Perhaps Oleksii Kovalchuk should adopt the nickname Roy Hobbs. Like the fictional baseball player, it appears that Kovlachuk is “The Natural,” winning his second World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet in as many years after besting 392 competitors in the 2012 WSOP Event #42: $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8 or Better. His newest bracelet came along with a $228,014 paycheck.
Just 22-years old, Kovalchuk surprised everyone last year when he won $2,500 buy-in Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event for $689,739, becoming just the second Ukranian to win a WSOP bracelet. He was almost the first; Eugene Katchalov had won his just two weeks earlier. Since then, Kovalchuk has proven to be a force in the world of live tournament poker. In September 2011, he won the Italian Poker Tour’s (IPT) Nova Gorica Main Event and then followed that up with a 3rd place finish in the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event. In October, he placed 10th in the €5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at WSOP Europe. Then, this past March, he took down another IPT title, winning IPT San Remo. Counting last night’s victory, Oleksii Kovalchuk has now earned over $2 million on the live tournament circuit.
So, at this point it is no secret that this young man is good. Really good. But the funny thing about this tournament was that despite all his success in the past year, Kovalchuk was a total novice in this form of poker. To him, though, there is no better training ground than a World Series of Poker tournament. Somehow he made it to the final table, but then of course he had to face the likes of George Danzer and Mark Gregorich, both of whom specialized in these types of games. He also had guys like Yuval Bronshtein and long-time vets Wing Wong and Norman Chad (of WSOP broadcast fame) with whom to deal.
No matter, though. Kovalchuk entered final table play comfortably in the middle of the pack, sitting with 335,000 chips. He was in a sort of second tier with Bronshtein (340,000), above three players with under 200,000 chips and below three players with over 500,000. Gregorich was the chip leader with 677,000.
Kovalchuk was a bit up and down for the first couple hours, though mostly up, and entered the dinner break with 596,000 chips, good for 3rd place out of the six players remaining. Shortly after dinner, he lost a couple big pots, sinking to below 200,000, but he soon soared back, dominating for a while as he increased his stack to over 1.6 million. When he finally made it to heads-up against Danzer after 1:00am, he was in the lead with 1.9 million chips to Danzer’s 1 million.
Danzer got out of the gates quickly, grabbing the lead after only 15 minutes or so. When Danzer had a 2-to-1 chip lead, it appeared the title might be his, Kovalchuk soon won three consecutive hands to regain a slight edge. He continued to stretch his lead during the final Omaha 8 round, which culminated with the following hand:
After a raising war pre-flop, Danzer was all-in on a call, turning over A♦-Q♣-8♣-2♣. Kovalchuk held A♠-K♦-9♥-4♠, a hand with more potential. But this is Omaha 8, and it can get crazy. The flop of 6♥-9♠-J♥ gave Kovalchuk a pair of 9’s and dashed any chances for Danzer to hit a flush. The K♥ on the turn improved Kovalchuk’s hand to two pair and now Danzer needed a Ten to make a straight and snatch the hand away from his opponent. The river 3♠ was not what Danzer was hoping for and Oleksii Kovalchuk won his second WSOP bracelet.
2012 WSOP Event #42: $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8 or Better – Final Table Results
1. Oleksii Kovalchuk – $228,014
2. George Danzer – $140,825
3. Mark Gregorich – $90,829
4. Daniel Ratigan – $65,812
5. Yuval Bronshtein – $48,387
6. Norman Chad – $36,093
7. Wing Wong – $27,313
8. Tim Burt – $20,966
