In a year when top tournament players have amassed some amazing records and numbers –Sam Trickett, Erik Seidel, Jake Cody, Bertrand Grospellier, Chris Moorman, Eugene Katchalov, Ben Lamb, and so on– Andrey Pateychuk has quietly put together a remarkable year of his own, with his latest resume booster being the 2011 WPT Prague Main Event title.

The WPT Prague Main Event title would not come easy for Pateychuk. Despite dominating the table for most of the day, and taking a small chip-lead into heads-up play, Pateychuk soon found himself having to battle back from a 15-to-1 chip disadvantage after losing a huge all-in confrontation with A5 vs. his opponent’s 88. After two straight double-ups the first with KJ vs. T9 and the second AK vs. AQ Pateychuk was back in the game.

The final hand seemed like a replay of the hand that crippled Pateychuk at the beginning of heads-up play as he once again had Adria Balaguer all-in holding A5, with Balaguer holding a pocket pair, this time QQ. However, since this was the final hand I think you can gather how it turned out!

Here is a look at the final table payouts from the inaugural WPT Prague Main Event:

* Andrey Pateychuk €468,200

* Adria Balaguer – €238,000

* Stanislaw Kretz – €158,000

* Benjamin Pollak – €104,000

* Sigur Eskeland – €80,000

* Russell “RDCRSN” Carson – €63,000

Pateychuk was a virtually unknown quantity in the poker world before this summer: In July the anonymous Russian player made a very deep run in the 2011 WSOP Main Event before bowing out in 15th place, which he followed up with an EPT win in San Remo in October. With the addition of a WPT title Pateychuk has gone from anonymous to near Triple Crown winner with almost $2 million in tournament winnings in 2011 in just a few months!

The WPT will now head back to the United States as the tournament series prepares for the tenth running of the Five Diamonds Poker Classic, which for you poker historians was the tournament that began the WPT’s rise to fame back in 2002 when a young Danish player by the name of Gus Hansen captured the first-ever WPT title.

Even with the WPT’s departure Prague will remain a center of the poker world, as the EPT Prague Main Event began yesterday –considering the reentry format of the WPT Prague (allowing players to register on Day 1a and Day 1b) and now the EPT Prague, some poker players will likely be out of €12,000 in buy-ins over the course of a week!

Tags: Adria, Amazing Records, Aq, Balaguer, Bertrand Grospellier, Chris Moorman, Confrontation, EPT, Erik Seidel, Kretz, Poker World, Pollak, Russian Player, San Remo, Trickett, Triple Crown Winner, Unknown Quantity, Ups, WPT, WSOP Main Event

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at 8:38 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.