Seat 4: Aleksei Opalikhin, 28, St. Petersburg, Russia

Russian player Aleksei Opalikhin has made it to the first ever PokerStars Championship Main Event final table despite not even planning to compete in the tournament, initially. The 28-year-old from St. Petersburg used to play billiards on a competitive level, and he considers poker to be a similar discipline — mainly in regards to the psychological demands, such as concentration and patience. Opalikhin decided to travel, and chose The Bahamas as the first stop of his tour of Latin America. He intended to grind some of the smaller-buy-in events here at the Atlantis Resort, but ended up wining a seat to the Main Event in a $650 satellite.
Opalikhin's Main Event run: