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Third Ukranian Wins Bracelet at 2011 WSOP

June 26, 2011

Event #38 in the 2011 World Series of Poker was played out recently and the bracelet went to Arkadiy Tsinis, who is better known in the chess and backgammon circuit than the poker community. He has been a world renowned chess champion for more than a decade now, but has only been playing poker since 2004.

Tsinis switched from chess to poker for the pay increase. Fortunately, Tsinis has been able to make a much better living playing poker. Thus far, he’s won almost $800K in live poker tournaments and has cashed 11 times at the WSOP including the $540K paycheck he landed and his first gold bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘em event.

Tsinis is originally from the Ukraine and is now the third Ukranian to score a WSOP bracelet this year. The other two being Oleksii Kovalchuk and Eugene Katchalov. Tsinis now lives in New York and has followed his good friend Ylon Schwartz from chess to poker. Schwartz has earned more than $4.3 million in his live poker career. He says, “There’s not a great living in chess unless you’re in like the top 20 in the world.”

Schwartz continues, “You’re trained to sit and you’re trained to study and you’re trained to memorize things which are all applicable to poker. It’s cute to be a chess player and be broke when you’re in your 20s but when you hit 30 you’ve got to switch.”

Written by Bea · Filed Under Poker News 

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