Yevgeniy Jovial GentTimoshenko (pictured) is just $270,000 in online MTT cashes away from $5 million over the course of his career. He won the 2009 PokerStarsWorld Championship of Online Poker Main Event for $1.7 million (read our interview) and, several months earlier, he emerged victorious in the World Poker Tour Championship for $2.1 million. Later this month, he’ll be one of 64 players to enter the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, which will air on NBC.

“I’m really looking forward to playing in the event,” Timoshenko told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “This is one of the few events that I’ve wanted to play in for quite some time and finally got the invite.” He is one of 20 members of the PocketFives that will participate in the made-for-television tournament, which returns after a one-year hiatus.

How will Timoshenko approach the event? How can he set himself up for success? “I don’t have any general strategy for the event,” Timoshenko admitted. “I’m going to prepare by playing Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em and reviewing my most recent heads-up sessions. I played a lot of Heads-Up Sit and Gos before Black Friday and this structure is very similar. In that regard, I think I’m well prepared.” PocketFives has tracked 41 wins and 23 second place finishes for him in online MTTs.

Besides his track record, is he confident in his own heads-up game or does he believe there’s improvement to be made? He responded, “I’m definitely confident in my Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em game. I think the biggest improvements and breakthroughs in my game have come from experimenting with different styles and plays.” There are seven former World Series of Poker Main Event champions in the field of 64, or 11% of the pack, so his competition will be fierce.

Timoshenko is from the United States, but has relocated to Vancouver (pictured) in order to continue playing online. “It was definitely tough for me because my life is in Seattle and having to drive or fly to Vancouver any time I want to play is a huge burden,” Timoshenko said of his current situation. “I’m still playing online any time I’m outside the United States, but obviously not as much as I’d like.” He was last ranked #1 on PocketFives in May 2007.

“2012 wasn’t a great year for me,” Timoshenko assessed of the year that was. “I was very motivated and think I played well overall, but the cards didn’t really fall my way. The problem was because I wasn’t playing online consistently and was at the mercy of live MTT variance. I played about 50 live events in 2012 and while I devoted a lot of time and energy to that, to put it into perspective, it’s the equivalent of playing two Sundays online. As everyone knows, it’s very easy to have two losing Sundays in a row.”

According to the Hendon Mob, Timoshenko earned $246,000 in live tournaments in 2012, split relatively evenly between Europe and the Americas.

Timoshenko is originally from the Ukraine (pictured), but told PocketFives that he has not yet returned to the European nation: “I haven’t made it back to the Ukraine, but I’ve been meaning to go back for quite some time. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find some time this year and finally make the trip down.”

The Ukraine pokercommunity is quite strong. In fact, the nation sits at #11 worldwide in the PocketFives Country Rankings. When the individual leaderboard was recalculated on Wednesday, the Ukraine’s gosuoposum1 stood pat at #2 worldwide and has $1.5 million in tracked online scores.

See who else made the 2013 National Heads-Up Poker Championship field.

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