Performance of the Week: Dmitry Chop Makes History in Sochi
Every week, PokerNews will bring you the top performance from the previous week.
There were many great performances last week: Jonas Hagstrom winning the Mega Millions XVI at The Bicycle Hotel & Casino, Jason Ramos shipping the 100th MSPT event after outlasting a venue-breaking 466 player field in the Mid-States Poker Tour Meskwaki $1,100 Main Event and Will Berry winning his first WSOP Circuit gold ring in the WSOP Circuit Tulsa Hard Rock Main Event.
Despite these great performances, Dmitry Chop outgunned them all. He won the $225,000 top prize in the partypoker Million Sochi Main Event, the largest tournament in the short history of the Sochi Casino and Resort. He will also go down in history as the first partypoker Million Main Event winner.
Defining Moment
Chop entered the eight-max final table with the chip lead and was the only non-Russian player remaining in the field.
After two-time EPT side event winner Mikhail Korotkikh was eliminated in eighth place for $15,000, Chop relinquished the lead to three-time EPT side event winner Asker Aloev.
It didn't take long for Chop to regain the lead after he sent Boris Yanpolsky to the rail in seventh place for $22,500 after his ace-queen held versus queen-king.
Chop once again relinquished the chip lead, this time to Lev Mnatskanyan in a three-way hand where Aloev was eliminated in fifth place for $40,000.
Mnatskanyan, who was short-stacked earlier on the final table, looked like he had a good chance to win the tournament as he entered heads-up play against Chop with a small chip lead.
However, Chop was quickly able to turn the chip lead back in his direction. Soon after that, the defining moment for Chop came. He eliminated Mnatskanyan in second place for $150,000 in a hand where Mnatskanyan opened up with pocket aces and was called by Chop with queen-ten suited.
The duo got it all in on a king-ten-ten flop. At this point Chop was a 91 percent favorite to win the hand with trips. He won the biggest tournament in Sochi Casino and Resort history after his opponent was unable to get any of the outs he needed with the 3♥ appearing on the turn and the 9♦ completing the board on the river.
Social Media Reaction
Many people congratulated Chop on making history including the newest partypoker Ambassador Anatoly Filatov.
Congrats to Dmitry Chop to win the first ever @partypokerlive Sochi Million! @partypoker https://t.co/vYL6mhNfXE
— Anatoly Filatov (@nl_profit)
Photographer Danny Maxwell tweeted his congrats while also noting how much he enjoyed working at the event.
Congratulations to Dmitry Chop on winning @partypokerlive Sochi 2017 for $225,000 - good time working with the guys… https://t.co/AIiTzoSoGO
— Danny Maxwell (@MannyDaxwell)
Danish publication, acemag.dk, came up with a clever tweet using Chop's surname while sending kudos to the winner.
Chop Approaching $1 Million in Live Tournament Cashes
According to The Hendon Mob, Chop is now in 12th place on the Ukraine All Time Money List with $961,928 in live poker tournament cashes. He still has a long way to go to catch up to Eugene Katchalov ($8,954,614) and Yevgeniy Timoshenko ($7,323,813), who headline this leaderboard.
However, this is not to say that Chop hasn't had success outside of the partypoker Million Main Event. His previous largest cash came during a deep run in the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event when he finished in 56th place for $113,764.
One summer later, he came close to eclipsing this cash when in June 2016 he took seventh place in the MSPT Deep Stack Extravaganza III for $100,531.
Chop also scored big in May 2012 in his home country of Ukraine when he finished in fourth place in the RPS Kiev Grand Final Main Event for $73,000.
*Images courtesy of partypoker.
