Lunkin Beats Pros at 2009 WSOP High-Rollers Event
Monday morning the final table of the high-rollers event at the 2009 World Series of Poker, Event #3 – $40,000 No Limit Holdem, produced some serious surprises. As was expected, the event attracted many of the major league poker pros with the biggest bankrolls (including several rising young stars of the online poker world). But what wasn’t expected was the it would be a virtual unknown who would take them all down and claim the top prize for himself.
Among those big names who made it as far as the final table – but no further – were Greg Raymer (winner of the 2004 WSOP Main Event) and Ted Forrest (5-time WSOP bracelet winner).
But the winner’s name, far less familiar to most, is Vitaly Lunkin, a Russian whose first big win came just last year when he took home his first bracelet in the first WSOP event he’d ever played – the $1,500 No Limit Holdem event of the 2008 World Series of Poker. This time, Lunkin pocketed $1,891,012 for his efforts, after a nail-biting back-and-forth heads-up match with runner-up (and winner of the $1,168,566 second prize) Isaac Haxton.
Haxton was the chip leader coming into the heads-up duel to the finish, but lady luck was on Lunkin’s side that day, serving him up with pocket Aces – not once, not twice, but three times during their final battle. Haxton did manage to knock out the event’s favorite, Raymer, just before going head-to-head with Lunkin, forcing the Fossilman to accept third place. Even still, his $774,927 prize was still the biggest Raymer had won since his run in the 2005 WSOP main event.
