The Russians Are Coming!
Last year the biggest trend in poker seemed to be the growing population of Scandinavian players. This year, it seems to be the Russians that are taking over the poker world. This year’s WSOP featured more players from Russia than ever before, with many of them cashing for some huge prizes.
Ivan Demidov is the sole Russian player left in the series, who will be playing it out for his chance at the massive main event prize pool in November.
Two Russians won bracelets at this year’s WSOP. Vitaly Lunkin won a bracelet in one of the no-limit Hold’em events and Svetlana Gromenkova won the 2008 WSOP Ladies Championship.
Tony G always mentions in his blog that some of the biggest games in poker are going on over in Moscow, Russia, where he is a regular at the tables.
According to Daniel Negreanu, he thinks this has a lot to do with the huge chess scene in Russia. In a recent article, he stated: “Chess is a great training ground for poker players because it’s a math-based game, much like backgammon is.”
Many poker sites are jumping on this bandwagon. Titan Poker just added Russian language support last week for their online poker client.
Daniel went on to say, “Poker’s popularity is surging in Russia. You can expect to see more Russian names winning on the European Poker Tour and other major international tournaments in coming years.”
