YOUNG GUN WINS APT MACAU

5 September 2008

Twenty-year-old beats top pros to $500 000 main prize


Twenty-year-old Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a US resident who originally hails from the Ukraine, took down the 2008 Asian Poker Tour main event final table at the Galaxy Starworld in Macau over the weekend, beating an entry field of 257 hopefuls that included a generous sprinkling of top pro players.

The young gun collected a $500 000 main prize for his success in eliminating his final seven opponents - his first major main event win.

With a pricey $5 300 buy-in, the large entry field for the event illustrated the attraction of a guaranteed $1.5 million prize pool.

Famous names on the player list included Doyle Brunson, Liz Lieu, J.J. Liu, Mel Judah, Todd Brunson, Nam Le, Kenny Tran, David "Chino" Rheem, Johnny Chan and J.C. Tran.

The final table consisted of Casey Kastle in the chip lead, Michael Pedley, Joon Hee Yea, Chong Wing Cheong, Quang Nguyen, Julio Diaz and Robert Karian. Pedley was first to hit the exit, eliminated by Quang Nguyen, but Timoshenko then pretty much dominated the game despite starting in the middle of the chip counts.

He quickly despatched Chong Wing Cheong, going on to send Quang Nguyen home as well, steadily growing his stack in the process. His next victim was Julio Diaz, and that gave him a significant advantage over the remaining players as his chip stack reached over $1.6 million.

The action slowed after that, and it took around two hours before the next elimination, which was original chip leader Kastle, who was sent to the cashier for a fourth place payout of $90 000 by the rampant Timoshenko, who then claimed another victim - Karian - on the next hand. For his third place positioning Karian pocketed $126 000.

Reaching heads up, Timoshenko faced Joon Hee Yea across the felt with an almost ten to one chip advantage, and it was all over in short order; Yea headed home with a second place check for $250 000, and young gun Timoshenko collected half a million dollars for an outstanding win.

Seoul in South Korea is the next stop for the APT, although the dates have yet to be released.

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