As the Russian nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, released footage of the dropping of the most massive hydrogen bomb in history, one of their sons was dropping a few bombs of his own in Event #6: Mix-Max Championship at the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Online Championships.
Andrey Kotelnikov raised a mushroom cloud over the heads of 989-entrants on his way to victory in the $3,200 buy-in event on partypoker. Kotelnikov apprehended the $488,508 purse, a Hublot Classic Fusion Titanium watch, and a replica Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
Kotelnikov had won three live tournaments before this success, including a $3,300 High Roller at partypoker MILLION Sochi and a European Poker Tour (EPT) side event, but this is his blistering best.
The final table housed a few standout performers including the WPT Champions Club member, Oleg Vasylchenko, who won WPT Prague in 2016, and the former WPT DeepStacks Champ & World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Niner, Jerry Wong.
The standout performer at the final was Bulgaria’s #1, Dimitar Danchev, who arrived at the last with more than $4.6m in live tournament earnings, including a victory in the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event.
The Pistachio Nut Action
Wong exited first when AT ran into the bright headlights of Stuart Guite’s pocket queens. Danchev frittered and fluttered his way to the rail in sixth after his KQ lost in a race against the raggedy ace of Vasylchenko. Kotelnikov’s pocket eights treated Maciej Gasior’s pocket treys to a fifth-place exit before the WPT Champ found himself in the moorland beyond the rail when KQ ran into the AQ of our eventual winner.
We reached heads-up play after Kotelnikov’s QJ found two more queens when all-in versus the ace-rag of Sven Joakim Andersson. The sacking of the Swede saw Kotelnikov take on Stuart Guite with slightly more than a 2:1 chip lead, but Guite fought back to take the lead before surrendering it once more. The final hand saw Kotelnikov get all of the chips when he turned a straight to beat the flopped two pair of the man from Britain.
Here are the final table results.
Final Table Results
- Andrey Kotelnikov – $488,508*
- Stuart Guite – $366,605
- Sven Joakim Andersson – $271,903
- Oleg Vasylchenko – $190,500
- Maciej Gasior – $124,500
- Dimitar Danchev – $89,016
- Jerry Wong – $69,300
*Includes a $15,000 seat in the WPT Tournament of Champions