Denys Shafikov Wins First-Ever WPT Russia

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Ukrainian poker player Denys Shafikov signed up with last evening the special club of WPT Main Event champs after coming through a 503-strong field to take down the WPT Russia RUB198,000 Main Event.

The gamer claimed roughly $255,259 in prize money and the tournament trophy. Shafikov was thus crowned the victor of the first-ever WPT Russia. The major poker series spent the initial days of the year at Casino Sochi in the Russian city of Sochi, bringing high quality texas hold’em action to among Russia’s most popular poker destinations.

As mentioned above, the Main Event drew 503 entries who generated a prize pool of $1,358,200. It took seven days of action for the winner to be determined. The tournament was capped yesterday at the host casino with the six-handed final table.

As discussed above, the Centerpiece attracted 503 access who generated a reward swimming pool of $1,358,200. It took 7 days of activity for the victor to be determined. The tournament was capped yesterday at the host gambling establishment with the six-handed final table.

Shafikov entered that ending stage of the competition as the chip leader as well as totally bulldozed his means with the final table to at some point catch the prize and also the coming with top payout.

Shafikov held 5.335 million in chips at the beginning of the final day of play. He was well in advance of the remaining players, with Aleksey Gortikov being his closest rival at the time with 3.36 million. Yauhen Kontush with 2.66 million completed top three of the pre-final table chip counts graph.

Mikhail Galitskiy with 1.98 million, Oleg Pavlyuchuk with 1 million, and Nikolay Fal with 785,000 were the other 3 gamers to make it right into the finale.

Final Table Action

Shafikov had already built a solid advantage over his opponents by the start of the final table and he only extended the existing gap as action progressed during the last day of the tournament.

The player was responsible for three of the five final table eliminations, busting Galitskiy in 5th place and Fal in 4th place. Pavlyuchuk was the player to leave the tournament in 6th place early into Sunday action.

By the time the field was whittled down to just the final three, Shafikov had a controlling stack and dominated action. Kontush exited the race in third place to leave it to Shafikov and Gortikov to battle it out for the title and the first-place prize.

The two-handed match began with the eventual champion holding a massive advantage over his final opponent. However, Gortikov fought fiercely to narrow that gap and be able to attack the title. The duel lasted more than 60 hands during which chips swung back and forth, but Shafikov never really lost his foothold.

On what turned out to be the final hand in play, Shafikov raised from the button with pocket nines and Gortikov moved all in with [Ac][7c]. Shafikov called to see the board deliver [Ks][3h][2d][9s][4h] and earn him the title and the first-place prize. Gortikov had to settle for the $171,236 second-place prize.

From Russia all the way to Atlantic City, attention is now on the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open and its $3,500 Main Event which kicked off on Sunday.