Catching Up With Team PokerStars Pro Igor Kurganov
In his own words, Igor Kurganov has enjoyed the “most densely good 3-4 months of poker” in the last five years, at least in terms of winning tournaments.
After his WSOP bracelet victory in the $10,000 Tag Team Championship alongside girlfriend Liv Boeree, finished second in an Aria $25k and took down the PSC Barcelona Super High Roller for more than €1m.
Speaking to us on break in the PokerStars Festival Sochi Main Event he explained that the bracelet was a “fairy tale with even more fairy dust on top”
“I didn’t think I cared much about a bracelet before. This one was really special though. It was really nice to win it with Liv.
“After I won I tried to capitalise on everyone being happy for Liv and I by jumping in Day 1 of the One Drop. I got a beer, which I wasn’t really drinking, but I made out like I was splashing about.”
Whatever his plan was, it worked. Kurganov survived Day 1 of the One Drop on one bullet and ended up cashing.
This is Kurganov’s second trip to Russia in five months, coming for the PokerStars Championship held here earlier this year. He reaffirms the commonly held belief that Russians are crazy about poker.
“From what I see, even before PokerStars came to Russia, Russians are one of the top three countries at most of the European events. This festival is no exception; we already had over 1,300 entries in the Megastack, and there looks to be 600-700 in the Main Event.
“Russians definitely love poker, and the players here range from the most recreational pure poker-loving players, to the absolute top poker players that exist in the world.”
Kurganov says that becoming a PokerStars Team Pro in February has enabled him to see a behind the scenes view on many parts of the PokerStars process.
“When I started playing poker I wanted to be a PokerStars Pro. I decided that I was going to play great and get good results and then become a Team Pro. But then Black Friday happened and it didn’t look like Team Pros were going to be added or didn’t see like that was going to be a possibility.
“I did have some disagreements with how Stars was running things at the time, especially in 2015, but in 2016 just by being around some of the meetings Liv was in I got to know some people, some changes that had been made within the company.
“I got to see that there is a lot of genuine care for poker. Just some of the conversations I’m allowed to have these days are great.“
With 2018 quickly approaching, Kurganov already has plans for the New Year.
“Over the last few months I’ve been spending a lot of time on non-poker endeavours, but less at the expense of poker but more at the expense of sleep! I’ll definitely be playing a bunch in 2018, and I’m looking forward to it.
“People are coming up with new events and they’re still exciting. There are also more big buy-in events this year than there were in previous years. I know Stars are going to be putting in way more effort and money into the poker economy, starting with the PCA.
“They have a crazy amount of qualifiers; a pretty awesome amount especially considering it’s going to be a 10k. I think more effort is going to be put into the poker economy by these companies, which is going to be better for the players.”