Ukraine With First Ever EPT Champion

While the Russia-Ukraine crisis was top news all over the world, poker seemingly managed to reconcile national differences and #EPTVienna was the stage for model European coexistence and sportsmanship, without - at least to the distant observer - any open confrontation and tension. In fact, the newly crowned EPT champion, @Alexey Khoroshenin, is possibly the best spokesman for reconciliation - he is Ukrainian but lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. All of his statements after the victory referred to his Ukrainian countrymen AND to the 'people of St.Petersburg, where I live now'.

Be that as it may, Alexey Khoroshenin has made poker history as the first ever Ukrainian EPT champion. He was actually the first surprised by his own achievement - 'I was convinced @Eugene Katchalov had won it before and only now realized he had won the high roller event'.

The latest EPT champion comes from Ukraine, lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is 27-year-old. His first name has caused some confusion with the two alternative spellings in circulation - Alexey and Oleksii are both versions of the original Алексей Хорошенин. His first cash recorded on RankingHero dates back to 2011 and he has been active on the EPT circuit in the past two years, with quite a few ITM. After the EPT Vienna win, Khoroshenin more than trebled his live career winnings, to $1,089,082.

Khoroshenin did well from the very beginning and was the chip leader of Day 1a though he started the final table as the second to the last in chips. As he noted himself, this did not seem to matter much as everyone was comfortable enough in the beginning and the chip leader was just one double-up away ("on these final tables I guess it makes no difference how many chips you’ve got because a single hand can change everything")

What DID make a difference, however, was the pressure of the prize pool and the high stakes. "Things were much easier for me after the three-handed deal. Up to then, as each raise was at least Euro 100,000, I couldn't help thinking about the money and I think the others did, too. That's why we made the deal."

And here is how the three players agreed to #chop the prize pool, setting aside Euro 50,000 for the winner:

By heads-up, Khoroshenin had a huge advantage, with 20.7 million in chips vs Anthony Ghamrawi's 6.5 million and it took them less than an hour to get to the final all-in that awarded the second prize to the young Austrian and the championship, to Khoroshenin and Ukraine.