Just before the dog days of summer set in, Ukraine’s serhiy1989won the Full Tilt Poker $250,000 Guaranteeafter a heads-up chop with fellow PocketFiver joaomathias. The deal was worth $44,000 and PocketFivers ended up sweeping the final table for over $163,000 total.

“I’m feeling quite good,” serhiy1989 told PocketFives following his big score. “The final table was of medium strength, but complicating my life was that I was sitting next to a very strong regular in UhhMee and next to him was a very strong Brazilian. The table was working for me, but I had no luck with the seating arrangements.”

“I didn’t think I had an advantage over my opponent,” serhiy1989 responded when asked why he chose to chop at the end of the six-figure guarantee tournament. The score was the largest we’ve tracked for serhiy1989, who took second in a PokerStars WCOOP Second Chance No Limit Hold’em Six-Max Knockout in 2013 for $31,000.

Here’s how the final table of the Full Tilt $250,000 Guarantee cashed out:

1. jokerWSCOP $44,857.56 (serhiy1989)
2. joaoMATHIAS $38,442.44 (joaomathias)
3. UhhMee $23,750.00 (UhhMee)
4. ur_jst_ignorant $17,750.00 (tilt21sted)
5. thegr8str8 $13,250.00 (shanedb1983)
6. tangentagent $9,750.00 (GreenAsFelt)
7. floppin_ell $7,250.00 (floppinhel)
8. Austrian_Master $5,250.00 (Ringelsdorf)
9. achen $3,750.00 (achen)

Besides continuing to build his poker bankroll, serhiy1989 said that part of the money will go toward building a house. Right now, his family is living with parents while the house is under construction, so perhaps some newfound cash will help speed up that process.

He is the top-ranked player in Zakarpattia Oblastin southwest Ukraine and #8 overall in the country. Ukraine is home to 702 registered PocketFivers, 503 of whom have PLB scores. The Ukraine poker community has combined for $51.5 million in winnings all-time, about 10% of which has come in the last three months.

serhiy1989 got into the game like many in the poker industry did, via home games while in school. He has certainly come a long way and is up to $613,000 in online MTT scores from 1,385 in the money finishes, an average of $440 each. He is currently #363 worldwide in the PocketFives Poker Rankings, his all-time high.

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