Vladimir Geshkenbein Wins Pokerstars European Poker Tour Snowfest

Payday of Euro 390 000 for Geshkenbein at the Snowfest
 
A 22-year-old Russian internet poker player who has been building a reputation for himself on the PKR.com site, Vladimir Geshkenbein, beat all comers to take the main prize of Euro 390 000 in this week's Pokerstars European Poker Tour Snowfest competition, showing that he is equally at home playing online or in live tourneys.
 
Playing under the pseudonym ‘beyne' on the PKR cash tables, Geshkenbein has been a steady winner through an aggressive playing style, and snapped up a $267 000 win in the APPT High Rollers event earlier this year, following it with a $120 000 cash in the PKR Heads Up Grand Slam.
 
He based himself in Malta in 2009, and is fast becoming a respected regular at live tournaments around Europe.
 
This year's Snowfest took place at the Alpine Palace Card Casino in Salzburg, Austria, where 482 players, many of them top international aces, ponied up the Euro 3,500 + Euro 250 buy-in and generated a prize pool of Euro 1,636,390.
 
Seen at the tables – often playing against each other – during the tournament were no less than 14 former EPT champs, including Kevin MacPhee, Liv Boeree, Kevin Stani and Bertrand "ElkY" Grosspellier.
 
They were joined by other big names like Luca Pagano, Florian Langmann, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Max Lykov, Mike Sowers, Alex Kravchenko, Casey Kastle, Sandra Naujoks, Dario Minieri, Lex Veldhuis and the De Meulder twins.
 
It all came down to Geshkenbein facibng a final table around which were seated Kevin Vandersmissen, Koen De Visscher, Giacomo Maisto, Cristian Dragomir, Philip Meulyzer, Denis Murphy and Morten Mortensen….and that all distilled to an exciting but short – only 15 minutes – heads up between Geshkenbein and Kevin Vandersmissen – two evenly matched players who delivered a brief but entertaining climax to the tournament.
 
Vandersmissen's second placing gave him a paycheck of Euro 260 000.