Timoshenko wins APT Macau

APT Macau, Galaxy Starworld, Macau, No Limit Hold’em, 27th-31st August 2008

Entrants: 257
Buyin: $5300
Prizepool: $1,500,000

1. Yevgeniy Timoshenko — $500,000
2. Joon Hee Yeah — $250,000
3. Rober Karlian, $126,000
4. Casey Kastle, $90,000
5. Julio Diaz, $67,500
6. Quang Nguyen, $52,000
7. Chong Wing Cheong, $37,500
8. Michael Pedley, $26,250

20-year-old Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a highly rated player from the United States of Ukrainian descent has won the 2008 APT Macau, Asia’s largest guaranteed tournament, at the glamourous Galaxy StarWorld. 257 players from over 40 countries lined-up for a guaranteed prize pool of US$1.5 million and guaranteed first prize of US$500,000 – a landmark for the development of poker in Asia.

The field which featured some of the most high profile names in the game including the legendary Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Todd Brunson, Liz Lieu, J.C Tran, Kenny Tran, Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald, John Juanda, Nam Le, Quinn Do, Steve Sung, David ‘Chino’ Rheem, Mel Judah, Mansour Matloubi, Harry Demetriou, Carter Gill, Richard En, PartyPoker.com Million VI champion Alexander Jung and APT Manila champion David Saab. The event, which run from the 27th – 31st May was opened by legendary host of the 1970 World Series of Poker ® Jack Binion.

Chris Parker, CEO of the Asian Poker Tour congratulated the ecstatic winner Timoshenko at a wildly colourful closing ceremony. He then made a draw that gave away one free seat to the next event for one lucky player who had pre-registered for the tournament on official website http://www.asianpt.com/ and announced that this will be standard practice going forward.

Timoshenko was born in Kharkov, Ukraine but moved to Washington State when he was 10 years old. In the last couple of years he has established his reputation as a fearsome online player and has topped online poker rankings. “I’m ecstatic to have finally won a main event,” said Timoshenko. “I will use the winnings to strengthen my bankroll but I haven’t decided about my future as yet. I have plans to go to business school in 2009.”

“There were points in the tournament where I definitely ran good but I have to give respect to runner-up Joon Hee Yeah. He was the last person I wanted to take on heads-up, luckily I had a substantial chip lead. It feels really great to have won such a tournament in a place like Macau where you can feel the excitement about poker growing so fast.”