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Ivan Demidov: Russian Poker Pro

This article was written by: Jannah Strat for Celebrity Poker Players

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Jannah Strat is an efficiently writer from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. She's writes anything that has to do with online gambling. She tackles all about Casino Games, Poker Players and Sports Betting. She also owns two blogs about some of the best and hottest Poker Players and her blog about Celebrity Poker Players.

World's best poker player Ivan Demidov is the latest in a series of Russian natives finding incredible success at the WSOP

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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