Historic St. Petersburg, Russia was the site over the weekend of the first ever stop of the PokerStars.net Russian Poker Tour (RPT) - a brand new tour brought to you by the people behind the EPT, the LAPT and the APPT.  The $5,000 buy-in inaugural event, attracted 201 players and boasted a total prize pool worth nearly one million dollars. 

This exciting RPT tournament, as perhaps could be expected, was primarily occupied by regional players with the exception of a few brave souls eager to be a part of something new, like PokerStars pro and thrill seeker Vanessa Rousso.  Rousso was joined at the felt by fellow poker pros (and local heros) Alex Kravchenko and November Niner Ivan Demidov. 

Even with these internationally established pros in attendance, this first RPT 3-day poker event was eventually taken down by a local player, Oleg Suntsov, despite entering the final table last in chips.  For the victory, Oleg earned 10 million Russian rubles (around $300,000 USD) and the right to call himself the Russian Poker Tour’s first real champion. 

The final table finish results* for the RPT St. Petersburg Main Event, were as follows: 

1st.  Oleg Suntsov- 10 616 000

2nd.  Vadim Markushevsky- 5 469 000

3rd.  Alexander Pantukhin- 3 217 000

4th.  Sergey Solntsev- 2 380 000

5th.  Bulat Bikmetov- 1 930 000

6th.  Sergey Popuk- 1 608 000

7th.  Anatoly Ozhenilok- 1 287 000

8th.  Dimitru Gaina- 965 000

9th.  Evgeny Zaytsev- 643 000 

*All prizes expressed in Russian rubles 

For more information on the RPT visit the PokerStars blog (www.pokerstarsblog.com) or join PokerStars by clicking here, for your chance to compete in satellite tournaments for the RPT, the LAPT, the EPT, the APPT, and many other tournaments as well. 
 

Story by Mark Anderson