On the final day of September, a Sunday, Russian online poker player Roman Matveychuk (pictured), who goes by MatveichukRhere on PocketFives, took down the iPoker $150,000 Guaranteed. The next day, he booked his very first PocketFives Triple Crown. We’d say that’s a pretty good 24 hours, especially when you consider that the iPoker tournament, which takes place on sites like Titan Poker, was worth $33,000 in itself.

“I’m happy I did this and I’m planning to put my money back into my bankroll,” Matveychuk told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. The $33,000 shot in the arm came after barreling through a 1,000-player field that he estimated consisted of 95% fish and 5% “strong regulars, as is typical in a Sunday Major.”

The final table was anything but a cakewalk despite the relatively soft field. Two other players ranked in the top 1,000 on PocketFives made the final nine. He explained, “I ran into people who gave me real problems at the final table. There were three aggressive players and I had position on two of them. With one of them, I played the bank for the chip-leading stack with K-K versus A-K. After I won that, I had a big stack and could influence the short stacks. Entering heads-up play, I had 7 million to my opponent’s 2 million.”

The iPoker Major and his recent success in general will allow him to move up in stakes and rebuild his bankroll. He’s on the verge of recouping his Full Tilt funds when the site re-launches on November 6 and rehashed, “One week before Full Tilt Poker shut down, I got second place in the Sunday Brawl. That gave me $39,000, which was a big part of my bankroll. After Full Tilt closed, I tried to build a new bankroll. After my win at Titan Poker and different cashes from May to October, I can now play higher limits online. I’ll try to visit offline tournaments more often in 2013 too.”

Fellow Russian mnevsegdapret (pictured) transferred Matveychuk $10 on Full Tilt in late 2009, igniting his poker career. He began playing $2.25 180-man sit and gos and has moved up in stakes ever since. He candidly recalled, “I wanted to start playing poker for a living, but had no money at all. Moreover, if I had lost the $10, I might be somewhere else now.”

He admitted that although many people in Russia consider poker to be nothing more than gambling, “most people understand that poker is an intellectual game. We can’t play offline in Russia much at all, so we try to play it well in other countries.” His crowning live achievement is a $10,000 score for taking 13th in the Russian Poker Tour’s Grand Final in Kiev seven months ago.

His Triple Crown was worth 684 PLB Points and came after wins on Titan Poker, PartyPoker, and 32Red. It’s one of the very few Triple Crowns not to include a win on PokerStars, a unique achievement in itself. Matveychuk has also recorded a pair of solid fourth place cashes this year in the PokerStars Bigger $55 and Sunday Kickoff. Both were worth a little over $10,000 apiece. Matveychuk is up to nearly $900,000 in tracked cashes in his PocketFives profile, one-third of which has come on PokerStars.

He wanted to close by saying, “Thanks to all of my colleagues who support me and read my Russian blog about poker.” You can find his blog at Gipsyteam.ru and, if you want to see the latest poker developments in Russia, check out PocketFives’ all-new Russia poker community.

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