Lunkin Wins Moscow Main Event on Russian Poker Tour

By Jennifer Newell

Moscow was the second stop on the two-stop first season of the PokerStars.com Russian Poker Tour (RPT). In an effort to take its already successful poker tournament enterprise into Russia, where the popularity of poker has been growing wildly, the RPT set up a short first season to see if the players would come.

They did. The first stop in St. Petersburg in January brought 201 players to the $5K buy-in event, and the Moscow one in May did even better. It is safe to say that there will likely be a second season of the RPT.

The Moscow stop offered a $7,000 buy-in for the main event and drew 206 players, making for a solid prize pool and nearly $450K of it for the winner. The field was dominated by Russian players, including Ivan Demidov and Alex Kravchenko, but other Team PokerStars Pros like Vanessa Rousso, Chad Brown, and Katja Thater joined them as well. The first day ended with 122 players left and Sergey Rybachenko in the lead with 76K in chips.

By the end of Day 2, Brown and Thater joined Rousso on the list of eliminations, as did RPT St. Petersburg champion Oleg Sunstsov. The action was stopped at 36 players, and Day 3 found that it would take nine hours to make it to the final nine survivors. The final 27 finished in the money, but it was only the following players who would see the final table:

Seat 1: Sergey Artamonov 375,500
Seat 2: Dmitry Vitkind 115,500
Seat 3: Evgeny Onishuk 347,000
Seat 4: Vyacheslav Goryachev 310,500
Seat 5: Ivan Demidov 425,000
Seat 6: Alex Kravchenko 173,500
Seat 7: Oleg Shamardin 805,000
Seat 8: Alexander Khaustov 288,000
Seat 9: Vitaly Lunkin 255,000

The all-Russian final table began with Demidov as the aggressor, and when Evgeny Onishuk moved all-in with 7-6 on a 9-7-4 flop, Demidov called with pocket kings. The 4 on the turn and 6 on the river left Onishuk with a ninth place finish and 895,000 rubles.

Alex Kravchenko wasn’t so lucky, and an attempt to steal the pot with 7-4 didn’t work when Lunkin called with pocket jacks. Nothing came on the board to save Kravchenko from finishing in eighth place with 1,342,000.

Dmitry Vitkind was the next to go when his A-7 went up against the A-9 of Lunkin. The 10-5-6-9-3 board had outs but not enough, and Vitkind left in seventh place with 1,790,000 rubles.

Ivan Demidov started strong but couldn’t keep up the momentum. After losing the majority of his chips in a pot with Khaustov, Demidov pushed with A-7 but found Artamonov as the caller with pocket nines. The board blanked and sent Demidov out in sixth place with 2,238,000.

Lunkin was back at it again. He took his A-J into battle with Artamonov’s pocket tens and caught the card to knock Sergey Artamonov out in fifth with 2,685,000 rubles. When Oleg Shamardin made the all-in move with A-5, Lunkin called with pocket queens and sent Shamardin packing in fourth place with 3,133,000 rubles. He then took his pocket nines into battle with Alexander Khaustov’s A-6 and knocked Khaustov out in third place, which was good for 4,028,000 rubles.

It was no surprise that Lunkin went into heads-up action with 2,790,000 chips, and Goryachev had only 310,000. Goryachev pushed quickly with :Ad :6c, and Lunkin just happened to have pocket tens with which to make the call. The board came :Qd :8d :6h :4c :8s, and Vyacheslav Goryachev received 7,877,000 rubles for the second place finish.

Vitaly Lunkin became the second RPT champion, and for the Moscow victory, he received the trophy and 14,323,000 rubles.

(Thanks to the PokerStars blog for live updates.)