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Player Update: Jovial Gent

By Simon Hopper

27th April 2009

I just played my game. I stayed patient. I didn't want to play big pots out of position, or even in position.

Yevgeniy Timoshenko takes down $25k WPT Championship for over $2.1million....

Congratulations to Yevgeniy Timoshenko who took down the prestigious WPT $25,000 World Championship for an astounding $2,149,960 at the Bellagio over the weekend.

He took the chip lead to the final table which included the likes of Elky Grospellier (3rd, $776,245), Christian Harder (4th, $571,965) and Scotty Nguyen (6th, $285,985), and never relented in his pursuit of victory.

Ukrainian national Timoshenko, who was raised in Washington state, only just turned 21 so remarkably this represents his first ever live cash in the States – but online players will already be well aware of the man known as ‘Jovial Gent’ on PokerStars. He took down the Sunday Million as early as November 2006 for over $250,000 and also has multiple victories in the $100 and $200 re-buys so the guy clearly has nothing to prove in MTT circles – particularly with prizes on Stars of over $1.3million. But he has also been playing live wherever it was legal for him to do so and racking up some considerable cashes in the process. In 2007 he took down the Irish Open €1,000 prelim for $166,302, in August 2008 he won the $5,000 Asian Poker Tour in Macau for $500,000 before coming 2nd in an EPT Barcelona side event ($134,087) and coming 3rd in the WSOPE £1,500 Event ($100,666) just a month later.

Speaking after the win he told PokerListings: “I just played my game. I stayed patient. I didn't want to play big pots out of position, or even in position. I just wanted to grind it out and keep the pots small.
“I didn't really want to get it all in pre-flop. I prefer to see flops and chip away at him like that.”

He also said that he is setting his sights on a WSOP bracelet in his first ever World Series this summer – Jovial Gent is certainly one to keep an eye on at the Rio.