Home / Poker News February 2009 / Russian Poker Tour won by Oleg Suntsov
Russian Poker Tour won by Oleg Suntsov
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2009-02-04 18:36
The first ever edition of the PokerStars sponsored RPT (Russian Poker Tour) took place at St. Petersburg over the weekend. The Russian presence was quite naturally massive, even at the final table where seven of the nine available seats were occupied by Russian players. The tournament featured massive buy-ins (around $5,000) and therefore a massive prize-pool as well, especially so because there were no fewer than 201 entrants in the event. Some of the participants came via direct buy-ins, others through various online satellites. The prize-pool eventually swell to a little over $1 million, which meant the player to finish first would take down around 10 million Russian rubles, roughly the equivalent of $300,000.
Several ‘name’ pros were present at the tables when the tourney began, among which 2008 WSOP Main Event runner-up Ivan Demidov, and PokerStars’ own Vanessa Rousso and Alex Kravchenko.
At the end of the hostilities, it was Russia’s Oleg Suntsov who stood triumphant, having taken down the 10,616,000 Russian Rubles prize.
The final table action began with Moldava’s Dimitru Gaina in firm control of the hostilities. From chip leader to 8th place finisher however there’s only a heart-beat of a distance apparently as he busted out right after 9th place finisher and first final table casualty Evgeny Zaytsev. Gaina’s 8th place finish only earned him 965,000 rubles though, far less than he’d probably expected at the start of the day.
Gaina’s elimination was followed by those of Anatoly Ozhenilok (in 7th), Sergey Popuk (6th), Bulat Bikmetov (5th), Sergey Solntsev(4th), and Alexander Pantukhin (3rd).
The short-stack at the beginning of the final table, Oleg Suntsov stormed back for a heads-up battle with Vadim Markushevsky for the title.
The last to best move of the Russian player was crowned by the final hand of the event which saw him push all-in on the turn, as the board showed: 6,9,3,5. Markushevsky was fast to make the call on a K,9 which secured him top pair on the flop, but little did he know that Suntsov was hiding a pair of Qs in his pocket.
The river failed to alter anything and thus the first ever RPT title went to Oleg Suntsov.
