The APPT High Roller Even won by Vladimir Geshkenbein

The 2009 APPT High Rollers event in Macau was won by the Russian player Vladimir Geshkenbein. He ended up in a heads up confrontation at the end with poker legend and two time World Series of Poker main event winner Johnny Chan. In fact Chan was so impressed with the play of Geshkenbein that he labelled him the “Russian Bomber”.

Geshkenbein was playing unbelievably aggressively and had the chip lead for most of the day. However when the play did get down to nine handed, Geshkenbein did go on something of a lean streak and got as low as 300,000 in chips at one stage.

But he remained calm and focused and battled his way back with some very fierce play. This was to be Geshkenbein’s final blip and once he got his nose back in front then there really was no stopping him and it was only a matter of time before he eventually took home the winners purse of $266,690. Johnny Chan picked up a nice $154,400 for his troubles coming in second position.

The last hand was quite remarkable as well. Both players saw a cheap flop with Geshkenbein holding K-8 to Chan’s Q-8, the flop came 8-6-5 rainbow, Geshkenbein check-raised Chan enough to put him all-in, after a few seconds Chan called. The turn card was a 7s which looked like a split pot was on the cards until a king came on the river to give Geshkenbein the title and the $266,690 prize money.

Johnny Chan had also put up a great showing in the exact same event last year when he came seventh so coming second and seventh in the space of two events is pretty good going. Maybe the “Oriental Express” can go one better in 2010 and take down the title and who would bet against him?