Yevgeniy Timoshenko Wins the WPT World Championship

• Author: Qid
• Filed under: Bertrand Grospellier, ElkY, Poker Tournament, WPT
• Date: Apr 26,2009

Timoshenko achieved the biggest tournament cash of his career after beating Ran Azor in the heads-up. The $2.1 million first prize is by far the biggest feat in Timoshenkos career, as his previous biggest prize was $500,000 from the win of Asian Poker Tour event in Macau in last August.

Elky is the WPT Player of the Year.

First player to be eliminated from the final table was a former world champion Scotty Nguyen. Nguyen pushed all-in with A-4 when he had only three big blinds left in his stack. Nguyen managed to hit two aces on the board, but was outkicked by Christian Harder’s A-9.

Shannon Shorr was next to go out in fifth place. Shorr pushed all-in with 6-7 and was called by Timoshenko who held a pair of fours in his hand. Shorr missed all his outs and was sent to rail. Shorrs elimination guaranteed the title of WPT Player of the Year to Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, who finished third in the tournament.

Grospellier was eliminated in the same time with Harder in a hand won by Ran Azor. Grospellier had more chips before the hand so he was officially credited third place leaving Harder in fourth spot.

It took only 63 hands to find out the final two, but it took 81 hand more to find out the winner in the final confontration between Azor and Timoshenko. In the final hand Timoshenko pushed with A-3 and Azor quickly moved his short stack into the pot helding Q-T. Azor flopped a pair of queens, but it was not good enough when Timoshenko hit a runner runner straight.

Timoshenko became the second youngest player ever to win a WPT title in the age of 21 years, two months, and 15 days old. He missed the youngest ever champion mark by mere two weeks, as youngest ever WPT champion Nick Schulman was exactly 21 years and two months when won in the Foxwoods four years ago.

Here is the final results and payout:

1. Yevgeniy Timoshenko - $2,149,960
2. Ran Azor - $1,446,265
3. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier - $776,245
4. Christian Harder - $571,965
5. Shannon Shorr - $408,550
6. Scotty Nguyen - $285,985

Source: wpt