Eugene Katchalov Sits Atop Poker Player of the Year 2011 Rankings
Eugene Katchalov sits atop the leaderboard for Poker Player of the Year 2011 at Bluff Magazine, though he hasn’t even cracked the top 20 over at CardPlayer.com.
Katchalov’s live tournament winnings to date have been just over $6 million. The 2011 PokerStars EPT Caribbean Adventure Event 2 No Limit Hold’em Super High Roller, held earlier this year, earned him his biggest cashout to date, $1.5 million.
Since that time Katchalov has been on an absolute roll, coming in 8th place last week at the first ever Epic Poker League tournament and winning $70,960. He also won the Seven Card Stud event at this year’s World Series of Poker and the $122,906 that came with it.
The Ukrainian-born pro, who moved to the US with his family when he was just 10 years old, can be found playing online under the handle 'MyRabbiFoo'. This is not a homage to his rabbi but rather a derivative of “My Rabbit’s Foot”.
Katchalov prefers to play live, probably more so now that one of his online poker rooms, Full Tilt, has shut its doors and another, PokerStars, has left the US market.
“I used to prefer online, “ he told CardPlayer.com prior to the events of April 15 when the executives of three online poker rooms were indicted on charges of bank fraud. “But recently I have preferred live a lot more, simply because in live tournaments, specifically the big ones, which I prefer to play, you get so many chips to play with. The one thing I don’t like about online tournaments is that you’re always pretty short-stacked, so there’s really not that much play. It’s pretty much a lot of preflop play, and I think I’m a pretty good post-flop player, because I have a lot of cash game experience, so that’s why I prefer to play cash games and live tournaments. There are a lot of people who are inexperienced playing deep-stacked in tournaments. So, that’s why I prefer playing high buy-ins, because you have so many chips while the blinds are pretty small.”
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
