100 blinds. It is set to last for three whole hours. Subsequent levels will last a couple of hours each. A very interesting stack balancing rule will also be applied starting with Day 2. When the average stack size falls below 15 BB+SBs, the level will be extended until it climbs above it (as players get eliminated the avg. chip stack grows ever bigger). There are around 90 participants expected, but that number may well be surpassed. At any rate, the Zavidovo event will probably break the prize-pool record for an official live Russian tournament, a record currently held by the Moscow Millions.
