The Russians are Coming!

Author: Simon Dexter

Well, not exactly the Russians, but it is eastern European players who are starting to dominate the richest poker tournaments and results last week may be the start of things to come.

At the latest PP.com tournament three players from the eastern side of Europe made it to the final table with the big prize being lifted by the relatively unknown Croatian, Branimir Brunovic.

The 32-year-old, who is training to be a lawyer, was an online poker qualifier who came through, after looking beaten, to take the title which was the main event at the Spring Poker Festival at the Concord Card Casino in Vienna.

Although playing for 10 years, Brunovic was participating in his first major tournament and was pleased with his success.

“I play in as many tournaments as I can but this was the greatest experience and by far the biggest win I have had,” said Brunovic

“With the legal training it is going to be very useful to have all the extra money.

“I am going to play a few more big live games now but am going to sleep for a few nights and have a good think about what I am going to do with the money.”

The Croatian believes the game will continue to grow in his home country.

“Poker has a big future in Croatia and is getting bigger and bigger everyday, ” he added.

“We have a good set of players who are playing regularly. It started with just a few of us but the group is getting larger all the time. ”

The no-limits Texas Hold’Em game nearly fell out of the youngster’s reach as he had to play short stacked, with three left at the table including Hungarian Peter Gelencser and German ace Andreas Krause.

With Gelencser as chip leader, Brunovic was dealt a pair of aces with the Hungarian drawing a queen and jack off-suit. As Gelencser raised, Brunovic trapped him with a call. With a queen on the flop it was inevitable the Croatian was going to take a large proportion of his rival’s chips.

Also on the final table and eventually finishing in seventh place was the Lithuanian, Kondratas Aruydas, who is a protégé of the legendary poker bully, Tony G.

Not surprisingly, given her recent good form, there was also a final table finish for Katharine Hartree. After good showings in the WSOP and the Aussie Millions it was no less than the Bridgeport player deserved and makes a mockery of why some casinos still insist on holding all-woman events.

Poker is about brain, not brawn.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 11:36 am and is filed under General Poker.

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