A soft spoken and shy, Ivan Demidov is a Moscow native and entered the WSOP the old-fashioned way. He paid the $10,000 fee to buy into the Main Event.
Ivan Demidov looks at making it to the final table as the equivalent of winning the lottery in Russia and if he does well and places in the top three in November, he will beat his countrymen’s best record of coming in 4th.
He has already shown live tournament promise as exhibited by his previous wins.
Following the same path as many others who later became multi-millionaire poker players, Russian poker pro Ivan Demidov started out playing computer game StarCraft. But by the time he graduated in 2004 from Moscow State University with a degree in Math, he'd moved on to the far more lucrative poker circuit - a career progression that would change his life forever just four years later.
Before
2008, Ivan Demidov had a few cashes in tournaments back home
in Moscow. He also made the final table of a side event at the Doyle
Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in 2007, taking home $21,710
for a 3rd place finish. At the 2008 World Series of Poker, he picked
up a cash of $39,000 for almost making the final table of the $1,000
No Limit Hold'em event, eventually finishing in 11th.
But
even with this confidence boost, Ivan Demidov probably didn't
rate his chances too highly when it came time for the Main Event. It
may be the biggest title in poker, but with over 6,000 runners,
getting there is one hell of a long road.
Someone
has to make it though. And after eleven long days and 6,835
eliminations, Ivan Demidov found himself one of the final
nine, with a real shot at winning the title. In the 117 day break
before the Final Table was set to begin, Ivan could have taken some
well-earned time off. But that's not his style. Instead he went to
London to play in the World Series of Poker* Europe Main Event.
Poker
pro Ivan Demidov somehow made the final table there as well,
picking up $608,995 for a third place finish - and a place in the
history books as the first player to make the final table of both
World Series Main Events.
When
November finally rolled around, Ivan Demidov used his
aggressive style to get heads-up against Peter Eastgate. He
eventually finished as runner-up, an incredible achievement that was
worth a huge payday of $5,809,595.
He
may have just missed out on achieving every poker player's dream, but
Ivan Demidov is no doubt set for great things. Already sitting
comfortably at the top of the all time money list for Russian poker
players, you get the feeling that Ivan is just getting started. He is
a member of Team PokerStars Pro and plays online poker
using the screen name “Ivan Demidov”.
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