Vitaly Lunkin wins PokerStars RPT Moscow

If you happened to be a patriotic Russian seeking to support an area player at a large poker tournament, then Moscow yesterday was where to be. All nine players on the successful PokerStars Russian Poker Tour final table in Moscow were from the house country. And two of them - Ivan Demidov and Alex Kravchenko - were Team PokerStars Pros. Even their experience, both being previous World Series of Poker Main Event final tablists, was not enough to take down this event. Instead, that went to Vitaly Lunkin, a former backgammon player.

His win, good for 14,323,000 rubles - that's about $445,000 - was no fluke: he has a pedigree record of his own having won a WSOP bracelet last summer within the 1,500 No Limit Hold'em event. And he used his undoubted talents to head from second last in chips yesterday to champion of the $7,000 buy-in RPT Moscow.

Vitaly Lunkin

Final table play started tightly, but then the primary elimination was PokerStars qualifier Evgeny Onishuk. He raised from middle position with 7♠ 6♠ and was re-raised by Demidov from the button. Onishuk called and so they say a flop of 9-7-4, giving Onishuk middle pair. He check called Demidov's 70,000 bet however the Team Pro had a couple of kings and the 4 turn and six river changed nothing.

Eighth place went to Kravchenko who had moved all in against four opponents, seeking to collect some easy chips. Three of them folded, but Vitaly Lunkin decided to seem him up, perhaps not surprisingly as he had J♣J♥ - enough against the Team Pro's 7♠4♥.

Next out was Dmitry Vitkind, who pushed with A♣7♥ but bumped into Lunkin's A♠9♠. The board of T♦5♦6♦9♦3♣ doing the wear. Demidov went in sixth, first losing a large pot to Alexander Khoustov after which leaving when his A♣7♦ didn't overtake Sergey Artamonov's pocket nines.

Team PokerStars Pro Ivan Demidov

At this stage players took a 30-minute break, after which it took an entire two hours before the fifth place was firm when Artamonov was busted by Lunkin when his T♣T♥ did not hold against A♥J♠. Lunkin was at it again soon after, knocking out Oleg Shamardin, who had held the chip lead earlier within the tournament. Lunkin's Q♦Q♣ was too good for Shamardin's A♣5♣.

It took another hour to lose the third-place finisher, Khaustov, who moved all in with A♠6♠ and was called - not surprisingly - by Lunkin who had 9♣9♦.

Tournament Director Thomas Kremser introduced the overall two to the audience, and with blinds at 20,000-40,000 it was always going to be a temporary heads-up seeing as Lunkin had 2,790,000 chips to Vyacheslav Goryachev's 310,000. Indeed, just minutes later Goryachev moved all-in with A♦6♣ and was called by Lunkin who again found a hand on the right time with pocket tens. The board came Q♦8♦6♥4♣8♠ and Vitaly Lunkin became Champion of RPT Moscow.

Final table payouts (in rubles):

1. Vitaly Lunkin, 14,323,0002. Vyacheslav Goryachev, 7,877,0003. Alexander Khoustov, 4,028,0004. Oleg Shamardin, 3,133,0005. Sergey Artamonov, 2,685,0006. Ivan Demidov, Team PokerStars Pro 2,238,0007. Dmitry Vitkind, 1,790,0008. Alex Kravchenko, Team PokerStars Pro, 1,342,0009. Evgeny Onishuk, 895,000

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Russian Poker Tour]