If ATHANASIOS POLYCHRONOPOULOS owned a gold bracelet for every letter in his name, he’d have more WSOP titles than Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Stu Ungar – combined.
He makes YEVGENIY TIMOSHENKO look like AN TRAN.
If his name was up on the Wheel of Fortune board, frustrated letter-queen Vanna White would end up in a straightjacket.
Badda-bing!
The player with the longest name in the 42-year history of all World Series of Poker champions just won his first gold bracelet-- delighting everyone with Greek lineage, and horrifying all those who are phonetically challenged.
Polychronopoulos steamrolled over 2,712 opposing players in the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event, officially classified as Event #46 on the 58-event schedule. He won a whopping $650,223 in prize money. He was also presented with the coveted WSOP gold bracelet, representing the ultimate achievement in the game of poker.
The winner’s family is originally from Greece. Duh. But Polychronopoulos is actually as American as apple pie. He was born in -- and still resides in -- New York State. The 27-year-old professional poker player has won more than $2 million in online poker tournaments. However, this is only the second year he has attended the WSOP, which is a good thing since WSOP data entry clerks get plenty of overtime whenever he enters an event.
It took Polychronopoulos four days to achieve his victory, about as long as it takes him to write out a personal check. The top 270 finishers collected prize money. Among those who cashed was the runner up, Simon Charette, from Canada. Others in the money included Alex Bolotin, who won the 2009 “Ante Up For Africa” charity event and donated half his winnings to the cause. Two-time gold bracelet winner Howard “Tahoe” Andrew also cashed. He currently holds the record for the most WSOP years played in a row, which is now 38 straight years and counting.
Alas, when Tahoe first started attending the WSOP all the gold bracelet winners were pretty much cut from the same cloth -- with familiar names like Moss, Pearson, Brunson, Roberts and Preston.
Now, it's the Eugene Katchalovs, Viacheslav Zhukovs, Bertrand Grospelliers, Mikhail Lakhitovs, Oleksii Kovalchuks and Anthanasios Polychronopoulos' who are winning the cash and gold.
A few words of advice to 2011 WSOP executives: Hire more data entry clerks! Quick!
To read the official report for Event #48, please return soon to WSOP.COM