One tour ends, another carries on, as PokerStars reports from The Russian capital...

If you happened to be a patriotic Russian looking to support a local player at a big poker tournament, then Moscow yesterday was the place to be. All nine players at the successful PokerStars Russian Poker Tour final table in Moscow were from the home 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 roubles - that's about $445,000 - was no fluke: he has a pedigree of his own having won a WSOP bracelet last summer in the $1,500 no limit hold'em event. And he used his undoubted talents to go from second last in chips yesterday to champion of the $7,000 buy-in RPT Moscow.

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

Eighth place went to Kravchenko who had moved all in against four opponents, trying to collect some easy chips. Three of them folded, but Vitaly Lunkin decided to look him up, perhaps not surprisingly as he had [jc][jh] - enough against the Team Pro's [7s][4h].

Next out was Dmitry Vitkind, who pushed with [ac][7h] but ran into Lunkin's [as][9s]. The board of [10d][5d][6d][9d][3c] doing the damage. Demidov went in sixth, first losing a big pot to Alexander Khoustov and then leaving when his [Ac][7d] failed to overtake Sergey Artamonov's pocket nines.

At this stage players took a 30-minute break, and then it took a full two hours before the fifth place was determined when Artamonov was busted by Lunkin when his [10c][10h] failed to hold against [ah][js]. Lunkin was at it again soon after, knocking out Oleg Shamardin, who had held the chip lead earlier in the tournament. Lunkin's [Qd][Qc] was too good for Shamardin's [Ac][5c].

It took another hour to lose the third-place finisher, Khaustov, who moved all-in with [as][6s] and was called - not surprisingly - by Lunkin who had [9c][9d].

Tournament Director Thomas Kremser introduced the final two to the audience, and with blinds at 20,000-40,000 it was always going to be a brief 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 [ad][6c] and was called by Lunkin who once again found a hand at the right time with pocket tens. The board came [Qd][8d][6h][4c][8s] and Vitaly Lunkin became Champion of RPT Moscow.

Final table payouts (in rubles):

1. Vitaly Lunkin, 14,323,000
2. Vyacheslav Goryachev, 7,877,000
3. Alexander Khoustov, 4,028,000
4. Oleg Shamardin, 3,133,000
5. Sergey Artamonov, 2,685,000
6. Ivan Demidov, Team PokerStars Pro 2,238,000
7. Dmitry Vitkind, 1,790,000
8. Alex Kravchenko, Team PokerStars Pro, 1,342,000
9. Evgeny Onishuk, 895,000

When you start a final table as the short stack, you have two real choices: show no fear and go for the win, no matter how unlikely, or exert minimal risk and hope to climb a few cash positions.

Oleg Suntsov was in just this sticky spot yesterday, starting the final table of the inaugural Russian Poker Tour event in St Petersburg so behind the pack he was in danger of being cast adrift.

Oleg Suntsov

In fact, so short was he that his 64,000 chip stack needed to double, double again - and then yet again before he could get up to the dizzy heights of chip leader Dimitru Gaina, from Moldova, who had more than 500,000 in front of him.

Yet Oleg had been chip leader after day one, a fact that implied he would not have been content to sit back at the final table in order to cash a bit extra to add to his bankroll.
And so it proved: he wanted the win, and he wanted it bad. Hours, and eight defeated players later, he had got his prize - the big prize of more than 10 million Russian roubles. That's about $300,000 to you and I.

Impressive stuff, then, from the young Russian, who is a regular player on the tournament scene in his home city of St Petersburg.

,br> Suntsov, right, collects his bumper prize

This was a fine destination to kick off the PokerStars-sponsored Russian Poker Tour. In total, 201 players forked out $5,000 to play - way above expectations - including Team PokerStars Pros Alex Kravchenko, Vanessa Rousso, and Ivan Demidov, the PokerStars-sponsored player who final tabled the WSOP Main Event just months ago.

Such was the interest that esteemed tournament director Thomas Kremser and his staff ran a list of alternates in order to squeeze everyone in.

Here's how the final table looked when they sat down:

1. Dimitru Gaina, Moldova, 501,000
2. Sergey Popuk, Russian, 302,000
3. Sergey Solntsev, Russia, 256,000
4. Vadim Markushevsky, Belarus, 256,000
5. Anatoly Ozhenilok, Russia, 203,000
6. Bulat Bikmetov, Russia, 181,000
7. Evgeny Zaytsev, Russia, 178,000
8. Alexander Pantukhin, Russia, 76,000
9. Oleg Suntsov, Russia, 64,000

First out of the door was Evgeny Zaytsev. He pushed all-in with J-J against Bikmetov's Q-Q, but neither of his two outs arrived to save him.

Soon after, Suntsov got the first of his necessary double ups - against chip leader Gaina. Gaina then completed his riches-to-rags story when he busted, pushing with an open-ended straight draw but running into Vadim Markushevsky's nut flush draw, which filled up on the river.

Dimitru Gaina

Out in seventh place was Ozhenilok, unluckily with As-Ks against Bikmetov's Q-8. The flop was 8s-4s-9x giving Bikmetov the pair, but Ozhenilok the nut flush draw. The turn, Qs, filled his flush and put Bikmetov behind with two pair - but the river was another 8, filling Bikmetov's full house.

Next out - and also very unluckily - was Sergey Popuk, who must have thought his A-A was safe against Alex Pantukhin's K-Q. Nope! The board came K-Q-5-8-7 and Popuk was collecting his coat.

Out in fifth was Bikmetov, who ran his A-8 into Markushevsky's A-J (the turn was a jack and so, in one of those completely unnecessary moments, was the river!).

Markushevsky then dominated for a period - and got lucky to eliminate Solnstev in fourth place, calling with A-5 against 8-8, and waiting until the river to see an ace win him the hand.

Vadim Markushevsky

It was that man Markushevsky again who accounted for the third-place finisher, Pantukhin. This time Markushevsky called with Q-J to 7-7 - and hit a jack on the flop.
Suntsov had been quieter while Markushevsky was on his wrecking-ball run, but he had still moved up to 800,000 when the pair got to heads-up - not far short of Markushevsky's 1.2 million.

Suntsov picked up a few small pots to edge himself into the chip lead and then, as so often happens, one sledgehammer hand finished the three-day tournament off.

Markushevsky raised to 60,000, Suntsov called. The flop came 6-9-3, and both players parted with another 100,000. On the turn - a five - Suntsov bet 220,000, Markushevsky moved all in... call! Markushevsky had K-9, Suntsov the dominating Q-Q, and the harmless two on the river meant Suntsov took the crown.

The event had been a great success, and next the RPT moves to Moscow, where the main event starts on February 25.

If St Petersburg was anything to go by, it should be a cracker.

The two stop season will see events in St Petersburg in January (25th – 1st) before a second event takes place in Moscow a few weeks later.

Recent years has seen some of the world’s best players emerge from Russia, notably Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko and this year’s WSOP main event runner-up Ivan Demidov. As of this moment, the two men have won more money playing poker than any other Russians.

News of their exploits and the tournament itself will be right here. See you in St. Petersburg!