Platinum Pass Profile: Vadim Gayduk
The first stop on Chris Moneymaker's Road to PSPC 2020 tour was at EPT Open Sochi and topping the 909-player field to take home the Platinum Pass and $19,709 was Belarussian Vadim Gayduk.
"Before the event, I just wanted to play and to earn money," Gayduk told the PokerStars Blog. "It’s not a good idea to make plans for what you’ll do if you win. I hadn’t thought about winning the Platinum Pass when I started playing. It was a great bonus."
Gayduk was first introduced to poker ten years ago after watching his cousin playing in games. He said he became interested in poker as a kind of intellectual sport rather than a game of chance.
And Moneymaker himself can take credit for some of Gayduk's entry into poker.
"I began to watch various educational videos from famous poker players, and read Dan Harrington’s book. I also watched a video with Chris Moneymaker, in which he talked about block bets and all sorts of interesting moves.
"Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to play at the same table as him. That would have been such an interesting experience. But Chris and I took pictures together. I did not expect that something like this would happen in my life!"