Timoshenko $2.15 million richer and new WPT Champion

Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko is fast becoming a poker legend after walking away with the WPT championship title and is the second youngest to achieve such success. Timoshenko who was born in the Ukraine but raised in the U.S. is only 21 and has already gained some major poker wins including the Asian Poker Tour in Macau in August 2008 which provided him with $500,000, but the latest World Poker Tour win leaves him $2.15 million the richer.

The final poker table in the tournament took place on Saturday, which saw chip leader Timoshenko facing some tough opposition in the form of veteran poker player and 1998 WSOP winner Scotty Nguyen, who was hoping to bag his second WPT bracelet. Scotty unfortunately never got very close to securing the victory and only managed a sixth place. Pro poker player Shannon Shorr who has $3m in poker winnings under his belt was the next to bow out leaving the young poker superstar edging ever nearer to victory. Christian Harder, another 21 year old managed to achieve fourth giving him winnings of $571,965, Bertrand (Elky) Grospellier managed a respectable third and won $776,245, and a relative new comer Ran Azor a 45 year old from Israel came in with a second place and received a prize fund of $1,446,265.

Timoshenko a regular player with PokerStars has now gained his first ever WPT bracelet at the World Poker Tour event in Bellagio. Timoshenko has now over $3.1 million in poker winnings and is something of a new poker enigma, he was pragmatic about the tournament win, saying ‘I hoped to win, but in tournaments you can’t expect anything, especially at a final table as tough as this one’.