The highly experienced Russian poker ace Alex Bilokur demonstrated his considerable skills over the weekend by taking down event 28 on the World Series of Poker schedule despite starting the heads up at a 8 to 1 chip disadvantage.
The $10,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em Championship event attracted a stellar field of 160 players, creating a prize pool worth $1,504,000 and ended in a heads up that featured Bilokur and Matt O’Donnell, with the latter holding the advantage on 4.3 million chips vs. Bilonkur’s 500,000.
To reach that heads up the two finalists had to survive a field that included seriously good players like Scott Seiver, Erik Seidel, Dan Shak, Barny Boatman, Pratyush Buddiga, Todd Brunson and Chino Rheem, several failing to make the final table.
The heads up evolved into an epic 106-hand struggle as Bilokur fought through his disadvantage to take the lead and then finally send his very worthy last opponent to the exit and a runner-up pay-out of $246,310.
Bilonkur’s first prize was a tidy $398,567 and his first World Series of Poker winner’s bracelet, whilst other members of the final table were paid out thus:
Alex Venovski $178,434
Chino Rheem $131,705
Ismael Bojang $98,978
Todd Brunson $75,681
Pratyush Buddiga $58,851
Richard Lyndaker $46,533
Barny Boatman $37,389