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1st Annual Moscow Millions |
The first annual Moscow Millions no limit hold em tournament, the Russian counterpart to our World Series of Poker and the ever popular Aussie Millions, finished up this weekend at the Kosmos Casino and Hotel in Moscow, to a surprisingly small number of entrants: 53.
The event was taken down by infamous loudmouth Tony 'G' Guoga, well known from his World Poker Tour broadcasts in which he reamed the tables not only of their chips but of their spirit, using his aggressive and over-the-top banter to help push players into his plams. Tony G took down the $205,000 top prize in exchange for his $10,500 buy in, a not bad little profit at all for a weekend's work.
Instead of pocketing the funds, though, Tony G kindly donated his entire proceeds for the event to a group of Russian orphanages as selected by Poker Professionals, the group that had set up and run the event.
Tony's run was particularly well done considering that he'd shown up late for the event after being corraled to a dentist's appointment and then lost nearly half of his opening $25,000 stack to early play. He then managed to turn around and decimate the field, going into the final table with a daunting chip stack and, again, his ever present mouth.
Also placing in the tournament was Alex Kravchenko, another Russian player known from his 2007 WSOP Final Table appearance. He took home $77,000 for his efforts.
According to further discussion, the Russian players in the game were very happy with the 53 player turnout, which was supplied with no satellites. All players paid the full buy in. They are hopeful that poker will continue to pick up in their country. And hell, if they're going to continue to have fields of that size, perhaps I need to get a ticket to Russia and get in while it's early? |
