One of the big winners of the weekend was Greece’s Christos crf88Vlassis (pictured), who came out on top of the field in the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guarantee. The $216 buy-in online poker slugfest attracted a field of 3,417 players and, with stuff competition from the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and the first weekend of the new NFL season, fell $66,000 short of its guarantee. Despite the smaller field, Vlassis banked $132,000 for the win and claimed his first Sunday Major title.

Prior to Sunday, his largest score tracked for the PocketFives.com Poker Rankings was a $26,000 haul for finishing third in the Full Tilt Poker $150,000 Guarantee in January. On what it felt like to scoop five times that total, Vlassis told PocketFives.com, “It’s amazing. All of the hard work of the last two years was finally rewarded.” Three weeks ago, he won the Full Tilt Poker $35,000 KO Guaranteed for an even $12,000.

Heads-up in the $750,000 Guarantee, Vlassis tangled with World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Leo Superfluous Man Wolpert (pictured). The battle lasted about 30 hands and Vlassis recalled, “I didn’t know who he was, but he was an extremely good player. He started with a big advantage in chips.” In the last hand of the tournament, Vlassis called a 3bet in position with 9-7 suited and the flop came 10-8-X. Vlassis moved all-in and found himself up against Wolpert’s pocket aces, but made a straight on the turn to rake the pot.

A convertible may be in the works for the Greek as a reward for his massive payday, although he hasn’t made any firm plans for the money. When you think of famous poker players, Greece isn’t the first country that comes to mind, but Vlassis explained that the game is growing quickly: “There are a lot of people playing here right now. Today is actually the first day that poker is allowed in local casinos. Poker is big here right now, but there aren’t a lot of people who are doing well yet.” Ilias m3lancholyZografos sits atop the Sortable Poker Rankings for the European nation with nearly 3,000 PLB points.

Vlassis told us that he looks up to Steve gboro780Gross (pictured), Bjorn kleathKleathersson, and European regulars like chiplieder. He labeled the trio as “very aggressive and smart” and gave us the scouting report on his own game: “I’m tight and solid pre-flop, but crazy in the late stages of a tournament. I have never played cash games, so I am not that good post-flop yet; I have to work on that.”

After friends introduced him to poker at a live game, he began grinding it out in freerolls online. His watershed moment came after winning a $5 freezeout for $5,000 and it was all gravy from there. He was aided by the fact that his father was a mathematician, so the number-crunching side of poker came naturally.

Vlassis added that a stint in the Greek Army also helped him along: “I was lucky because I had to join the Greek Army for nine months when I started playing. During that time, I couldn’t play, so I took a lot of books with me and was reading a lot on the American poker forums.” Vlassis called former World Poker Tour (WPT) final tablist Todd tbt4653 Terry (pictured) “The best poster in the poker forums. I learned a lot from him.” Terry made the final table of the Season 8 WPT Legends of Poker for $231,000 and finished seventh in the Hollywood Poker Open in March for $72,000.

A total of 522 players walked away with cash from the September 12th running of the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guarantee. Here’s how the final nine looked:

1. crf88 – $132,788 (crf88)
2. Pechorin – $80,250 (Superfluous Man)
3. 666Upswing666 – $52,500
4. ApesAreFun – $41,400 (ApesAreFun)
5. BSCHOOO – $31,050
6. grostic007 – $23,025
7. notre_damer – $17,250
8. gardyone – $13,500 (Gardy)
9. SPIN101 – $10,050 (SPIN101)

Visit Full Tilt to sign up for this week’s cycle of the $216 buy-in tournament.