While most of the poker world’s attention yesterday was fixed on the wildly popular $50k Players Championship, Maxim Lykov, a native of Russia, was too busy winning an event of his own. Lykov battled through a massive field of 4,576 competitors to win Event 55 at the 2011 World Series of Poker, the tournament’s final $1k buy-in No Limit Holdem event.
Lykov, who is one of the younger players on Team PokerStars at the spry age of 23, earned his very first WSOP bracelet by winning the event. He also took home a tidy sum of $648,880, bringing his total live tournament earnings to just over $2.5 million. Lykov has earned the majority of his money with a win at the first-ever European Poker Tour Kiev tournament, as well as two final table appearances at previous WSOP events.
Lykov described the win as “amazing,” saying that it reminded him of when he first started playing poker, and how he dreamed of eventually succeeding in the World Series of Poker. The young player has already decided where he’ll be putting the money: right back in his bankroll, where it will go towards funding additional poker tournaments.
Lykov, who was on track academically to pursue engineering before turning to professional poker, has now played in a total of three WSOPs. The Moscow-native entered the final table of the $1k NLHE event with the chip lead and maintained this position throughout the remainder of the event, personally knocking out four of his opponents.
A total of three Russian players have now scored bracelets at the current WSOP. Aside from Lykov, these players include Arkadiy Tsinis and Viacheslav Zhukov. There’s little doubt that all three will be allocating some of their winnings to a buy-in for the Main Event, which officially began yesterday.
1 Comment - Click Here to Speak Up