Yuriy Brechalov won the Sochi Poker Festival main event
The regular championship, which consisted of 33 cup events, ended in Sochi yesterday. The main event was a tournament for 70,000 rubles with three starting flights. They managed to attract 618 players who created a prize fund of 37,350,000 rubles. Yuriy Brechalov won the Sochi Poker Festival main event and earned record money in his career – 7 million rubles.
Although the tournament gathered twice as many players as the main SPF Winter, it did not become a record. The record belongs to the post-tournament SPF Summer 2021, when the organizers counted 784 entries. The 37 million rubles collected at SPF Spring were divided by the players who got into the top 80 of the tournament. Denis Korotkiy became the bubble-boy. All the others guaranteed themselves 112,000 rubles. It happened at the end of the second game day. The participants of the final table were determined after the third day.
The chip leader of the finale was Alexander Kirichenko, who has victories on EAPT and 888Live. Kirichenko had 64 BB, while Kirill Levushkin had only 2 BB.
Kirichenko and Brechalov played in the heads-up
Kirill Levushkin, who started the final table the shortest, lasted the least. He went all-in with deuces, and Timur Mukhamedaminov made a call with J-3. On the flop, Timur caught the jack and knocked out the opponent. Despite the knockout, Mukhamedaminov was eliminated next. The Uzbek player went all-in on the K-9-5 flop, holding 6-5. His opponent Alexey Smolyanin had J-10s. The queen on the turn gave Smolyanin a straight.
Ilya Alekseev, who started the table with 7 BB, got to the seventh place. The player had only 0.8 BB at his disposal, and he made a bet with 7-4 against Yuriy Brechalov’s A-3. Nobody improved, and Alekseev left the tournament. Ervand Darbinyan lost a coin with a pair of eights to Brechalov, who was holding A-Q. Brechalov did not stop there, and knocked out Alexey Smolyanin as well. His Q-10s were stronger than Smolyanin’s 8-6.
The 4th place was taken by Stanislav Vagin, who first made a 3-bet with A-10, and then called all-in from Alexander Kirichenko with A-Q. None of the players have improved. The honorable 3rd place was taken by Konstantin Kvashin, who with A-J failed to beat 7-7 of Alexander Kirichenko.
- Yuriy Brechalov — 7,000,000 rubles
- Alexander Kirichenko — 4,552,800 rubles
- Konstantin Kvashin — 3,163,300 rubles
- Stanislav Vagin — 2,318,400 rubles
- Alexey Smolyanin — 1,668,450 rubles
- Ervand Darbinyan — 1,271,900 rubles
- Ilya Alekseev — 1,003,100 rubles
- Timur Mukhamedaminov — 780,500 rubles
- Kirill Levushkin — 651,350 rubles
Kirichenko and Brechalov played in the heads-up; both started the final with the deepest stacks. In the heads-up, Brechalov had three times more chips, and he eventually won. In the decisive hand, Brechalov had K-10, Kirichenko had J-10. A 2-8-10-5-4 was handed out on the board, and Brechalov raised the cup over his head.