Demidenko Dominates EPT Kyiv Day 1

Demidenko Dominates EPT Kyiv Day 1

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

The PokerStars European Poker Tour continued its storm around Europe by visiting Ukraine, as Day 1 of the EPT Kyiv event concluded with 129 players turning out for the first day.

At the end of play, it was Ukraine’s own Mihaylo Demidenko who went home with the room’s biggest stack, with 145,125 chips. He leads the 93 surviving players who will return on Thursday for Day 2.


Originally, this was going to be the EPT Moscow. Ivan Demidov’s success had opened up a whole new poker market there and PokerStars were going to ride the wave of their sponsored pro to bring in legions of new players.


However, this changed last month when the Russian government decided to de-classify poker as a sport, therefore making it subject to anti-gambling laws and essentially screwing up PokerStars’ plans royally.


Ironically, their new destination in Ukraine has moved the opposite way. Poker has just been upgraded to a non-Olympic sport in the country, so therefore the EPT was played out in the Kyiv Sport Palace that has formerly hosted the Eurovision Song Contest.



Tags: Poker News, Demidenko, Dominates, EPT, Kyiv, Day, 1