"We Always Have Good Basketball Players and, Nowadays, Good Poker Players"
Last month, Lithuania’s Davydenko123(pictured) was part of a heads-up chop of the PokerStars Sunday $109 Rebuy and earned $37,000, the largest payday given out. It was the fourth largest score of his career. “I feel very good,” he told us. “After a downswing during the SCOOP series, that hit was necessary and nice to get.”
He made one rebuy and added on once, telling us, “On Sundays, I think you must take a full stack at the start of the tournament because of the many bad players who give away their stacks. After the add-on, I had only 7,000 in chips, but the tournament went smoothly and I made the final table. I was pretty happy at the final table too because there were not many regs. The hardest part of the tournament was three-handed play.”
Fellow Lithuanian prof. ch4osfinished in third place for $22,000 after running A-10 into Davydenko123’s pocket aces. Then, our interviewee and CMoosepowermade a heads-up deal and cashed for $37,000 and $35,000, respectively. He told us, “That was a good, safe deal for me against a good player.”
Lithuania(pictured) has almost 700 registered PocketFives members who have together amassed over $53 million in winnings, $3.5 million of which has come in the last three months. It’s #16 in PocketFives’ Country Poker Rankings with a combined PLB score of its top 20 players of 70,958 points. Davydenko123 is its top-ranked player worldwide out of 400 Lithuanians with PLB scores.
As he put it, “Lithuania is a small country, but we always have good basketball players and, nowadays, good poker players. We have a nice poker community that talks over Skype and tries to improve our skills. Our country is small and everybody knows each other, so greetings to my poker friends! I hope we will get stronger and stronger.”
Davydenko123’s largest online cash was worth $75,000 and came after a second place finish in the Sunday Warm-Up two years ago. Other top-notch cashes this year besides his Sunday $109 Rebuy chop include a win in that tournament in February for $42,000, a fourth place finish in the Super Tuesday two days later for $45,000, and a Saturday Super Knockout win for $31,000.
He closed by saying that rather than head to Las Vegas for this year’s World Series of Poker, he had to live vicariously by buying shares of friends. He added, “I also want to wish a right river to my poker friends.” Done!
Congrats to Davydenko123 on his Sunday $109 Rebuy chop.
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