Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko is, quite simply, a master of the big score. Of his 9 live cashes, Timoshenko has five over $100K, including a massive $2.1 million payday for winning the 2009 Five-Star World Poker Classic. Jovial Gent’s other scores include a whopping $500K for taking down the 2008 APT event in Macau, $166K for winning the 2007 Irish Poker Open, $133K for 2nd at EPT Barcelona, and just over $100K for a 3rd place finish at the ’08 WSOP Europe. No doubt already a premiere poker player, Timoshenko will be a feared opponent for years to come.
In an interview with Bluff Magazine, Timoshenko outlined how he got into poker in the first place:
“I was first exposed to poker around 2003. I saw Chris Moneymaker win the World Series on TV and was immediately enthralled and became interested in the game. I gradually started playing with friends – I was in high school and a few of my friends got into poker as well at that time. We started small games for fun and from there I slowly made the transition to online play. I played play money for awhile and then started playing some freerolls and won a couple of bucks – and that’s how I built my roll.”
During the same chat, he also discussed his massive PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker Main Event victory, which was worth $1.7 million:
“It felt great. I thought the tournament went pretty well. With two tables left, as people started busting out, I managed to build my stack and with 10 or 11 left I was second in chips to Daniel Kelly (djk123). The only thing I was hoping for when we made the final table was that he wouldn’t have position on me. As it happened he was seated on my immediate left, which kind of sucked. But he actually didn’t give me too much trouble. Things went pretty smoothly for me and once I realized he wasn’t going to be messing with me too much I opened up a little bit.”
Yevgeniy Timoshenko was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, but moved to Washington State when he was 10 years old. He currently resides in Mukilteo, Washington.