There’s something pretty groovy about being world class at ‘something’ and choosing to keep your identity a secret. There’s a certain Clark Kent about it. I know I’ld struggle to stay schtum. My ego would win the internal war of sense, innocuously dropping into conversations that I had earned more than $5m profit playing a game of cards.
The online poker community allows you to be a tad Jason Bourne, and many players have taken advantage of that, with Viktor ‘Isildur1′ Blom the most famous hidden identity of them all.
Trueteller is another one.
From 2011 until the summer of 2015, Trueteller competed against all and sundry in the highest stakes cash games in the world, and nobody had a scooby who he was.
Then, during the $50,000 Poker Players’ Championship (PPC) at the 2015 World Series of Poker (WSOP), Timofey Kuznetsov admitted to his tablemates that he was the man who once danced with Phil Ivey for more than 30-hours.
And now, after winning $3.1m on PokerStars, $2m on Full Tilt, $3m playing live tournaments, and likely millions more playing live cash games in Macau, Kuznetsov is about to leave the Daily Planet for good.
The 27-year old becomes the second Russian star to represent partypoker Team Pro (Anatoly Filatov joined in March 2017), and by my reckoning that makes it 23 ambassadors, more than any other online poker room in the world.
Trueteller’s favourite game is No-Limit Hold’em, but he will take on anyone at the Pot-Limit Omaha tables, and the vast majority of his Full Tilt winnings came playing 2-7.
Kuznetsov referred to the dark age in poker in his press release, stating that good sides must unite.
“I’ve spent all of my career in social silence, it feels like it might be a time to change that,” said Kuznetsov.
The Russian star also stated that he was looking forward to helping improve partypoker’s software, and to help them develop a more robust and exciting mixed game option.
You can expect Kuznetsov to get involved in Trickett’s Game, partypoker’s attempt of wresting the high stakes online cash game action from PokerStars’ control.
Kuznetsov will make his debut in the final week of POWERFEST. The online giants haven’t announced if Kuznetsov will feature at the partypoker MILLIONS UK at Dusk till Dawn (DTD) at the end of the month. Live tournaments aren’t Kuznetsov’s ding-a-ling, registering only three times on The Hendon Mob finishing fourth in the inaugural Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) for $2,150,000, winning a $50,000 ARIA High Roller for close to $800,000, and taking fifth in a Triton Poker Series event in the Philippines for a smidgen under a hundred grand.
MILLIONS UK takes place 29 September till 7 October, with the £25,500, £1m GTD MILLIONS UK High Super Roller looking like an event that Kuznetsov may fancy.
