About the PokerStars National Championship
The PokerStars Championship Sochi took place in the brandnew Sochi Hotel & Casino. It included 43 events and a total prize pool of more than 3 Million Dollars!
One of the first highlights was the $1,160 PokerStars National Championship. For which we sponsored Georgy Philippovich, one of the young and upcoming Russian tournament players.
The tournament was a great success with a staggering 756 entries. Georgy managed not only to make it into the money, but even to the Final Table.
VIP-Grinders Player Georgy Philippovich wins the National Championship!
And the good run continued at the final table as the 26-year-old from Yekaterinburg was chipleader, when the tournament got down to three players.
There were three Russians left and they quickly agreed to a deal, which secured Philippovic the biggest paycheck with RUB 6,313,500 (approx. $112,172).
After the final table Georgy said: “I tried the play the same way I usually play online and it worked out.”
Congratulations for this amazing victory from everybody at VIP-Grinders!
The official Payouts:
| PLACE | NAME | COUNTRY | PRIZE (RUB) | DEAL (RUB) |
| 1 | Georgy Philippovich | Russia | 8.310.000 ₽ | 6.313.500 ₽ |
| 2 | Vitaly Avanesyan | Russia | 5.060.000 ₽ | 5.495.000 ₽ |
| 3 | Viktor Kudinov | Russia | 3.590.000 ₽ | 5.151.500 ₽ |
| 4 | Andrey Soloviev | Russia | 2.710.000 ₽ | |
| 5 | Sergey Em | Kazakhstan | 2.150.000 ₽ | |
| 6 | Dmitry Chop | Russia | 1.625.000 ₽ | |
| 7 | Van Thach Vu | Russia | 1.166.200 ₽ | |
| 8 | Rudolf Babayan | Russia | 798.000 ₽ | |
| 9 | Nacho Barbero | Argentina | 630.000 ₽ |
About the PokerStars Championship Sochi
Absolut highlight of the PokerStars Championship Sochi was of course the $5,600 Main Event.
387 players paid the buy-in and created a huge prize pool of RUB 150 Million (approx. 2.65 Million Dollars)!
Among them were several poker superstars such as Live Boeree, Igor Kurganov, Betrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Chris Moneymaker, Aditya Agarwal as well as local hero Vladimir “vovtroy” Troyanovsky.
VIP-Grinders player Dmitry Vitkind finishes 4th in the Main Event for $191k!
The latter also made the final table together with VIP-Grinders player and tournament crusher Dmitry “veryking” Vitkind!
Both began the final table of the last 6 as one of the smaller stacks, but had a good start and quickly build momentum.
Troyanovskiy eliminated Timur Bubnov and when Lavrentiy Ni exited in 5th Dmitry had already secured himself a minimum of $190,829, but everything was possible as he was third in chips not far behind chipleader Pavel Shirshikov.
Then Vitkind got himself into a preflop raising war with Shirshikov, which ended in a preflop all-in. It was a classic cooler as Dmitry turned over Qd-Qc and Pavel Pocket Kings.
No help from the board and Dmitry Vitkind finished 4th in the PokerStars Championship Sochi Main Event for $190,829, which is his biggest cash to date.
Heads-Up Pavel Shirshikov beat Vladimir Troyanovskiy and took home the staggerind first prize of $514,893.
The whole final table with hole cards was streamed live on the internet and you can watch the video replay below:
Watch the Video Replay of the PSC Sochi Main Event Final Table:
The Payouts of the PSC Sochi Main Event:
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (RUB) | Prize (USD) |
| 1 | Pavel Shirshikov | Russian Federation | 29,100,000 | $514,893 |
| 2 | Vladimir Troyanovskiy | Russian Federation | 18,450,000 | $326,453 |
| 3 | Seyed Ghavam | Iran | 13,335,000 | $235,948 |
| 4 | Dmitry Vitkind | Russian Federation | 10,785,000 | $190,829 |
| 5 | Lavrentiy Ni | Kazahkstan | 8,535,000 | $151,017 |
| 6 | Timur Bubnov | Russian Federation | 6,570,000 | $116,249 |
View the best pictures from PSC Sochi here:
