World Poker Tour

Eugene Katchalov

Birthplace
Kiev, Ukraine

Hometown
Brooklyn, New York

Birthday
February 21

Total Winnings
$2,524,786

Eugene Katchalov came to the United States from Kiev in the Ukraine when he was ten years old, and his family settled in New York. Between Brooklyn and Manhattan, Eugene was able to take advantage of the benefits of a good education and stable life that America offered. Poker came into his life in his early twenties, and like so many in the poker community today, he began by playing with friends. Amidst the fun of an amateur home game, where he lost his first $6, he began putting more effort into understanding the fundamentals of poker.

Eugene’s urge to play poker grew, and he eventually put money into an online poker account. By slowly but surely improving his game, he began making enough to support himself on a daily basis. Even so, he continued his schooling at New York University and graduated with a degree in finance and international business. But it was live poker that continued to draw him back, and during a trip to Vegas with a friend in 2004, he placed fifth in a Bellagio Five Diamond preliminary event, garnering him more than $45,000. That is when his bankroll became comfortable enough to play more big buy-in tournaments.

Though Eugene is a stock trader much of the time, poker tournaments are where his passion lies. He has played in events around the world, and in 2007, he began to rack up wins. He won the $5,000 Bellagio Cup III for $118,785, and back at Bellagio in December of that same year, he won his first major buy-in event – the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. The victory and prize money of nearly $2.5 million catapulted him to a higher level of poker than he anticipated, and the poker world has much praise for the skills of this young pro.