Russian Poker Players

December 30th, 2008

This past November, Ivan Demidov, Russian poker player, took the poker world by storm, making it to the final table in two World Series of Poker main events. He was seated at the November Nine with the second highest chip stack and ended up taking first place to Eastgate at the 2008 WSOP Main Event in Vegas, and earlier this year, he finished 3rd at the WSOP Europe. After the 2008 WSOP, his lifetime career tournament earnings total close to $2 million. This was an unprecedented feat before Demidov made both final tables. But even more exciting for Russia was that Demidov wasn’t the only Russian at the WSOPE final table. Stanislav Alekhin was seated at the table, as well, proving that poker in Russia is in an uprising.
Over the past 15 months, many Russian players have been successful at higher levels of play. Russia’s involvement in the poker scene began in 2003 with Moscow’s Kirill Gerasimov, the original Russian poker pro, who finished 2nd in the 2003 World Poker Tour $25K Championship Event, winning more than $500K. Since then Gerasimov has won 21 WSOP events which include 8 final table events giving him a total earnings of more than $2 million.
Since then, we have also seen Alexander Kravchenko win a WSOP bracelet and make it to the final table of the 2007 main event, Alexander Kostritsyn defeat Erik Seidel in a heads-up showdown at the 2008 Aussie Millions, Nikolay Evdakov make 10 cash outs in the 2008 WSOP, and Svetlana Gromenkova win the WSOP 2008 Ladies Event.
Apparently poker in Russia is currently in an up shift. Demidov is hopeful that poker will flourish in Russia. He says, “The Russian Federation recently said that poker is a sport. Now many card rooms are opening all over Russia, many in Moscow. The Russian poker community is small, but growing. I hope that it keeps growing.”
While Russia may not be the first country that comes to mind when the subject of European poker players come up in conversation, but Russia is an upcoming force in the industry. Russian players are showing up more and more at big money live events all over the world and making a place for themselves. What seems to be a quiet front might prove to be a forceful awakening as poker becomes more and more forthright in Russia, and Russian poker players begin showing up more frequently in events like the WPT and the WSOP.