Showing posts with label Team PokerStars Pro. Show all posts

Ivan Demidov: Russian Poker Pro

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.

Gavin Griffin: The Youngest WSOP Champ

The record Gavin Griffin set as the youngest bestpoker player ever to win a World Series of Poker bracelet, in all honesty, didn't last too long. Eric Froehlich broke it only a year later, Jeff Madsen broke it again a year after that, and the honor leapfrogged over to Steve Billiarkis in 2007.

However, last year, Gavin Griffin set another record that is proving much more difficult to shatter — he became the first and only player to win a WSOP bracelet, a World Poker Tour title and a European Poker Tour title, a distinction that would come to be known as poker's "Triple Crown".

Gavin Griffin instead enrolled at Texas Christian University and began studying to become a speech pathologist. At home for summer break after his freshman year, Gavin Griffin was invited to a friend's weekly $20 buy-in home game. Though the stakes were small, it was enough to put a dent in a starving student's budget.

Jason Mercier: PokerStars Supernova Elite

Jason Mercier is a classic example of the young online poker success story. Hailing from Florida, Jason Mercier got all his action on PokerStars, where he was lucky and skilled enough to win a seat at the EPT San Remo No Limit Hold'em championship. He took full advantage of the opportunity, winning the event and $1,372,000.

Before his success in poker, Jason Mercier was studying to be a Math teacher before he made it big in the poker world. He then discovered online poker when he went away to college, and the next few years were spent mastering the game, picking up some impressive results in online tournaments along the way. He also began crushing the cash games, and became only the 16th player to become a PokerStars Supernova Elite.